Oui, Bonjour, At Your Service (Story)
Back in 2018 I wrote these four speculative narratives that described future scenarios for the state of remote work in 2045.
This is the story of scenario 2 of 4
The daily experience
The year is 2045, it’s about 10 in the morning and Melinda is headed to one of her favourite restaurants, not to eat, but to work. As a subscriber to the Workplayce app, she can reserve herself a spot from which to work in a selection of curated locations. Most of the time she picks a location that is near her home so as to reduce the time spent commuting, yet today she felt a bit more ambitious and decided to make the trek to the other side of town to work from one of the comfy booths at Noma.
As her solar pod zips across town she sees a few rentable mobile office spaces driving themselves around town. These are part of a growing fleet of alternative workplaces. With autonomous vehicles being the new norm, vehicle design has evolved into the design of mobile environments. Some are meant for socializing while others are purpose built collaboration spaces, and yet others are private working offices.
These vehicles can be ordered to your door and rented on an hourly basis. Sometimes Melinda opts for one of these mobile environments yet she has found it too visually distracting and it has sometimes even made her a bit nauseous while working from some of them. Larger corporations tend to rent our fleets of these vehicles for their employees, probably as a type of way to appear cutting edge and “with it” Melinda thinks.
Finally she arrives at the restaurant / workplayce. Her smart contact lenses allow her to see the world in augmented reality. The normally austere facade of the restaurant is instead overlaid and neatly replaced by a swaying Workplayce logo. This type of ‘architectural makeup’ is typical as buildings and businesses share space. Citizens joke that the city doesn’t sleep, it simply transforms into a new city. Depending on the time of day, different ‘Chinatowns’ emerge and various business hubs pop-up across the grid. As she enters Noma her lenses have highlighted her reserved spot and a path directs her to it. Her lenses highlight familiar faces and label names next to them, as such she can recognize fellow Workplayce subscribers and build a type of social network.
As she approaches her workplace, the furniture adjusts its height and the work surface tilts to Melinda’s ideal angle. All of this is possible due to Melinda’s smart watch that has her biometric data loaded onto it. This allows smart furniture and smart environments to recognize her identity and automatically adjust their height, and in some cases their width or their softness (for upholstered pieces) to her liking.
Melinda has applied for a government grant to purchase her core worktool. A core worktool is like a type of external hard drive where all the work is stored. Melinda doesn’t quite know how it works, but she knows that she can simply slide out her core worktool and insert it into a smart desk to activate the desk’s counter top as her screen, or she can place the core worktool on a smart wall to do the same. It’s almost like the ‘heart’ of the computer, or maybe the ‘brain’, all contained within a size comparable to a small box of juice.
As devices have moved towards a modular and infinitely upgradable model, even though her core worktool is nearly 15 years old, her computer still performs remarkably fast because every few years she updates her processor or some other piece of tech. Gone are the days of everyone owning Apple laptops and similar looking laptops. No, today everyone’s computer is highly customized both in terms of hardware and aesthetics. For example, Melinda’s features a 3D printed protective case (printed at her local FabLab*) that features a raised map of her hometown.
As it nears lunch time, she receives a ping notifying her that her meal is being prepared and will be delivered shortly. Melinda has subscribed to a Lunch-a- Day service that, based on her preferences, orders and delivers her a meal from a nearby caterer, all for a flat fee. Many of her friends subscribe to the same service, and those working from a traditional office space benefit from the in-house cafeteria and company food-delivery bots that can deliver a meal right to you, allowing you to keep working without missing a beat.
The smart table at which she is working has her important documents laid out in a neat grid format. The operating software has preferences allowing her to either adopt a more ‘natural’ display for her files. A display meant to mimic stacks of papers, with files that can be left in any position. Melinda prefers the alternate setting: one where her files snap to an invisible grid and automatically bump each other as files are moved around. As her food is delivered, her files recognize the weight and identity of the items and neatly stack themselves in a corner as nutritional information and videos pan out from the meal.
With her meal done, she now takes out her tablet and places it onto the smart desk. It also recognizes it and allows her to select a core functionality for the tablet. This is because the tablet will now act as an extension of the smart table. Melinda chooses to have her colleagues’ messages displayed on the screen (with messages pre-screened by AI to ensure relevance to current workflow). As she continues to work for a number of hours, she subtly notices that the lights have become warmer and dimmer. She takes this as her cue to wrap things up and head home. She could still work a bit on her tablet while she walks to the station.
Upon leaving the booth, it rearranges itself into a neutral position. Her contacts once again indicate the fastest path for her to the station. As she follows it, the path diverts towards a new Japanese street food vendor. Her contacts must have recognized her underlying hunger and, using her preferences, found her a food she knew she would want. As Melinda satisfies her stomach, she thanks for eyes for looking out for her in more ways than one.
