Work

Hot Desking is Hell

If you’re socially awkward like me

Photo by Alesia Kazantceva on Unsplash

By now, many businesses have returned to in-person working, whether five days a week or, more commonly, on a hybrid basis. This is how my employer has done it — three days a week at home and two in the office.

I think that’s fair enough, as these things go. However, like many other businesses we’ve downsized said office, since we no longer need space for everyone every day. Again, fair enough.

Sadly though, this new way of working has brought with it something I have always sought to avoid: hot desking.

There are many reasons to hate hot desking, in my opinion, including but not limited to:

• Neophobia. Like a lot of people, I think, I have an intense dislike of change. I find sitting at a different desk, in a different part of the office, with different people every week quite unsettling. It creates a sense of impermanence, as though one day the whole place might disappear altogether.
• Practicality. Air con is the worst invention of all time: most offices are perpetually freezing because of it. I don’t want to wear too many layers in summer because my commute involves the Central Line, which is hotter than the fourth circle of Hell, and I have to take them all off when I go out for lunch anyway…