Hot-desking radicalised my views on the perfect office

Inevitable death knell for creativity.

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An unchanging setting that I couldn’t adapt to my unique needs was, undoubtedly, a stifling one.Like I said, I was in my 20s. Then reality got in the way and I ended up as a full-time employee at a company with a hot-desking policy.

At first, I saw it as a close cousin of remote work; I could sit wherever I wanted, with whomever I wanted, for whatever reason. I was convinced this freedom would finally deliver the transformative workplace experience that was promised in the post-pandemic era.

This is where I'd stress the importance of being more specific with your wishes. Hot-desking indeed radicalised my views on the perfect office - just not in the way I hoped.

As I discovered, the price of flexibility was a loss of belonging.

To many, not having a dedicated workspace is the epitome of a first-world problem.

Surely salary increments, career progression, job stability, supportive colleagues and bosses, meaningful work, hybrid work arrangements, and even having a job at all are more pressing priorities than mere furniture in this economy?

But for me, the reassurance of what I deem basic consistency - like fixed seating - must be a foundation for every other aspect of professional life to build on. It echoes the idea that, contrary to common assumption, constraints can boost creativity.

Without the physical boundaries of a permanent desk, I didn’t quite know where my space ended and another person’s began.

And space, it turns out, is bound up in identity.