Why Office Buildings Should Have Super Slides
Building Hexagons Instead of Cubicles
“This isn’t so bad huh? Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside…” — Office Space (1999).
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What do you think of when you think of an office building?
Even as late as 2017, CEO’s were writing about the changes in workplace environments from some of the most powerfully branded companies in the world. Looking through the photos enclosed in the linked article — and even doing a quick image search on the search engine of your choice — it’s easy to see the ‘hip, cool mindset,’ counter-balanced with twenty-first-century post-modernism. What would have been laughable a half-century ago is now a selling point for companies looking to recruit — and keep — top talent; especially those at the top of the tech world’s food chain like Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
The prevailing conventional wisdom that a monotonous office-design borrowed from the world of Dilbert or Office Space (1999) would help keep employees focused has been tinkered with for the past two decades. Sleek, modern masterpieces that would make Frank Lloyd Wright or M. C. Escher request a tour are starting to make their arrival not just as a niche offering but as a standard.
The main arguments for these ‘playful, creative spaces,’ are quite simple:
1. Their light and colorful designs help foster creativity instead of stifle it.
2. It gives employees the feeling they’re working for a progressive, forward-thinking company that values their input.
3. Fun designs and structures that give employees more space to work with help reduce stress instead of magnify it.
And so on and so forth.
So then, we must ask ourselves, what is the next step?
If our workplace culture has evolved to the point where many of the world’s biggest companies are giving credence to the idea that the bastard offspring of Chuck-E-Cheese and Dave-and-Busters should be the gold standard, we must then consider the next problem in the equation.
And after much deliberation, and careful thought, the solution becomes obvious.
Office Buildings Should not only have fun, creative designs…
…but they should also have super slides.
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Sliders
“What if you found a portal to a parallel universe?” — Sliders (1995–2000)
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Imagine the following scenario:
Ralphie Von-Raine, programmer extraordinaire, has just finished a nightmare-inducing programming-session involving all sort of scripting and code no mere mortal could comprehend even in layman’s terms. His gaunt form threatens to become a skeleton; his hair and beard approaches an audition for Loreal. Although he’s in his early-thirties, on some days he feels close to forty. The mind may be strong but the body is indeed weak.
The deadline to get the company’s new program ready in its final stage is fast approaching — not only does it feel like the walls are closing in but the product managers are starting to do mass-catering-runs on top of their regular Keurig-product-harvesting. Everything in the office is at a boiling point, the only relaxation coming from the shiny red spheres and the goofy art-deco ‘thumbs-up’ sculpture sitting in the corner.
The madness is reaching a fever pitch that is threatening to destroy the company-culture’s thermometer — in addition to the nightmare on the inside, he worries about a possible PR disaster on the outside if the deadline is not reached; he doesn’t want to be responsible for making the company push back the release of their new software.
And everyone in the company knows this — the CEO, CTO, COO, trustees, entry-level office drones, midnight-cleaning-crew — everyone. Regardless of the position, everybody in the company is buckling down and trying to avoid any kind of negative fallout. For all the shiny objects and daycare-style atmosphere the office building has to offer, none of it seems to be working.
With the new program nowhere-near-close to being done, everyone goes home miserable.
Until a new development was installed.
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How it would work
The office is thankfully only five stories tall. Any taller and the idea probably wouldn’t work unless they figured out a way to slow people down at an exponential pace without hurting them. Even then, it’s still a tall order — to avoid lawsuits, all employees must sign a waiver that if they were to go down the slide and injure themselves, they would surrender all right to injury-claims. After all the legal tape is cut away, the top of the slide is open for business.
You could take the stairs or take the elevator. Most take the elevator although a happy few prefer the grandest exit.
A massive opening reveals a pipe opening at one end and a long, diagonal slant downward all the way to the other end of the building. The office is long enough to where the employee can’t ramp up too much speed and shoot out like a bullet — the descent is controlled and calculated. The employee can finish their shift in style…but not too much style.
If the company’s main office wanted to be even more ambitious, they could have a super-slide network. Have the sinister company-meeting-room on the very top and then have a room with various metal pipes leading to the different floors. The slides snake their way through — and each employee who works on each floor has a way to reach their destination. The slides are still angled enough so that the descent is controlled — those who have a journey to the very bottom have a large padded area to land in — as well as a signal system that lights up and makes a small alert when somebody is fast approaching.
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So after the long number-crunching session, Ralphie Von-Raine has had enough.
He cleans up a few items on his desk and heads for the elevator to go to the fifth floor; since he’s currently on the third floor, he won’t get the slide experience. The elevator takes him up to the fifth floor and opens. He goes down the hall, makes a right, then a left. A massive metal opening greets him with a sign that reads HAVE A GREAT DAY!
Yeah right, he thinks.
And he dives inside.
For a brief, glorious six seconds, the problems of programming — and the world — vanish into nothingness. It is only him and him alone — just him in a metal tube zooming along like he’s taking part in a space-age playground. He closes his eyes and pretend he’s in a wormhole. The descent’s relative length makes him almost believe he really is in outer space and he’s about to discover a new world…
…then the foam-pad landing area jerks him back to reality. He emerges from the pad disheveled…yet strangely triumphant. Those six or seven seconds to cap the end of the programming period did indeed make the night a little better. Not good. Not great. But better. The stress is still there but it’s almost surmountable.
I’ll figure it out tomorrow, Ralphie mutters to himself as he swipes his clearance card and exits the building. At least I’ll get to go down the slide again.
He gets into his car — a lot less angry than he would’ve been — and drives away into the night.
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Real-world offices already have some version of this. The LEGO offices in Denmark have a pretty good one. However, I must make the distinction that this article is not just talking about any ordinary slide but a super-slide; even a super-slide network. If offices have reached a point where creative architecture knows no bounds, then creative ways to exit the premises after a long day should follow suit as well.
Save electricity. Save your steps.
Use a super-slide instead.
