Why I Couldn’t Work in a WeWork
It was a couple of weeks before the Christmas of 2018. My team and I were packing feverishly, in our dilapidated design studio. We were moving into a swanky co-working space in the heart of the CyberHub. The promise of Ikea chic furniture, free-flowing beer taps, and freshly brewed coffee was exciting.
‘A stark contrast to a narrow street and an exposed brick building’ that housed 50 extremely motivated, excited and talented artists. This was a paradigm shift for us.
For two years we had made the design studio our own. We had adorned the walls with murals, sketches, and even the occasional wall scribble. We even put a TT table in a dingy basement filled with critters and played like nothing mattered anymore. And the terrace, who can forget the terrace! Come Fridays there was music, drinks and a never-ending supply of ideas. Little did we know that all this was coming to an end soon.
The day had arrived and we stared at this monstrosity of glass panels reflecting the sky. It was a glasshouse; I thought to myself, we really can’t be playing with stones here. We all queued up in military discipline and as we entered we were greeted by the infectious smile of the friendly ‘community manager’. A couple of hours into the day, we had been armed with goodie bags and the access card.
We were now electronically connected to the We-Matrix.
The initial euphoria and countless Instagram videos later, we marched our way through a series of access-controlled glass doors. These physical manifestations of hurdles were a bit inhibiting, but it didn’t bother us. I wish I knew then that it was my dopamine-filled brain that ignored the obvious industrial design metaphor.
As soon as we sat in our seats, things started to become uneasy. This ergonomic was not for me. I had spent scorching summers in a ship’s engine room crossing the Suez canal, but this was something else. It was the lack of space, the lack of privacy, and the smell of the cologne from my colleague sitting next to me. I brushed aside the initial discomfort as growing pains.
‘It is just a matter of a few weeks’, I said to myself.
Those few weeks passed and it didn’t become any easier. The lack of space, the claustrophobia, the noise, the chatter, the constantly ringing telephone, and even a sneezing coworker started to bother me. I wasn’t creating, I wasn’t selling and I definitely wasn’t thinking.
Weeks soon became months and nothing had changed. What used to be silly arguments became serious conflicts. We were writing emails and messages across the table instead of talking to each other. The notifications popped every second, our inboxes flooded. We were just not collaborating.
I tried making things easier by taking my work home. Things did get a little better for some time. Soon, I didn’t know when my work ended and when my life outside of it started. The blurring lines between night and day took a toll on my health.
I had aged more in eight months than Obama did eight years in his office.
It wasn’t just me. My altered personality trickled down to my team. Some of them shut down completely, some became depressed and some turned aggressive. They all fell sick more often. The space where ideas flowed freely once had now become a toxic battlefield.
‘We were all caught in this matrix of insanity and somebody had to wake us up’.
By the time I had an epiphany, it was too late. People were leaving the place. The body count had increased. I knew my time had come, I had to leave this great place of creation for the sake of my own sanity. I just didn’t want to scale a vertical wall. I was happy going around it. I made the call and I left the place.
A month later, I came across the WeWork valuation fiasco and I sat pondering why. ‘You just can’t pack people like sardines and give them beers to keep them happy’, I thought. This is simply not a sustainable business model. People need room to grow. Literally. I felt like Chomsky at this moment.
As I write this from a nondescript place nestled among the flora and fauna of the village. I am happier, healthier and I feel refreshed. As I always did, I logged into the We-Matrix, only to find that nothing had changed. And they were still waiting for the Beer taps to come in!
