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Would you use a "pay by minute booth"?

Started by Fambo Number Mive, April 08, 2021, 04:35:24 PM

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Fambo Number Mive

Another BBC story which is negative about working from home mentions "pay-by-the-minute booths" as an alternative for people who feel like Tim McDonald from Singapore.

QuoteI don't really like working from home.

Sure, there are advantages*, but I find it isolating. I'm sick of sitting in my apartment. I prefer to interact with colleagues face-to-face.

I find the endless Zoom meetings draining. I'm tired of the lunch options nearby.

Also, construction noise is inescapable in Singapore, and I'm dreading the day when builders start tearing down the building across the street, or the neighbours start to renovate their kitchen.

In preparation for this, I tried out a new type of workspace. It's a pay-by-the-minute desk in a booth at my nearest shopping centre.

*reducing your risk of getting COVID and saving on transportation costs would be two, which I'd say would far outweigh being tired of "the lunch options nearby" or listening to building work. You get building work near a lot of offices as well, especially in city centres, as well as traffic noise.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56492376

Personally I much prefer working from home, even though there are no "lunch options nearby". However, for those who feel like Tim, would you consider using a "pay by minute booth"?

Imagine trying to use one of these booths in your local shopping centre with people walking past talking loudly, the occasional drunk pissing against the booth and people colliding with the booth while trying to take a selfie.

The place I can see them being used is business parks and areas like Canary Wharf. You go to Canary Wharf for a meeting and rather than having to get the Tube back to your office in South Kensington you can use a pay per minute booth to work for a few hours until it's time to get the Tube home to your flat in Wapping.

Sebastian Cobb

No.

The solution to the business park one is for businesses to still keep some hot desks for people to use after meetings.

Another use-case might be for space-poor people (families/couples with no dedicated working space) to make 'important' calls.

It won't represent value for money though.

I think there might be some value in renting desks or collaborative spaces for hours/days though.

dissolute ocelot

It makes the typical office cubicle look capacious and delightful. How is it supposed to help if you miss interaction with your colleagues? Do you get chat to the blokes in the shoe shop? At least if you go to a proper shared working office, you wouldn't feel like your job was to lay eggs every day for a year and then get your head chopped off. To say nothing of COVID risk.

I absolutely understand why working from home isn't for everyone, whether you're a sullen middle aged man who hates his family or a 20 something trying to share a kitchen table with 3 flatmates, or just someone who lives near their office and has a nice view from their desk and a bean to mug coffee machine free and at hand. But this is like all the worst aspects of working from home combined with going to work.

I used to know someone who was kind of agoraphobic and hid in cupboards when she was stressed. I guess it might work for her.

BlodwynPig


Zetetic

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on April 08, 2021, 04:35:24 PM
You go to Canary Wharf for a meeting and rather than having to get the Tube back to your office in South Kensington you can use a pay per minute booth to work for a few hours until it's time to get the Tube home to your flat in Wapping.
Once you're at the point that you're going to meetings, you don't need it to be a booth.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 08, 2021, 04:41:04 PM
The solution to the business park one is for businesses to still keep some hot desks for people to use after meetings.
And possibly for more businesses to have accounts with a larger set of co-working spaces (ideally with a more diverse set of environments than either 'open plan' or 'booth').

Sebastian Cobb

I hadn't actually clicked through to the BBC link when I replied the first time.





Wanking booth, more like!!!

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Zetetic on April 08, 2021, 08:57:49 PM
And possibly for more businesses to have accounts with a larger set of co-working spaces (ideally with a more diverse set of environments than either 'open plan' or 'booth').

If only they hadn't closed all the Little Chefs.

Apparently in Berlin they charged for working spaces in cafes after all the people in start-ups there were outstaying their welcome.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

If anything deserves a crying laughing emoji it's this idea. The whole thing should be submerged under them like Aberfan.

imitationleather

"I was bored of my living room and so decided to pay to sit in a train toilet for an entire day."

BlodwynPig

Quote from: imitationleather on April 08, 2021, 10:29:22 PM
"I was bored of my living room and so decided to pay to sit in a train toilet for an entire day."

Precis

flotemysost

The colour scheme and proportions strongly resemble an EasyJet hotel room I stayed in once. Might work out cheaper to just book one of those actually.



Also, is there a toilet in there? Doesn't seem to be from the description. If you're a considerable journey away from your home and the location of the booth might not necessarily have public bogs nearby then that could be a bit dicey, surely? At least one of the merits of working from home is that you can go absolutely renegade with your shitting habits compared with being in the office. Eat a fucking phall at midnight the day before a meeting with the CEO if you want to.

