OFFICE SPACE

Well for about 6 months I've been stewing on this post, but for various reasons I have not said anything. Not that I think it's a real shocker or that very many of the 4 people who read my blog will even care, but tonight, I'm breaking my silence. I think there are two things that are normal in the church office life that I think are broken. I'm know they are normal in the business world too, but I don't like them in particular in my world and I don't think they don't foster our goals.

I DON'T LIKE INDIVIDUAL OFFICES OR WORKING FROM HOME.

I think we all need to get out of the office to think a little. I think it's great to meet in a cafe or whatever. I don't have a problem with a conference room or place where private conversations can be had. But I really don't like the boxed in or absent faced office spaces that a lot of churches, including my own can tend to foster.

Here's why:

• Offices keep people segregated, not integrated.
• Offices enhance the individual at the expense of the team.
• Working from home is about the product, not the community.
• Offices cause people to call and e-mail one another when they are 3 feet away.
• Working from home does not build relationships or cause others to share ideas.
• Offices encourage the private life at the expense of the group life.
• Offices reinforce comparison instead of creativity.
• Working from home is often motivated by comfort.
  

My optimal? Some variation of cubicle land. This post I think is pushing it, but I'd try this before offices. It allows people enough personal space to not be distracted by every passer by while allowing the community to still be active. I think working together and dreaming and laughing and doing life in the office doesn't happen because we spend so much time working from home or locked up in our offices that a lot of the casual/ life on life community that could happen is circumvented by the architecture.

Recently I was given the chance to redo and resize my office to a smaller/neater work space and to redo our student ministries conference room to make it fun and inspiring. This was due to some office staff moving around and the need to create another office space due to new hires and such. Personally, I still would have loved to have bulldozed the interior walls and turned it into cubicles with some specific rooms for people to share: a library, a cafe, a brainstorming room, and a few meeting rooms around the side would have been sweet.

But despite my complaining, I do like my new digs... even if they must have fullsize boxed in walls.