I Backpacked Across The Globe And Found Paradise And It Is The Open Office

Here’s a question for you: What’s more exhilarating than traveling in search of hidden vistas and cheap beer?

A life in an office with an open floor plan, that’s what.

There’s no need to visit different cultures when so much of humanity shines in an open office. People in offices are the best. They talk to you at any time, interrupt you for any reason — even if you’re wearing headphones. It’s fun and you’ll get to attend so many meetings that could have been emails!

You think you meet the best people when you’re travelling? Sure, Javier from Spain is the most beautiful person I’ve ever met and his eyelashes could end war, but let me tell you about my coworkers. Chad keeps his toenail clippings in a jar under his desk. Chad has stories to share that you don’t need to travel to ancient ruins to hear. Chad will come up to you in the break room during your one moment of peace and he’ll tell you about his toenail clippings. Or he’ll try to get you to buy Girl Scout cookies from his  daughter. You never know what will happen in an open office!

I’d much rather make a personal connection at an all-hands meeting where only three executives speak than in an international hot spring overlooking a hidden vista. More is revealed when we’re all wearing uncomfortable Ann Taylor-esque blazers.

There’s a thrill an office provides that’s unlike any experience available on the road. Chatting about weather with Marge from accounting is really no different than eavesdropping in a Paris cafe. Catching a sunrise in Madrid is nothing compared to watching a coworker perform a deeply personal slam poem at the company’s annual talent show. And navigating the subway in a new country is fun, but not nearly as exhilarating as planning a vacation with the company’s five allotted paid days off.

Tie my health insurance to my job. Give me a corporate email account and fill up my free time with pings and check-ins. Go ahead, marry my entire worth as a human being to my work and tell me this company’s a family and then fire my sister for missing two deadlines.

If I miss knowing that people are jealous because I’ve skydived in Hawaii, slurped oysters in New Zealand and biked across France in one business quarter, I’ll stir up office politics. Did you hear Chad’s getting a formal notice to stop talking to his coworkers about his feet, but is otherwise A-OK to keep working here for the next twenty years? Corporate world is a literal paradise!