Between Commuting and Telecommuting Lies Coworking
In a recent commentary in Mother Jones, Kiera Butler examines coworking, the solution telecommuters seek when they find they are missing the social life of the office.
Last October, Rep. Frank Wolf wrote the White House with a radical proposal to promote “environmental stewardship, family values and energy independence.” In asking President Bush to designate a National Telework Week, the Virginia Republican evoked the promise of a nation without two-hour commutes, veal-pen cubicles, petty workplace politics, or disgusting communal coffeepots. “Wouldn’t it be great,” he wrote, “if we could replace the evening rush hour commute with time spent with the family, or coaching little league or other important quality of life matters?”
Yeah, that would be great. Trouble is, when your home is your office, the boundaries between work and personal time dissolve. Distractions (cable, fridge, couch) lurk everywhere. But the biggest problem is social: Without the companionship of office mates—even the Dwight Schrutes of the world—telecommuters and freelancers can feel unmotivated and lonely. Which may explain why the virtual office remains largely hype. The telecommuting lobby claims that 100 million Americans will work remotely by 2010. But in 2004, only 13.7 million did. Of those, only 2 million were working full-time from home.
As shocking as it may sound, we may actually need the office, despite its reputation as a soul-sucking pit of conformity and monotony. In a recent analysis of 40 years of research, Stephen Humphrey, a professor of management at Florida State University’s business school, found a strong correlation between the level of social interaction at work and job satisfaction and productivity. He also found that this correlation has strengthened over time—that now more than ever, the office has become a refuge of sorts. “It used to be that everyone could hang out around the watercooler—now we telecommute or spend two hours in our cars on the way to work,” he says. “We suddenly start to realize, we miss socializing—and we need it.”
So what is the lonesome office-less worker to do? In 2005, Brad Neuberg, a software programmer in San Francisco, hit upon a simple solution: He got a few friends together to share a rental space, as well as printers, fax machines, and wireless Internet, and—like a good start-up founder—branded his creation “coworking.” As the 31-year-old recalls, “I said, ‘Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? Is there a way that I can have community and independence?’ It’s a false assumption that you can’t have both.”
The commentary continues.
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