When I started my full time job, I quickly became agitated by the monotony of office life. Each day I’d be surrounded by the exact same subset of coworkers. I would sit in my one office, without anywhere else to go. Eventually the end of the day would come and I would go home. Sometimes I would go to the bathroom; a trip made infinitely more exciting by Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader, conveniently placed in every stall. My office building was in total suburbia, so meeting up with friends for lunch was all but impossible. I was in a private inner office, which meant I had no access to natural light and was pretty much just left alone all day every day in the same room, sitting on the same chair, with the same four walls boxing me in.

I’m not exaggerating. This is what office life is. The contrast between a dynamic student lifestyle and a “professional” lifestyle is staggering. It’s not that the stuff I was working on is boring — far from it. It’s just that the environment was about as stimulating and invigorating as white noise. I couldn’t focus on anything and my mind would wander. It doesn’t have to be like this.

I might be an exceptional case, but I’ve always concentrated better when there were more things going on around me. The background noise of a coffee shop would help me focus better. When studying for my final exams, I’d take over a conference room at school with a few friends. The occasional distractions we provided each other was like the seasoning on an otherwise really bland steak. It made for an environment where studying was bearable, and I managed to get much more done than I would have been able to if I’d stayed home alone with a textbook.

The day I was most productive at work was the one day I managed to work remotely from another lab. But working remotely (or working “from home”) isn’t the solution. A “change of scenery” doesn’t mean “working alone.” Collaboration is important, and you need to be able to ask questions of your teammates, and brainstorm with them. Instant messaging and e-mail only work up to a certain extent, but nothing compares with face-to-face interaction. This was the main point of Fred Brooks’ keynote speech from OOPSLA ’07 (listen to the mp3 if you have 1.5 hours), and there is research and evidence to back it up.

The best thing to do is offer some alternative scenery at the workplace. IBM’s software lab in Markham, Ontario is a stellar example. The top floor of this lab has four different “theme rooms” that employees can use. One room is modeled after a medieval library with antique bookshelves full of ancient-looking books and wing-backed chairs. Another room looks like a fishing cabin with couches and paintings of canoes along the walls. My favourite room was the “Japanese Garden” which had a rock garden and an indoor waterfall between rice-paper walls. To make these rooms accessible, each employee receives a laptop as their primary workstation. If you ever need a change of scenery, just unplug your laptop and go sit near the waterfall. The theme rooms offer a change of scenery and, since you’re not leaving the lab, your teammates are always close by for when you need to collaborate.

My ideal environment would be just like the study space we improvised during exam period: a big room with a small group of coworkers. We don’t all have to be working on the same things, but just having other people there is a motivator. The occasional distractions and small talk would keep the day interesting, and I’d be able to focus better on my work. I know this kind of environment exists, because this is almost exactly what my Extreme Blue internship was like. The trick is going to be finding a similar environment now that I’m no longer a student.

Because I finally feel like I have something to say. My personal blog in the past was just that — personal. It was more like an online, public diary than anything else. I never had any ideas about what direction I wanted to take it in, and what I should say on it. It existed for the sake of existing. Then Twitter came along and provided an outlet for all those little personal-things-I-wanted-to-say and effectively ate my blog. In the meantime a lot of things have changed — I’ve changed, too — and now I know what I want to talk about.

Graduating from university brought about many changes in my life. It was a complete 180-degree turn. When I was in school I always felt like I was going forward, and now I feel like I’m looking back more than ever. All the goals I had set for myself as a student, I’ve achieved. Following graduation, those goals are in the past. For a while I felt like my best years were behind me, and what a bummer that was. I thought “Is this it? Is this what I spent all that time in school for? Well this sucks.” And I longed to go back. If I could do it all over again I think I’d take one course per semester and stretch the fun out for as long as possible.

Then it happened. I became inspired. It hit me that growing up doesn’t have to suck so much. If I can’t find the things in life that make me happy, then I can invent them. Instead of whining about life, I’m going on a mission. I’m on a mission to make growing up suck less. My mission will be documented here, on Geekflex.

Here are just some of the topics I have bouncing around in my head even now:

• What was missing in my university education
• How the “professional” life contrasts with the student life
• What makes being a new grad suck, and how it could be made better
• Life, the Universe, and Everything

I’m going to make life awesome again.