在WeWork工作的吸引力

It is a company that did not exist eight years ago but was valued at nearly $20bn this year. Its chief executive is 38 years old and looks like a nightclub DJ. His wife is the chief brand officer, a yoga fiend who doubtless had a hand in the company’s mission statement: “We get shit done and we get it done well.”

這是一家8年前還不存在的公司，但今年的估值高達(dá)近200億美元。它的首席執(zhí)行官38歲，看上去像是一個(gè)夜店的音樂節(jié)目主持人。他的妻子是首席品牌官，是一個(gè)瘋狂的瑜伽愛好者，她肯定參與擬定了該公司的使命宣言：“我們搞定爛事，而且做得出色。”

This is WeWork, the shared office outfit that has grown from a single building in Manhattan in 2010 into a hipster hot-desking behemoth with more than 170 sites in 19 countries and 58 cities, from Beijing to Bogotá.

它就是WeWork，這家共享辦公公司已從2010年曼哈頓的一棟單體建筑變成在19個(gè)國家58個(gè)城市(從北京到波哥大)擁有170多個(gè)辦公地點(diǎn)的巨擘，為時(shí)髦人士提供共享辦公空間。

I have taken almost no notice of its rise until now, except for its extraordinary $20bn valuation — and the growing band of sceptics who think that figure makes no sense. They may be right. Documents leaked to Bloomberg last year suggest the privately held company slashed its profit forecasts for 2016 from $65m to $14m. Yet in the past few weeks, as I have bumped into more and more people who have moved into one of its offices, I have decided that WeWork is doing something interesting to modern corporate life.

直到最近以前，我?guī)缀鯖]注意到它的崛起，除了它不同尋常的200億美元估值——而越來越多的懷疑者認(rèn)為這個(gè)數(shù)字毫無道理。他們可能是對(duì)的：去年泄露給彭博(Bloomberg)的文件顯示，這家私有公司將其2016年利潤預(yù)測(cè)從6500萬美元下調(diào)至1400萬美元。然而，過去幾周，我碰到越來越多的人走入它的辦公空間之一，這讓我覺得，WeWork正在做一些讓現(xiàn)代辦公生活變得有趣的事情。

The first hint came from a friend at an international non-profit group in Washington who found herself in a WeWork office with a hairdresser and meditation instructor on tap, along with the free roasted coffee and an open-door policy for dogs that are standard for the company.

第一個(gè)跡象來自在華盛頓一家全球非營利組織工作的朋友，在她去的那個(gè)WeWork辦公場(chǎng)所，發(fā)型師和冥想教練隨叫隨到，還有免費(fèi)烘培咖啡和對(duì)寵物狗的開放政策，這些都是這家公司的標(biāo)配。

She was as enthusiastic as the boss of a London tech start-up with staff in Buenos Aires, where there was a waiting list to get even a hot desk at WeWork — a haven of transparent pricing and instant wifi in a city used to rising rents and power blackouts.

和她一樣感到振奮的是倫敦一家科技初創(chuàng)企業(yè)的老板，該公司有一部分員工在布宜諾斯艾利斯，在那里，在WeWork獲得一個(gè)共享辦公工位甚至要排隊(duì);在租金日益高漲且經(jīng)常停電的布宜諾斯艾利斯，WeWork提供了一個(gè)定價(jià)透明且無線連接順暢的安全港。

I am all in favour of anything that makes office life less sterile and more human, especially if it is also more functional. But it was the people from the much larger companies starting to use WeWork who really made me think, such as Jonathan Kini, chief executive of the retail wing of Drax, owner of the UK’s biggest power station.

我支持所有讓辦公室生活變得不那么刻板、多一點(diǎn)人性的東西，特別是在它也更具功能性的情況下。但真正促使我深思的是，規(guī)模更大公司的員工也開始使用WeWork，例如英國最大發(fā)電站Drax旗下零售公司的首席執(zhí)行官喬納森•基尼(Jonathan Kini)。

Drax has a perfectly good corporate office near the Bank of England in the City of London. But when Mr Kini’s division needed more space, he nabbed a private office in the WeWork building up the road. Having had a snoop around it with one of the older Drax workers, who admitted he often felt as if he were the only one there wearing socks, I could see the attraction. It was not just the craft beer bars and designer sofas scattered around the bare wood floors. Nor the rows of private phone booths that I would not mind in my own open-plan office. It was the video screens on the walls pitching the wares of other tenants.

