In My Experience... | I miss couches. (1381)

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I miss couches.
[ Posted by Dan on September 09, 2003 | 6 Comments ]

Back at my last job, we had a large room that had numerous couches, over stuffed chairs, small tables a and big ass HDTV with a Playstation attached to it. Mostly, the room was used as a place to have lunch and relax (and unfortunately, to announce layoffs). I mostly used it as a place to go sit down with a manual, O'Reilly book or printed source code.

Where I am now, there's no real comfortable place with a table, chair, and no one there to bother me. I have an office with a door, but a task chair is good for sitting at a computer, not hunkering down with the 1400+ page DHTML book. There's always someone coming by with a question, or a problem or another odd task that needs to be dealt with a.s.a.p.

Try getting a used recliner for the office. I had one at a former job and it was a huge hit. Perfect for reading and very inviting.

-Posted by kevin D. white on September 9, 2003 03:27 PM

Hehehehe, I'd love to do that, but the mega-corp I work for may not like the idea. And my office is kinda small, and I share it with someone, and a chair wouldn't really work out.

A couch would be awesome.

-Posted by Dan on September 9, 2003 04:44 PM

Are you still in the same office?

Maybe what you need is a "satellite" office. A place where you can hide out and read. I use the usability lab (really just a small conference room). I only do testing on tuesdays, but sometimes I hide out down there on other days just so I can get stuff done without being bothered. It would be way better with a couch too.

You do have the advantage of being able to shut the door and put a Do Not Disturb sign on it.

-Posted by josh on September 9, 2003 10:56 PM

I moved to a different office, but it's much like the one you saw when you visited. The only things that are different is that one walls is windows, and one wall is one huge white board (/me drools).

There really isn't space for something like a sofa. :(

I'm just a dreamer I suppose.

-Posted by Dan on September 10, 2003 07:37 AM

How about a hammock? That doesn't take up any space unless you're using it.
Of course, the megacorp might frown on that, too.

-Posted by JC on September 10, 2003 08:04 AM

A hammock??!? Do you remember the The Simpsons episode where Homer is working for a Mega-Corp, tasked with motivating his staff to complete some big project...? He decided his team needed to loaf in order to be productive, so he sought some "business hammocks".

My office at work is in fact my basement. If I need a couch or bed, I can go upstairs.

-Posted by Jeff Sommer on September 10, 2003 10:26 AM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).