I had a dream last night that I’ve had in variations many times before involving a fancy office in a big, high-rise building with sweeping views of the surrounding area and surprisingly little actual work getting done! 😉
In a way, it’s reminiscent of the couple of years that I worked 31 stories up in one of the buildings in Downtown Tampa, where I was lucky enough to almost always have a desk by the windows – as tiny as that desk may have been – to the point where I still have a print of this gorgeous view of the sunset that I used to have sitting at my desk in the new office that I almost never go to because I currently work from home…
In my sleeping dream office, I had this great, private working area with plenty of room to spread out and make myself at home, including this incredible attached balcony where I could step outside to enjoy the view when simply looking at it all through glass wasn’t good enough. Coupled with a private elevator reserved for a select few with offices like my own, it seemed like a pretty sweet place to do … whatever it was that I did for work in that place.
Of course, back here in reality, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that such a working environment is impractical for so many reasons. For starters, the dreams that I’ve had never seem to include episodes of me writing the exorbitant rent checks for such a lavish office space or the 30-60 minutes of driving each way that it would take to commute back and forth to said dream office!
Mind you, my commutes when I worked downtown could be upwards of an hour in moderate traffic, offset from bad traffic only because I worked later hours, whereas now my office is maybe 15-20 minutes away at best and I still hate the commute, often times feeling it a gigantic waste of time if I don’t at least stop for lunch on the way… 😛
It’s certainly fair to say that my standards for a dream office have changed over the years, no doubt influenced greatly by being lucky enough to work out of my own home and thus reducing my daily commute to dodging toys in the hallway from sitting in traffic on the highway!
Realistically, my ideal office space would simply be an improved version of the home office that I have today.
- Still at home because commutes and paying rent for office space suck, plus it offers much greater opportunity for flexibility and customization.
- A space that’s probably double the room where my office resides today – basically enough to also add in a couch and a nice table, and more trinket space for all of my toys. 😉
- A nice, watery garden view through big, glass floor to ceiling windows – ideally because attached to my dream house, the backyard would have lots of tropical plants and a waterfall feature by the pool, though granted this might conflict with…
- …isolation from household noise!!! Seriously probably my only real complaint about working from home, my dream office is still technically part of the house, yet also far enough away from the bedrooms and living areas so that the sounds created by three boys growing up don’t prevent me from getting any work done whatsoever!
- And maybe I can have a ridiculously oversized TV on the wall that I can swap out images of incredible views from other offices on…
Did I mention that in my dream, apparently my office also had a concierge who would deliver food and snacks and diapers, of all things?! Not sure why the kids are hanging around Dad’s office long enough to require a change of diapers, but hey, dreams are weird sometimes.