Working from home or hardly working?

Most people I know are back in the office and there has been a lot of debate about whether or not we should have to be. Now I am the type of person who likes hours of uninterrupted deep working and I’m pretty happy toiling away on my todd however there are a couple of stories that remind me of how valuable being in the office is.

The ‘$4 Billion Dollar Lunch’ as it’s known was when Pixar directors Andrew Stanton, Pete Doctor, John Lasseter and the late Joe Ranft were out having lunch and Toy Story was nearly finished, they were discussing how they should probably start thinking of new stories right there.

What followed was the inception of Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc, A bugs life and Wall-e… That is quite a productive lunch you could say and the tablecloth above shows all the sketches they made.

The other fact is that if you want to work for Apple or Google one of the top traits they look for in a person is their genuine belief in that other people will make your ideas better. They have no interest in people with egos who go it alone.

Steve Jobs and other tech giants design their offices to make the interaction between the different departments happen as much as possible and comes down to a word I don’t get to use often enough.

‘Serendipity’ The discovery of something you weren’t looking for.

Working from home has its upside but I think it’s worth remembering how fun things can be when there’s different brains in the room.