Drax在倫敦金融城(City of London)英國央行(Bank of England)附近有一棟非常棒的辦公大樓。但當(dāng)基尼的部門需要更多空間時(shí)，他在同一條街的WeWork大樓租下了一個(gè)專用辦公場(chǎng)所。在與Drax的一名老員工一起看了那里的環(huán)境后(他承認(rèn)，他經(jīng)常感覺自己好像是那里唯一穿襪子的人)，我看到了其中的吸引力。這里吸引人的地方不只是手工釀造啤酒吧和實(shí)木地板上散布的設(shè)計(jì)師沙發(fā)。也不是我覺得在我自己的開放式辦公室里也應(yīng)該有的成排的私密電話隔間。真正吸引人的是墻上那些推銷其他租戶產(chǎn)品和服務(wù)的屏幕。

Drax’s staff may not need to know about the digital marketing start-ups who were advertising on those screens the day I visited. But if they did, they had only to pad around the corner to find them. So can employees from HSBC’s small businesses division who moved into a nearby London WeWork office nearly a year ago. “That’s something you don’t get in a normal corporate office,” said their boss, Richard Bearman.

Drax的員工可能不需要了解在這些屏幕上做廣告的數(shù)字營銷初創(chuàng)企業(yè)。但如果他們想了解的話，他們只要信步走過一個(gè)拐角就能找到他們。同樣，近一年前搬到附近的倫敦WeWork辦公室的匯豐銀行(HSBC)小企業(yè)部門的員工也可以。他們的老板理查德•貝爾曼(Richard Bearman)表示：“在普通的公司辦公室里你是得不到這樣的便利的。”

He likes the way the village-like atmosphere means people from younger companies in the building can knock on HSBC’s glass door for a chat.

他喜歡這種村落式的氛圍，大樓里的較年輕公司的人可以隨時(shí)推開匯豐的玻璃門洽談一番。

He thinks the bank’s staff are trusted more by potentially important new customers than if they were sitting behind a computer in a typical branch office. It also helps the bank to know how newer outfits are working. In an age of relentless disruption, I can see the appeal for older companies of being closer to start-ups doing the disrupting, and vice versa.

他認(rèn)為，與坐在典型的分行辦公室電腦后面相比，在這里的匯豐員工更有可能得到潛在重要新客戶的信賴。在這里落戶還有助于該行了解新的企業(yè)如何工作。在無情顛覆的當(dāng)今時(shí)代，老牌公司與有意顛覆的初創(chuàng)企業(yè)更加接近，我能看出這種安排對(duì)雙方的吸引力。

Places like WeWork are obviously not for everyone. I know a lot of people who would be appalled at the idea of working in a building full of strangers from other businesses, especially if they had to dodge a dog on the way to their desk. Personally, I am very happy to work in a place that keeps the outside world at bay, though I would be even happier if it had dogs.

WeWork等場(chǎng)所顯然并不適用于所有人。我知道，很多人會(huì)被在一個(gè)滿是來自其他公司的陌生人的大樓中工作而嚇壞，特別是如果他們?cè)谧呦蜃约旱霓k公桌時(shí)不得不躲避一條狗。個(gè)人來講，我非常樂意在一個(gè)與外部世界隔絕的環(huán)境中工作，不過如果有狗的話我就更開心了。

Still, I am not surprised that WeWork says companies with more than 1,000 workers are one of its fastest-growing segments and now account for more than 20 per cent of its membership.

然而，我并不感到意外的是：WeWork表示，員工超過1000人的公司是該公司增長(zhǎng)最快的市場(chǎng)板塊，現(xiàn)在占其會(huì)員總數(shù)的20%以上。

Like a lot of today’s lavishly funded US start-ups, it is easy to imagine it faltering. But I doubt the less insular and more eventful form of office life it is creating will be a passing fad.

就像當(dāng)今很多得到慷慨融資的美國初創(chuàng)企業(yè)一樣，我們很容易想象它會(huì)衰落。但我不認(rèn)為，它創(chuàng)造的那種不那么與世隔絕且更加多姿多彩的辦公室生活會(huì)是曇花一現(xiàn)。

[email protected] 譯者/梁艷裳