Beyond the Office?

News from the PVC

What’s in an office?  Furniture, a favourite mug, pictures of ones’ family, a pile of unanswered correspondence, a stack of marking and a shelf or two of books?  Some of us are lucky enough at BU to have our own office, others have to share, while others prefer to work at home on a corner of the dining room table or in a room the more pretentious of us call a study.  Besides my office I have a work room at home too.  It’s in the roof and you can hear the rain on the skylight, a sound I find delightful and elemental – nature’s music.  We justify these spaces by the need to ‘think’ and that creative thoughts need peace and quiet or that we need our academic possessions around us.  Maybe this is all true, but I very rarely refer to the books on my shelves these days, since it quicker now to look online and most of my academic library is stored on my hard drive.  Yes I value the calm, the routine of going to my office, the isolation from distraction it provides but it is exactly that, isolating.

I have worked in shared offices, in fact I wrote my PhD and a book more recently in one and have shared offices at times throughout my academic career.  The power of concentration overcomes most distractions, although I myself am a distraction to others, muttering to myself as I write, re-casting sentences by reading them out loud, getting up to pace and then sit down to write some more.  But to be office-less is perhaps a step further?  I supervise students from the US and I am always surprised when a deadline approaches and they reply ‘off to the Starbucks to work’.  And work they do deliver, with music in their ears, coffee to hand, in the middle of the bustle of daily life; I am not sure I could do this?

But in truth what is actually stopping me from trying?  You see people commuting on the train, working hard, making me feel guilty as I idly stare out of the window.  How can they work in such conditions?  I often rationalise it unfairly by saying ‘well they are not doing anything creative or that requires deep thought’, but this is just nonsense.  In truth you can work anywhere given a focus.  I just prefer to run to the isolation of my office and as a result I am less productive and perhaps more isolated.

The recurrent theme here is isolation;  your office isolates you from the world around, a defence mechanism to keep out the hassle and the distractions, but there is a down side.  Over the last year or so in my current role I have tried to find ways of keeping in daily contact with academics throughout BU to be a conduit for their concerns and to listen to their needs.  In truth, I am always interested in and keen to talk about research – my own if anyone will listen, but chiefly other peoples if they are prepared to tell.  So this Wednesday I am about to abandon my office for a month – an office sabbatical if you like – as an experiment into being office-less and to try to enhance my own level of engagement.  Wherever possible my meetings have been switched out of the Office of the Vice Chancellor and between times I will hang out and try to work in the coffee shops and open access spaces across both campuses.  The purpose, well to see what it is like to be office-less for a start, to fight the isolation provided by ones office and ultimately to see if it enhances my accessibility to the people I represent – the academics that make our University strong.  So when you see me about, huddled in the corner of the coffee shop, feel free to stop and talk!

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9 Responses to “Beyond the Office?”

  1. fiona cownie

    excellent initiative. is it the office or is it the closed door which is the real c constraint. closed doors are more than a physical barrier. we should all be out of office, opening our doors and talking to others as much as we can. sitting for a coffee in weymouth house reception can solve a multitude of problems, or generate a wide range of ideas. it works (but costs a lot in contributions to costa!)

    good luck with your initiative. it’s great

  3. RICHARD SCULLION

    I think actor network theory might partly explain your feelings and expereinces – if so you are replacing one set of structural conditions with another – but at least you will have good access to a supply of cakes etc…..

  4. RICHARD SCULLION

    If there were friendlier spaces – maybe soon – it would help – some not dominated by commercial brands too …closed doors are very useful too – so lets not get to essentialist about this …

  5. Mark Ridolfo

    This is a great initiative, Matthew, which I know will be appreciated by staff, as there was positive feedback to this type of thing previously. I’ve experienced both styles of working environment at BU. When I first started, I was in a big, open-plan office on the 4th floor of Poole House. As a very green newbie, it was perfect. Now I have my own office again (what is it about status and space? Territoriality, as Edward Hall put it?), I miss the human element, so I get out and about too, liberated further my the iPad now permanently attached, Cronenberg-style, to my wrist! Anyway, good luck with it and look forward to you buying me a coffee 🙂

  6. Hong Bui

    Thanks Matthew for sharing this post. I stick to my office for more that 40 hours/week. This may explain why I become dull and boring, though most of the time I can concentrate on my work. I will experiment an office-less period hopefully to boost up my energy and change my current negative state

  7. Huiping Xian

    Great idea! But I’ve missed it, because a group of us were presenting papers in the British Academy of Management Conference. But please do this more often.

  8. Luisa Cescutti-Butler

    I think its a great idea although I work in a shared office and its ok for sharing of ideas etc but its not a great environment for PhD work, which is why I prefer to do this activity at home in my study with my kitties for company. The only downside to meetings in coffee shops is that at the Lansdowne when the students are around there isn’t much free space at all. At the moment it is quiet, but from next week it will be buzzing with students and we will be busy teaching. I hope to see you around this part of the world Matthew.

  9. Ann Bevan

    I love to come out of my office and share ideas with co workers, I find it stimulating and helps me concentrate better when I return to my desk. I also enjoy the buzz and energy I get from the students when going for that much needed cup of coffee – it keeps me grounded and reminds me why I am working so hard!!