Office Park

I work in an office park. Well, sort of. It's more of an office apartment complex. But I will say this, it is breathtakingly uninspiring. There are four or so buildings connected by warehouses that have virtually nothing to do with one another. I couldn't even tell you what the other three businesses in our complex are. And the only time we see them are when the mail gets mixed up. It's a sad state of affairs. I firmly believe offices should at least aspire to be inspiring. People would work harder.

So here is what I propose, tho again, it may already exist.

We're going to steal Google's model of offering tons of services (food, laundry, etc.) for free and build a giant office park catering to all sorts of different businesses and charge them for these services in the rent. So instead of $3,000 a month, they'll pay $4,000. But their employees will have access to food onsite. And laundry. And child care. And whatever else the giant G offers. It'll be like one big coop for people in khakis and ties. But the worker bees won't have to do anything. They'll just pay for it.

My company could never afford benefits like feeding us everyday. We just couldn't do it on our own. But if you brought 5 or 6 other businesses into the mix and let us split the cost, we might be able to make it work. And it is a beenfit, so it would need to cost something.

Is $12,000 a year off a company's bottom line significant? It depends, but probably yes. But the benefits would outweigh the cost. And granted, $1,000 a month might not be enough paper to make this work. It's just to get us started going down this road.