# What will people have in their offices 50 years from now?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 5, 2009, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427 "2009-08-05T16:23:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427/21 "2009-08-06T17:33:02Z")

</div>

> [@Nava](#):
>
> I’ve worked in environments like the one **Voyager** describes, and in others where people just wouldn’t believe multinational teleconferences exist and are cheaper (using IM or VoIP) than the phone. There’s multinational companies where the bosses pretty much live at the airport. Since that’s linked to mindset and not to actual needs, and since the mindset isn’t going anywhere, cubicle farms will go on existing.

Except in 50 years all the managers who currently think this way will be dead.

Then the kids will be complaining about the managers who want to have virtual meetings all the time, instead of fusing with the central core.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427/22 "2009-08-06T17:36:07Z")

</div>

Coffee, but only for closers.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jettboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@Jettboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jettboy)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427/23 "2009-08-06T17:38:42Z")

</div>

You’ll still get paper jams though, even if there’s no such thing as a copy machine anymore.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427/24 "2009-08-06T18:17:27Z")

</div>

> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> Except in 50 years all the managers who currently think this way will be dead.

See, that’s what I don’t believe. They don’t believe people work without them nagging even after having seen with their own eyes that word did, indeed, get done while they were on vacation. They’re not reasonable; they’re borderline paranoid. And like depression, paranoia isn’t just going away.

I’m talking about those bosses who, when they call at a time when a subordinate has a meeting scheduled (and that meeting shows in the boss’s calendar) and the subordinate doesn’t respond, assume that he was on a coffee break (eh… no, he didn’t answer because he switches the phone off for meetings, duh). The ones who call, ask “what are you doing” and when you explain it, don’t believe you. The ones who hire a draftsman and refuse to believe he knows what kind of information does he need in order to draw the blueprints; a database specialist and refuse to believe him when he says he needs to be able to install a program which by the way is free…

Those people have been around for milennia and I don’t believe they’re just going to die off, not in 50 years.

Unless St Malachi was right, of course… naaah!

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-people-have-in-their-offices-50-years-from-now/505427.md?page=1)