“Workation” in San Francisco

It’s been a whole week since we arrived in San Francisco.
It’s just a change of location, and my husband is working from Monday to Friday just like he does in Tokyo.
I also work a little bit, just like I do in Tokyo.
This was the first week of an unhealthy lifestyle: staying in the hotel every day, going out only for a few minutes a day, and going grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, which is a 2-3 minute walk away.

Finding a Workplace

Since we were staying for a month, we chose a hotel in the center of downtown so that we would not have to worry about daily life without a car.
The hotel said it had a “business center,” but we found out at check-in that the large conference room space was closed due to this pandemic situation.

We were allowed to use the FedEx Office in the basement, so our morning commute was a vertical elevator ride between our room on 28th floor and the basement😂

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It’s a bit small in space, and there are FedEx employees, so when it’s time for a meeting, we come back to our room.

Besides that, to change my mood, I found some quiet and easy-to-concentrate spaces and worked remotely while moving around.

We are just like “Digital Nomads” inside the hotel.

Digital nomads are people who conduct their life in a nomadic manner while engaging in remote work using digital telecommunications technology. Such people generally have minimal material possessions and work remotely in temporary housing, hotels, cafes, public libraries, co-working spaces, or recreational vehicles, using Wi-Fi, smartphones or mobile hotspots to access the Internet.

Refer to Wikipedia

Basically, we both found a spot where we could concentrate easily and stayed there for a while, so we spent a lot of time passing each other around the hotel.

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A couple of businessmen came to the foyer in the basement for online meetings, but other than that, my husband and I had the place to ourselves for the week.

The Future of “Workation”

If you search the Internet for the keyword “Workation” in Japan, the top results are negative articles like,

The ideal and reality of “workation” emerged from the pandemic but has not progressed.

Nikkei Business

Two misconceptions behind the lack of widespread adoption of “workation”

Diamond Online

We hear the words a lot now, but the reality is that it’s not going well.

“Free workers from place and time.”
Many employees want it, but many business owners refuse it.
Because they are not sure if the liberation will really lead to higher productivity, better performance, and a better quality of life.

Will this be the norm in our society 10 or 20 years from now?