no cube. no assigned desk. no chair. not even a drawer. i'm just going to type a bit to vent and process. the following will probably be a rambling and confusing mess. i advise that you stop here.

anyhow, my future office experience is hoteling. u-m (aka scum) is decommissioning the building i work in...likely to build a medical facility there. but they are not scheduled to start demolishing the building for 4 months. and the hoteling space is currently being renovated to fit 100+ people in 1/3 of our current footprint. so we are all fully remote with no space to meet for 6-8 months.

since returning from the pandemic my work team had one assigned day in an office building. and the rest was optional. i live less than 10 minutes from the building, so i choose to go into the office 3-4 days per week. the routine helped me get into a flow. 3-4 hours of good work every morning.

after lunch i'd usually see people from other units that i typically would never interact with, including directors and our avp. just a few minutes of small talk or sharing some thoughts about a project. nice, light connection and often good context for one project or another.

additionally i support a variety of events for faculty and staff, so i'm often on campus, conducting brief interviews and documenting with candid photos and mobile phone videos for our slack workspace (30,000+ active weekly users).

i've got tripods and lights and cameras. i have retractable banners and free-standing displays. all used regularly. and now all in a storage locker instead of in a closet next to my former office. i expect that this will add an hour or two to any in-person event, which will likely mean we'll do fewer.