Tech Republic: “The office seems like an immutable fact of corporate life, to the point that it’s been parodied in popular culture ranging from the antics of Dilbert and his pointy-haired boss to the eponymous TV series in the US and UK. One could almost be forgiven for assuming that shiny buildings filled with drab cubicles are the only way to execute work in a modern society productively. The primacy of the physical office was unquestioned until the COVID pandemic proved beyond any doubt that former cubicle dwellers could be productive when unchained from their stale coffee and questionable “fungal growth experiments” in the break room refrigerator. With remote productivity now “settled science,” many have suggested that offices still bear relevance as collaboration and innovation spaces, where employees will bounce from chance encounter to chance encounter, leaving a wake of innovative cross-organizational collaboration…However, if you’ve recently visited a physical office, you’re more likely to see isolated individuals hunched over a keyboard with headphones connected to a Zoom meeting than dozens of ad hoc collaboration moments. You may also have found that the office you remember as being “not so bad” is a much more frustrating place…”