When future generations look back at the era of traditional workplace culture, they may look at it in the same way we now view factories at the onset of the Industrial Revolution: changed or obsolete.
Long, inflexible hours spent hunched over stationary desks, possibly in windowless cubicles. Commuting twice a day in code-mandated business attire. A single communal coffeepot. The accursed fluorescent lighting.
At the dawn of the remote work era, “co-working spaces,” such as those operated by WeWork, promised a different kind of office experience. But the fatal flaw of these shared-office models—one only exacerbated by the pandemic—was that, if given the opportunity to work anywhere, at any time, most would not choose another office space.