Over the course of my career, I've had a range of employment experiences: part time, temp, freelance, and permanent staff, with different pros and cons. As I see what is being called in various media outlets a "recession" lengthen into more than a speculative stock market game, I know that change is happening, and fast. In my book, it's about time. More time is wasted on a job site than any other environment. Think about a typical 9-5 day in an office.
There's checking emails, talking with co-workers, bullshitting with friends, water cooler talk, calls to and from home, chores and errands done online or during lunch break, shopping online or on break, trips to the kitchen and back to prepare food or get coffee, which necessitates more small talk with co-workers, then lunch, maybe a computer game or two, web surfing, day dreaming about vacations, arguing with HR about vacation time, checking social media sites, meetings that may or may not draw productive conclusions, the obligatory awkward office birthday party with cake, other mandatory "social" activities, which force us into more interactions, hobnobbing with bosses, client meetings, and in my case, towards the way end of the day, I may actually have time to make some art or design, or at the very least, generate a layout.
The bulk of my day is devoted almost solely to non-creative tasks, which is exactly what I was hired NOT to do. By the time I'm hired on staff, I've met at least two times (typically it's 3-4 meetings) with creative management, who have carefully screened my portfolio online, work which has taken years to generate, that I then bring in person for an interview presentation, in addition to the typical interviews other workers have with administrative staff like Human Resources, who are unqualified to accurately assess art and design talent. Let's not forget the myriad of distractions we must endure: office banter, rumors, gossip, bitching, griping, backbiting, politicizing, ass-kissing, backstabbing, sabotage, plotting and scheming, the dating games, music from the cube over, conversations overheard that are too intimate for such an impersonal setting, food smells (and body smells) that are not your own, it goes on and on. And it's inhuman.
Sharing ones' personal space with a myriad of total strangers selected by people other than yourself seems to guarantee social madness. We are humans, and as a species, we tend to separate into groups that are like-minded, or align ourselves with genetically linked people like family, someone who shares something with us other than a paycheck by a faceless company. It's simply not enough of a bond for such a complex animal like
Homosapien. No wonder there's a dog-eat-dog mentality! It's not geared towards human living. Put a random bunch of people in a series of sterile boxes with artificial daylight, and then observe them freaking out on one another. A reader would think it's the plot of a sci-fi story, or the basis of a psychological experiment.
So, what's the alternative? It's called "Living", and it's most conducive to humans! Kidding aside, any environment can be used for labor in the 21st Century, as the bulk of our work moves into the digital sphere. Artists and designers have been on this forefront for decades and we relish it, as long as we can solicit enough work to pay the bills. We interact with most professionals in our work flow via email and phone anyway. Of course, nothing replaces "face time" and the information that brings, but really, a meeting space should be just that, and nothing more. Who needs an institutional feel for communication? Many artists use the local café for meetings, cyber-meetings with Skype are becoming standard as we go global economically, making the status quo way of doing business extinct anyhow. And for those big clients who require a more traditional setting, many studio buildings shared by small businesses and workers have a space set aside with the obligatory meeting table, just for such purposes. You can even sport a suit-and-tie corporate look to recreate businesses past, like an episode of
Mad Men, which completes the retro feel.
I love conducting business, so I see this move as a huge leap forward, one that's advantageous to many, many people. It's certainly more beneficial for women, because working from the home is aligned with the way we actually live and behave. We "work" 9-5 at an office, on company time, following their rules, at their convenience, then go home to start our 2nd unpaid job: making life run smoothly for everyone else. The flexibility of a work/home situation allows us to be truly productive, on our terms, by removing the stress of being dropped into a foreign environment that is (most often than not) a glass-ceiling, top-heavy with men in management who profit from the status quo.
In publishing, which is the core of my business, flex-time is a reality. Editors and designers are issued company-standard laptops that connect them via servers to other workers, maintained by what are typically IT workers in India, who are wayyyy off-site. It greatly reduces the amount of overhead paid out by a company, by minimizing or eliminating enormous real estate costs, which are particularly astronomical in New York and other urban areas, plus other costs associated with a large group of people gathered in any area: coffee, water, food, paper, office equipment and supplies, maintenance, bathroom and health services, etc. Employers also limit themselves to the available pool of talent, from being tied geographically to a space. As we move forward, let's embrace and encourage "The New Frontier".
What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
Sharing ones' personal space with a myriad of total strangers selected by people other than yourself seems to guarantee social madness. We are humans, and as a species, we tend to separate into groups that are like-minded, or align ourselves with genetically linked people like family, someone who shares something with us other than a paycheck by a faceless company. It's simply not enough of a bond for such a complex animal like Homosapien. No wonder there's a dog-eat-dog mentality! It's not geared towards human living. Put a random bunch of people in a series of sterile boxes with artificial daylight, and then observe them freaking out on one another. A reader would think it's the plot of a sci-fi story, or the basis of a psychological experiment.
I love conducting business, so I see this move as a huge leap forward, one that's advantageous to many, many people. It's certainly more beneficial for women, because working from the home is aligned with the way we actually live and behave. We "work" 9-5 at an office, on company time, following their rules, at their convenience, then go home to start our 2nd unpaid job: making life run smoothly for everyone else. The flexibility of a work/home situation allows us to be truly productive, on our terms, by removing the stress of being dropped into a foreign environment that is (most often than not) a glass-ceiling, top-heavy with men in management who profit from the status quo. 
