Rooms

We had a breakout room where we ate food, and took short breaks. This could also be used as an ad-hoc meeting room.

As more people joined the company, people expressed concern that the lack of space will mean the breakout room will be turned into an office. We were assured by the Head of Development that this would never happen.

Within two months, a team moved into the breakout room, meaning you just had to eat at your desk or fight for the small table near the kitchen.

When we moved office, we had a breakout room, in addition to an Innovation Room. Innovation is important and it will never be taken away from us:

• you could dedicate some time to learning.
• Why not take a book in to read?
• You could host training sessions for your team members…

Or it could be used as a temporary office when we ran out of room for desks! That team wasn’t happy when they were in a fairly claustrophobic space, whilst everyone else was in an open-plan office. It also has glass walls, so people could just stare at them and laugh at their misfortune.

A few months later, after that team’s project was complete; the room was reassigned back to an Innovation Room. However, in reality, it was everyone’s second favourite meeting room.

Several months later, our favourite meeting room was then assigned as a permanent office, which means the Innovation Room was promoted to “everyone’s favourite meeting room”. Shortly after that, we lost our breakout room.

The lesson here is that special rooms are never safe.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we get rid of the office and everyone just works at home. It wouldn’t be efficient, but when do they really care about efficiency?

Also, what are we going to do about holding interviews, or other private meetings?