If you’ve ever worked in an office, where you sit is BIG. In most offices, either you have an office or you do not. If you do not have an office, you have a CUBE. I can honestly say I have never met a person who enjoys working in a cube. It’s noisy, there is no privacy and rarely does it come with any kind of view of the outside.
In my experience, most cube dwellers yearn for an office. A number of years ago, before I left to start Java Mama, I sat in a cube working for a large corporation. I switched jobs within the company which meant a move to another building where mercifully there were no cubes. While, I appreciated the quiet, privacy and space, it was an inside hall office with as much of a view of the outside as my cube. If I maneuvered my chair the right way, I could glimpse a shot of sunlight from the office across the hall from me. But only when they had their door open, which they hardly ever did.
After a couple of months, I took a leave of absence and left to open Java Mama. One day, I went back to my old job to see some of my co-workers and grab some stuff I had left behind. My stuff was stored in the office that I had been moved to had I come back to work. To my surprise, it was a window office, the one across from my old office, in fact. The big window was beautiful, the sunlight streaming in was beautiful, it was all beautiful but would never be mine since I was now a business owner and would be not coming back.
When I returned to the cafe and to my desk in a back room, I reflected on my trip and my window office. After running my own business, corporate life seemed so easy. You woke up in the morning, drove to work, did your thing and drove home. Sometimes, you had work to do at home but it was manageable. There was a steady paycheck, benefits and 401k’s. As a business owner, I worked all hours, the paycheck was not steady and 401k’s were non-existent. My office consisted of a 2nd hand desk in the corner of a storeroom.
The only window looked out to the coffee prep area. From there I could see and hear everything that was going on behind the register. Coffee beans grinding, milk steaming, ice dropping in the ice machine and of course, my favorite sound, children laughing and moms and dads talking. These were the sounds that I had worked so hard to bring together in one place.
As for my view, I could see everyone that came to the cash register to order their coffee and pay for play. On this particular day, while I was still pondering on window office I gave up, I looked up and saw one of my regulars who had confided to me recently that having a place to go like Java Mama had helped her through a serious case of post-partum depression.
I am now in a different role with Java Mama where I am working on licensing and helping others open their own cafes, which has its own challenges and rewards. The other day, I ran into that former customer, who told me how much she appreciated my cafe and reminded me of how much I had impacted her and so many other’s lives. Now, THAT is worth way more than a window office!
