Corner Office Interview

If you pick up a print edition of the Sunday New York Times today you’ll see the Corner Office interview with David Gelles in the business section.

(Hat tip to Mary Conrad for the picture, I haven’t seen it in person yet.)

A quote that seems to be resonating with people,

This column is called Corner Office, and most people who choose to have offices are usually the bosses. And I’ve been to the offices of billionaire C.E.O.s that have their own private bathroom, beautiful art and couches. But these are all things that you can have in your house. What I love about distributed organizations is every single employee can have a corner office.

Sometimes my corner office has been the corner of an airport floor next to a power outlet! I’ve also heard from colleagues that feel like their office feels like an unsupervised day care center since the quarantine started. The point I want to make is there’s a world of possibility that opens up when you move from the finite space of a shared office, and all the politics of dividing up the scarce resource of desirable space, to the infinite game where people can define their own “office” as the place where they will be most productive, and do so however they like with no penalties or restraints.

If you had the best space in the legacy office, you probably liked it and may even have had motivated reasoning around ineffable things that happened in the office like “culture” that would be impossible without it, but the average experience of an entry-level worker was not as positive. Now there can be a much more even playing field. At Automattic we have a home office allowance people can use to buy equipment they need to make their home work area comfortable and productive, and it’s the same if you’re leading a team of hundreds or if it’s your first job.

If you’d like to hear the entire conversation they’ve posted the original audio and interview that was distilled into the print version.

4 thoughts on “Corner Office Interview

  1. Great topic!
    Unique opportunity to combine family or personal space with daily tasks(high value), save time, money and most important a happier collaborator as a result: increased productivity

    Gives an opportunity to people with disabilities or difficulties to be integrated into work as every other.

    Sussan Taborro,
    Perú.

  2. Hi Matt,

    When Automattic starts to accept applications for the Happiness Engineer position? I’m so much excited to join Automattic. 🙂

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