Yeah, I'm thoroughly sick of working from home, but this wouldn't do anything to alleviate the stuff I miss about going into the office.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

The Easyjet prison-hotels go out of their way to be nasty. They could make an equal amount of money by making straightforwardly pleasant design choices and improve the experience for their guests, like a lot of budget hotels manage, but it seems to be the first chain that are actively trying to punish their guests and knock through the basement into some new unexplored underworld of windowless flourescent misery, rather than just achieving it through sheer fecklessness (Britannia).


Captain Z

"Version 2.0 of the pods will be slightly pricier at £5.99 per hour, but offer improved connectivity"


Sebastian Cobb

I suppose if fewer people travel and more people work from home inner-city hotels might start changing some of their rooms to single-person offices. Or offering 9-5 rates on unbooked rooms.

PlanktonSideburns

Looking forward to swiping past these things on zoopla trying to get to proper rented houses in my budget range next lockdown

flotemysost

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on April 08, 2021, 11:17:57 PM
The Easyjet prison-hotels go out of their way to be nasty. They could make an equal amount of money by making straightforwardly pleasant design choices and improve the experience for their guests, like a lot of budget hotels manage, but it seems to be the first chain that are actively trying to punish their guests and knock through the basement into some new unexplored underworld of windowless flourescent misery, rather than just achieving it through sheer fecklessness (Britannia).

Well, the only time I've stayed in one was for a mate's 30th so it didn't seem too bad as we were out most of the time, only returning occasionally to sleep or vomit. But yeah, for the price you can probably just get a private room in a not-dreadful hostel which would most likely have a bit more space and almost certainly be less aesthetically harrowing.

Quote from: PlanktonSideburns on April 08, 2021, 11:49:55 PM
Looking forward to swiping past these things on zoopla trying to get to proper rented houses in my budget range next lockdown

£900pcm, must be seen - this exclusive detached studio boasts sleek, modern design and ample leg room, perfect for any busy professional. Shared bathroom facilities available during shopping mall opening hours.

PlanktonSideburns


buttgammon

This is just a bizarre combination of the ideology of eternal work, those attempts businesses make to extort money out of people for pointless and extremely transient services, and the fake pretending to give a fuck culture that gives the illusion of comparing about the welfare of workers.

I'm currently reading a book - The Disconnect by Roisin Kiberd - where the writer goes to a "nap hotel" in the techy part of East London. The idea behind the place is that you pay by the half hour to try to sleep in a dimly lit room; it's a bit like those capsule hotels in Japan but the main idea appears to be that it's for people who are so busy at work that they don't have time to go home and sleep properly, so they will spend an hour or two resting in this place instead. It's weird and sinister.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: PlanktonSideburns on April 08, 2021, 11:49:55 PM
Looking forward to swiping past these things on zoopla trying to get to proper rented houses in my budget range next lockdown

It won't be long before this is a reality. Pod-Max, work and sleep in Darlington Train station from only 52 quid a day. Within a decade after another economic collapse, vandalised and degraded Pod-Max's will be used by the millions of homeless as temporary shelter from the ice storms.

thenoise

Quote from: BlodwynPig on April 08, 2021, 08:51:43 PM
Pay to work is the future...

Fuck this shit. I've lost jobs cos I couldn't afford to go to half a dozen interviews and 'recruitment days', now the bare minimum will be to hire your own desk for a month before you see your first paycheck. Jobs will be rebranded as investment opportunities.

katzenjammer


Pinball

It's creepy-assed shit, and I suspect these booths will be removed once a few kids take a dump in them.

Drygate

Wouldn't people just use a co working space instead?


Pinball

There's plenty of unused office space now that could readily be rented out. Personally though I'd rather sit on the grass in a park to work, or public library, if not home. Obviously the only options that get publicised are the monetised ones. Free is better IMO, whether as a bird, financially, or both :-) Offices, booths, capsules etc all suck.

Icehaven

How can you be "tired of the lunch options nearby" in your own home? Surely you can keep and make anything you want in your kitchen rather than be limited to the places near your office, and if you seriously never even consider making your own lunch then you can order something in from loads of places (well if you're in a large city, which he is.)

Sebastian Cobb

Out of boredom of making my own stuff I discovered a couple of interesting/different food places round my own gaff (after living here a couple of years). They're also cheaper/tastier than the places that are near offices and actually get busy at lunchtimes, unsurprisingly.