For last 6 years of my professional life, it has been easy for staff members and visitors to know where to find me in my organization’s building. I loved my office space, my desk and having a spot in the building that I feel I belong to. But that has completely changed when I got to my host organization. It was a little challenging at the beginning to navigate my way through a huge firm as my host and it was frustrating not having a spot to sit in every day for a year. The seating situation at my host is flexible so I would have to figure out what office space I need for the next day: workstation or meeting room and plan for it. My host office building has a very nice view of Georgetown so when I am not in a meeting or a team room, I prefer to sit in an area that has a view and has a lot of natural light.
Honestly, it took me some time to adjust to being flexible as to where to sit and do the work. However, this turned out to be one of the best office experiences that I have ever had and I am thankful for my host for treating like any other firm practitioner and not giving me an assigned space. I took the opportunity to have seating flexibility to meet new practitioners in the firm, hear about the different projects they are part of and observe the different group dynamics. This has been a great work flexibility exercise which is at the essence of consultancy spirit as it does not matter where you sit as long as you have your laptop to do the work. My office is in my backpack and it does not matter if I am sitting in a team room or in the kitchen, as long as I have my laptop and my charger, I can do the work from anywhere. This seating situation has changed as soon as I joined one of the firm’s projects and my team secured a team room for all of us to work from. However, from time to time, I opt out of sitting in the team room for a few hours to meet new practitioners.
