My office

Also before my computer died I had started writing a whole string of blogs that were "my ___" themed (like Scrubs episodes). So here's one of them:

I figured I’d start telling y’all about my new work life in installments. Today I’ll tell you about the building I work in. I work in a BIIIIIG old building. It’s the First National Building in downtown Detroit. The building itself has a website! It’s just off a little “park” which is mostly concrete but has ice skating in the winter time. The space United Way has looks out on to the park and I can see the Hard Rock Café (the epitome of class!).

Inside my building is…weird. If you keep your eyes level, you see an open and airy office building. Very modern and chic. Lots of new equipment and desks. New clean carpets. If you look up, you’ll see old plaster molding from what I assume to be the 1920s that is falling apart and exposed metal pipes and beams. In some parts of the office, the floor is bare concrete.

United Way of Southeastern Michigan is also a pioneer of something called free-range or hotelling in an office. Only about 30 staff out of 100 have their own desks. The rest of us pick somewhere different to sit every day. Most staff have laptops and so set up shop wherever they’d like. There’s about 10 desks with desktops where I usually set up camp as well. Interspersed throughout the 3 floors of our space are little glass cubicles called “fish bowls” that fit a desk, chair and book case. The glass cubicles have 2 walls that are opaque, one wall that is glass and a fourth glass wall that has a sliding glass door as well. The walls go up about 10 feet and then are open to the air again so you don’t get claustrophobic. If you have your own office (like 3 of the Vice Presidents do), that’s what your office looks like.

There’s a whole article on the office here:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100118/COL35/100118027/1005/NEWS03/Detroit-and-the-office-of-the-future

Apparently it saves lots of money for the United Way. I like not being tied down. I don’t like that I haven’t been assigned a filing drawer yet so I carry around a stack of paper 8 inches tall in my backpack.