The hours
A day that did not
Seven hours at a hot desk two floors from anyone known, described in full, because fifteen of the thirty-four days looked more like this one than like the good one.
Days this part is about, hour by hour
Wednesday, the second week
3 of 7Planning day, the densest of the quarter
Thursday, the third week
0 of 7Seven hours of solo work at a hot desk
Wednesday, the fourth week
3 of 7The new starter's first day in the building
three days · 21 hours logged · six of them were only possible there · one of the three days contained no such hour at all · two were made worse by being there
Three of the twelve days drawn in full on this site.
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Two days that returned nothing, hour by hour
Thursday, the third week
0 of 7Seven hours of solo work at a hot desk
Monday, the third week
0 of 7Came in to make up a day missed through illness
two days · 14 hours logged · not one of them was only possible there · three were made worse by being there
Two of the fifteen days that contained no hour requiring the building.
Fifteen of the thirty-four days contained no hour at all that required the building. Nearly half. They were not dramatic and nothing went wrong on them, which is exactly why they are easy to leave out of the account.
Here is one in full.
Thursday, the third week
- 07:35. Leave the house.
- 08:40. Arrive. The desks on the usual floor are taken, because Thursday is unpredictable and nobody books. Find one two floors up.
- 09:00–12:00. Three hours of review work. Fine. Identical to the same three hours at home, minus the second screen.
- 12:00–12:40. Lunch alone, reading.
- 12:40–16:00. More of the same. Two people walk past who are recognised but not known.
- 16:00–17:00. A call with three people in another office, taken at the desk with headphones on, apologising twice for the background.
- 17:05. Leave for the 17:22.
- 18:15. Home.
Two hours and ten minutes of travel. Seven hours of work, six of them indifferent to location and one worse for it. Nobody from the team was in the building that day.
Why this day is the important one
Because it is not a failure of anything. Every individual decision was reasonable:
- The policy said three days, and this was one of them.
- Thursday was chosen because the other two were already Tuesday and Wednesday, and a fourth would have been excessive.
- The review work was what needed doing that week.
- The call was arranged by somebody who had no way of knowing where this person would be.
No one did anything wrong, and the day still returned nothing that the journey bought. That is the ordinary case, and the ordinary case is not usually what gets discussed.
What would have changed it
Only one thing, and it is not effort: somebody else from the team being there on the same day. Everything else about the day was fine. The work got done, the desk was adequate, the call was survivable.
The absent ingredient was not the building. It was the overlap, and the overlap is the one thing a three-day rule does not and cannot provide.
The honest objection
Somebody will say: this person could have gone and found people. Walked the floor, sat somewhere busier, asked who was in.
That is true, and on this record it was tried twice. Both times the answer was that the people who would have been worth finding were at home that day, which is the point. You cannot generate overlap by being sociable if the other half of the overlap is forty miles away.
The second day, for comparison
Monday of the third week, taken to make up a day lost to illness the week before.
- 09:00–11:00. Catching up on two days of messages. Would have been identical anywhere, and was slower for the open room.
- 11:00–12:00. A call with two people in another office, at the desk, headphones on.
- 12:00–13:00. Lunch alone.
- 13:00–16:00. Work that needed a long run and did not get one.
- 16:00–17:00. A call that overran, taken in a stairwell because the floor had emptied and the rooms were all locked.
Two hours and ten minutes of travel. Two of the seven hours worse for being there, five identical anywhere, none that needed the building at all.
The reason it happened is in the first line: a day was owed, and the rule counts days.
What the fifteen empty days had in common
| Feature | Days of the fifteen |
|---|---|
| On a Monday, Thursday or Friday | 11 |
| Chosen for a reason outside work | 7 |
| Nothing in the calendar involving a colleague | 15 |
| Taken to make up a missed day | 4 |
| No room booked or attempted | 15 |
The third and fifth rows are total. Every one of the fifteen could have been identified as likely to be empty the evening before, by looking at a calendar and noticing that nothing in it involved anybody in the building.
Nobody looked, because there is no habit of looking, because the day was not a decision — it was a requirement being met.