Uber, the company that lets people become potentially uninsured taxi drivers to the consternation of real taxi drivers, apparently is no longer content to keep its inside office plan shut off from the outside world. Uber is gearing up to build a 423,000-square-foot, see-through office space!
As a San Francisco Business Times article points out: "And for those wondering what workers at Uber (but not the drivers) do all day, you're in luck: the glass structure is designed to give people a glimpse inside."
So not only will these Uber employees be distracted by their co-workers, they could also be distracted by various, street-level passerby gawking at them as they listen to a PowerPoint presentation in a second-floor conference room.
Why does Uber seek to create this fishbowl effect? As Uber's head of global workplace says: "It reflects us internally from the point of view we'd talk to anybody about what’s going on. It's transparent from the outside where people can look in and see what we’re work on.*** It won’t just be desks along the windows where you see our backpacks."
Hmm. I've read the first sentence of the above quote three times, and it still doesn't make any sense. Sort of like stripping employees of every shred of privacy at work, but maybe that's just me.
Will the see-through office building become a nationwide business trend? If so, will employees -- suddenly distracted by a street-level taxi that's illegally double parked -- be able to get any real work done? Will we feel obligated to wave to the gregarious hot dog street vendor every time we sit down at our desks? Will the future office bathroom be see-through, too?
Who knows. As you gripe about your open office environment, however, just remember that it could always be worse.
*** Because there's nothing -- NOTHING! -- more exciting than watching someone assemble a PowerPoint presenta...zzzzz....
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