One thing that bugs me about my workplace: since the advent of mobile phones (cell phones) there isn’t any conflict about having to do necessary private phone calls at work on the employer’s dime, but, those of us without our own office still cannot make our private private calls in privacy. (and the happy few with their own offices still have colleagues barging in from time to time.)
A solution to this would be to have a small, soundproofed cubicle with reception from the next cell tower, and an indication (with a window to look in, or a lavatory-style indicator) that it is occupied. A latter-day phone booth.
That would also serve the need of people wanting to make private private calls in places like a rail station or airport concourse. And of e.g. restaurant patrons who need to make/take a call but neither want to annoy fellow diners nor go out into the rain.
Is such an amenity provided anywhere to the public or to employees?
This doesn’t work for me since I work in a city and take public transportation, but I suppose it works for an overwhelming majority of Americans. It seems like a reasonable idea for a public space in a city, but where’s the money to be made? And what about vagrants and indecency?
When I visited Google I went down a hallway that had a bunch of escape-pod-looking things going down one side. According to my host, they were for nipping in to when you needed some alone time on your laptop or cell phone whilst hosting a meeting in one of the conference rooms. So instead of standing in the room or in the hallway on your phone saying “Jerry! Where are you? The meeting started 12 minutes ago!” or frantically trying to fix a bug in the app you’re about to show off, you can just go into one of those tiny rooms.
The building I used to work in did have little rooms specifically for visitors to use to call out, with actual phones in them. They were too small to be a good guest office (we had them also) but would fit the bill for you. Everyone has offices, so no one who worked in the building ever used them.