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，但今年的估值高達近200億美元。它的首席執行官38歲，看上去像是一個夜店的音樂節目主持人。他的妻子是首席品牌官，是一個瘋狂的瑜伽愛好者，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築變成在19個國家58個城市（從北京到波哥大）擁有170多個辦公地點的巨擘，爲時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，我幾乎沒注意到它的崛起，除了它不同尋常的200億美元估值——而越來越多的懷疑者認爲這個數字毫無道理。他們可能是對的：去年泄露給彭博(Bloomberg)的文件顯示，這傢俬有公司將其2016年利潤預測從6500萬美元下調至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WeWork辦公場所，髮型師和冥想教練隨叫隨到，還有免費烘培咖啡和對寵物狗的開放政策，這些都是這家公司的標配。

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企業的老闆，該公司有一部分員工在布宜諾斯艾利斯，在那裏，在WeWork獲得一個共享辦公工位甚至要排隊；在租金日益高漲且經常停電的布宜諾斯艾利斯，WeWork提供了一個定價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麼刻板、多一點人性的東西，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，規模更大公司的員工也開始使用WeWork，例如英國最大發電站Drax旗下零售公司的首席執行官喬納森?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。但當基尼的部門需要更多空間時，他在同一條街的WeWork大樓租下了一個專用辦公場所。在與Drax的一名老員工一起看了那裏的環境後（他承認，他經常感覺自己好像是那裏唯一穿襪子的人），我看到了其中的吸引力。這裏吸引人的地方不只是手工釀造啤酒吧和實木地板上散佈的設計師沙發。也不是我覺得在我自己的開放式辦公室裏也應該有的成排的私密電話隔間。真正吸引人的是牆上那些推銷其他租戶產品和服務的屏幕。

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字營銷初創企業。但如果他們想了解的話，他們只要信步走過一個拐角就能找到他們。同樣，近一年前搬到附近的倫敦WeWork辦公室的匯豐銀行(HSBC)小企業部門的員工也可以。他們的老闆理查德?貝爾曼(Richard Bearman)表示：“在普通的公司辦公室裏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，大樓裏的較年輕公司的人可以隨時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.

他認爲，與坐在典型的分行辦公室電腦後面相比，在這裏的匯豐員工更有可能得到潛在重要新客戶的信賴。在這裏落戶還有助於該行了解新的企業如何工作。在無情顛覆的當今時代，老牌公司與有意顛覆的初創企業更加接近，我能看出這種安排對雙方的吸引力。

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等場所顯然並不適用於所有人。我知道，很多人會被在一個滿是來自其他公司的陌生人的大樓中工作而嚇壞，特別是如果他們在走向自己的辦公桌時不得不躲避一條狗。個人來講，我非常樂意在一個與外部世界隔絕的環境中工作，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，我並不感到意外的是：WeWork表示，員工超過1000人的公司是該公司增長最快的市場板塊，現在佔其會員總數的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.

就像當今很多得到慷慨融資的美國初創企業一樣，我們很容易想象它會衰落。但我不認爲，它創造的那種不那麼與世隔絕且更加多姿多彩的辦公室生活會是曇花一現。