Planning the ideal working environment for my Micro-ISV
Here’s what I want. Future employers, take note!
- Air conditioning.
- A couch to lie on when I’m stuck on a problem. This happens a lot, and relaxing is the best way to work through it.
- People to talk to. I’ve done the work-from-home thing. It’s OK, but it gets lonely fast.
- Lots of desk space. Three square metres is the absolute minimum. 6-9 would be ideal.
- An absolutely silent environment. No computer hum. No people talking. No cars revving or police sirens.
- My lovely LSK F6 MKII speakers and permission to run them as loud as I want. Headphones are tolerable if I must.
- Several computers, at least one of them a laptop. Probably one Linux and one Windows. An OSX machine would be ideal, too.
- Multiple large monitors. 24″ is a good starting point.
- Natural light. But I should be able to control the amount of natural and artificial light.
- Plentiful food and snacks within the workplace. If I’m in the middle of something and hungry, I don’t want to have to go outside and find something.
- Good food nearby, both cheap takeaway and nicer places for entertaining.
- Outside the office should be quiet and pleasant. No traffic or pollution.
- I should have a nice big window with a view.
- To get there, a 10-15 minute walk is ideal. Less means that I don’t have proper separation between home and work. More is annoying.
- I shouldn’t need to mention high-speed, reliable, unrestricted Internet access.
- A source of good coffee without having to go outside.
- I’d consider a Wii or XBox or something, but I’d be likely to abuse it. A good bookshelf would be nice, though.
- Ooh, and a pony.
Most of these desires are merely financial. I can buy a couch, espresso machine, have a well-stocked fridge, big monitors and so on. One advantage of working from home is that a lot of these desires are taken care of already - I have the espresso machine, couch, food and so on.
Some of the desires conflict with each other and will be a compromise. For example, it’s unlikely I can have a nice quiet area with lots of good food. Good food tends to attract people, and people are noisy. Google famously solves this by providing meals.
I use a 24″ Dell monitor at home and it’s great. I really only need one of these, plus a 19″ on the side for the secondary computers. Of course, if someone was to offer me a 30″, I wouldn’t be complaining…
There are a few options I’ve considered:
- Work from home. The big problem here is distraction and loneliness. It’s nice to separate work and relaxation instead of having them all in the one place. There’s usually no-one else around, so you have to make an extra effort to socialize. It does have the major benefits of being cheap (don’t have to pay bills twice or buy two lots of stuff), convenient (roll out of bed and flick on the computer) and relatively nice.
- Executive suite. This seems like a good compromise - a proper office, people around, hopefully a door that closes. It is expensive, though, and unlikely to be as well equipped as a home office. You could always put the money from an executive suite into your residential rent and get a really nice place to live.
- Share office. Great for socializing; not so great for getting work done. Less expensive than the executive suite.
- Work in cafes and restaurants. Probably the cheapest out-of-home option, so long as you can find a venue that’s happy to have you there for eight hours per day. You can’t have things like big monitors, though - you’re stuck with a single laptop.
I suspect that a combination of the above might work well. Right now I’m attending an office four days/week for my day job and working at home for another day or two. I get some of my socializing done at the day job and get a lot of work done when I work from home.