The Death of The Co-Worker

Yesterday I suggested that all co-workers wanted to kill each other.

I’d like to take a moment to clarify my position, and provide some sort of context.

Of course, I don’t consider every employee of a company with colleagues a homicidal psychopath. What I do think however, is that it’s very odd that as a society we rarely question the requirement that we set upon ourselves to spend all day alongside people that are working for the same company as us. It always has been, it is, and for many, it always will be…no?

I’ve not done a survey, I’ve not even spent all that much of my working life in an office environment, so I might be way off the mark here, or it might just afford me a different perspective. However there’s something that I’ve noticed. It’s about this whole “working from home” trend. Working from home is seen as a “perk” of a job, as something that is aspired to, and can often swing the deal when negotating a new contract.

This seems rather odd to me.

In one fell swoop, we’ve told and convinced ourselves that spending all day at home, with only the cat, your laptop and property auctioneers for company is preferable to spending the day in the office. That it’s preferable to spending the day with allegedly like-minded people who are all working towards the same goal. That emailing and calling (or not) those that you’re working with is an easier way of achieving productivity than acutally sitting next to them in an office. This is something that we actively pursue.

Why? Maybe it’s the middle of a heatwave, and working in your underwear is frowned upon in public, or maybe you’re waiting for a delivery. In general though, doesn’t it seem like a complete contradiction?

I sit here typing this, unforuntately without even a hint of irony, from a coffee shop, having chosen it over the option of a desk in an office. I could however have taken root at one of London’s numerous co-working spaces: Campus, TechHub, Central Working, Huckletree, Rainmaking Loft, Uber Office… you get the idea. This month, “co-working” space has already hit peak interest since we started searching for it back in April 2012, and it’s showing no signs of slowing.

Now, I said at the beginning of this piece that co-workers don’t want to kill each other. I stand by that, of course, but it would seem that they could certainly do without each other. We’re choosing to work from home, in solitary confinement, instead of commute to an office. Yet the rise of the co-working space demonstrates that we’re more than happy to commute to the same general area, as long as we’re explicitly not working with those that we’re sat with.

So I think there’s a distinction, and a conclusion to be made here. That there is a difference between a co-worker, and co-working, and that we will choose solitary confinement over colleagues, and relative strangers over solitary confinement.

Unless you’re a child, unemployed, or retired, I’m going to assume you fall into one of these three camps. Does any of this resonate with you? Or am I entirely off the mark.

Answers on a stamped addressed envelope