The Rise of the WeWorking Class • Hacker News Board

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#11

Post by dictum » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

bvm wrote: post #2

Does anyone else find they can't tell if things are an intentional design decision or an implementation bug anymore? case-in-point: the rendering of the title of this piece.

The typeface is inspired by stencil lettering.

Puzzling design is definitely not a contemporary trend. It was more common in the 1980-90s, but the style reached its height when CSS wasn't available, most visitors were unfamiliar with the Web etc. so pulling this off in a major publication like the NYT would be risky. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carson_(graphic_design...

(To wit, it's in The New York Times Magazine: its printed version has had experimental design styling for quite a while)

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#12

Post by buboard » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #10

I wonder if WeWork has already started an espionage (excuse me, business intelligence) program or whether that's a future development. Consider: an ordinary landlord knows how many desks you have, how many people show up on an average day, and how much garbage/recycling you put out. WeWork has operatives who can measure what percentage of your employees' days are spent at their desks, what they like to do for fun, wh…

well why wouldn't they? as long as people treat it as a workplace (i.e. they dont print their love letters there) its a good opportunity for some neat travel advertising etc.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#13

Post by puranjay » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:04 PM UTC

I recently moved to WeWork after nearly half a decade of working in plainly inferior coworking spaces.

It's early days, but I wouldn't be wrong to say that this is probably the first time in my career that I haven't felt, well, "unmoored".

I freelanced through college, then through grad school, then I worked for a couple of years from home before moving to coworking spaces.

At all these coworking spaces, despite their regular events, I never really felt like I was a part of a broader culture. I don't know how, but WeWork manages to do that. Maybe it's because the people around me there look and act and work like me.

Whereas the average coworking space worker felt like he was struggling (heck, even drowning), the people at WeWork feel like they have more time, that they've done the battle, and if they haven't won, they've at least fought enough to win some peace. I don't know if I'm there yet, but I would like to imagine I'm getting there.

WeWork, with its pricing and positioning (it's 2x the rate of my last office) seems to attract people who want to buy into the vision of success, who don't want to see themselves as just "digital labor".

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#14

Post by jeffro_rh » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:04 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #6

theoh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The steelmanned version of your comment might be something like "graphic designers these days really seem to have abandoned every recognizable principle of 'good' design". That would be a claim that design quality is deteriorating, like a lot of other aspects of civilization. There's a case to be made for that perspective. But I'm guessing you just meant that hip graphic design/typography often confounds your own exp…

Do designers design for laypeople (=i.e. supposedly the audience of most designs) or for other designers?

Yes.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#15

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

rekshaw wrote: post #9

A recent executive mandate declared the company a “meat-free” organization. When I interviewed McKelvey not long after the Summit, he had a very fuzzy time trying to explain the meaning of the “eight pillars” of its CultureOS and the relationships among them. But when he noticed that the P.R. representative happened to be carrying a single-use plastic water bottle, he admonished her to be mindful of her own consumpti…

I don't envy the psychotherapists that have a professional mandate to show empathy to people like this.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#16

Post by anonymfus » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #7

Toggle Reader View (Ctrl+Alt+R)

Please don't assume people's browsers. For example in Firefox reading view is toggled by F9, and in Microsoft Edge it's toggled by Ctrl+Shift+R.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#17

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

rekshaw wrote: post #9

A recent executive mandate declared the company a “meat-free” organization. When I interviewed McKelvey not long after the Summit, he had a very fuzzy time trying to explain the meaning of the “eight pillars” of its CultureOS and the relationships among them. But when he noticed that the P.R. representative happened to be carrying a single-use plastic water bottle, he admonished her to be mindful of her own consumpti…

Puts religion into context, human/anthropology/history-wise.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#18

Post by magwa101 » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

I like the ability to optionally participate in a work culture, in fact, looks like you could pick and choose between a few. The forced culture of most companies is pretty tiring.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#19

Post by BucketSort » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

rekshaw wrote: post #9

A recent executive mandate declared the company a “meat-free” organization. When I interviewed McKelvey not long after the Summit, he had a very fuzzy time trying to explain the meaning of the “eight pillars” of its CultureOS and the relationships among them. But when he noticed that the P.R. representative happened to be carrying a single-use plastic water bottle, he admonished her to be mindful of her own consumpti…

When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? Although I'm 29, I still remember a time where there was at least the pretense of civility. Civility was the oil that kept this machine running smoothly, now it's sputtering left and right. We don't even use formal names like Mr./Ms. as much as we once did, if at all. I felt that was an important part of creating a barrier of civil respect, distinguishing personal relationships from civil relationships. We threw a lot of cultural things away that were actually pretty damn important.

Edit: Also, my karma is now a binary number. Please don't up vote.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#20

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

BucketSort wrote: post #19

rekshaw wrote: post #9

A recent executive mandate declared the company a “meat-free” organization. When I interviewed McKelvey not long after the Summit, he had a very fuzzy time trying to explain the meaning of the “eight pillars” of its CultureOS and the relationships among them. But when he noticed that the P.R. representative happened to be carrying a single-use plastic water bottle, he admonished her to be mindful of her own consumpti…

When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? Although I'm 29, I still remember a time where there was at least the pretense of civility. Civility was the oil that kept this machine running smoothly, now it's sputtering left and right. We don't even use formal names like Mr./Ms. as much as we once did, if at all. I felt that was an important part of creating…

> When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices?

It always has been, surely? But for a different set of things than mere consumer choice.