What’s the weirdest workspace you’ve worked in?

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What really is ‘workspace’? It used to be completely clear. It was your desk in your office building, with your stapler, pen pot and photo of your kids/dog on, which you sat at 9-5 every day.  But, these days it could be the desk at home that doubles as a dining table, an airport lounge, the café in your gym or the crowded, warm tube carriage, surrounded by strangers where you reply to emails on your way to work?

So, how do you define workspace anymore? With the ability to effectively work where you want (as long as it has Wi-Fi of course…and we’ll come to that later) does anywhere become the office? Recently I was chatting with a few colleagues about this and the conversation skewed off to places that we’d worked in that might not necessarily be seen as ‘normal’ workspace.  Turns out we all seem to have worked in weird places.

Cramped cars, coffee and cold exhibition centres

My weird place to work out of was an exhibition centre in an out of season Italian holiday resort, with its doors wide open during one of the coldest winters on record. Just keeping my hands warm enough to type was difficult enough without having to move every five minutes to avoid getting impaled by a fork lift trucks

One of my colleagues revealed she regularly works from her car whilst waiting for her daughters to finish their dance class. Balancing a laptop on a steering wheel without sounding the horn is a tricky skill that she has managed to master! She’s also needed to hit an urgent deadline while attending a children’s party. This required an almost heroic balancing act of being a good mum, not getting distracted by the numerous excitable screaming children and finishing the work on time. Another colleague has become such a regular user of his local coffee shop they can greet him by name and simply ask him if he wants ‘the usual’ when he arrives.

Working in weird places

Worldwide weirdness

Of course weird and wonderful workspaces aren’t confined to the UK. Our friend at Allwork Space, Jo Meunier wrote about a few unusual workspace designs from around the world in an article from 2016. We particularly like the Finnish designed ‘GreenPod’ which not only looks super cool but is also able to offer 3-D holograms for meetings!

It’s all about the connection

Of course the one thing that enables us to work in these places is the internet connection. It’s become a workplace essential, in fact scrap that, it’s become a life essential.  We now all have come to expect a Wi-Fi connection wherever we may be.

At technologywithin we recognise the value to flexible workspaces of a strong, fast, reliable connection. We understand that users aren’t interested in how the connection to the workspace works, they just want to get connected quickly and simply to enable them to get on with their day. So wherever your flexible workspace maybe, be it exhibition centre, futuristic glass pod or even converted train carriage, we can help you get connected and enable the technologywithin it.

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