The leisure trap: Why you can’t quit your job

What would you do if you won a $10 million lottery? Quit your job, charter a plane, and embark on luxury travel? I believe everyone has indulged in this kind of frivolous thought. But let’s get serious for a moment: Are you certain you can keep doing only what you want to do, even if you are entirely alone?

Every time my stock portfolio is up, this question pops into my mind: Quit my job and do what? Leisure time may cease to be fun; perhaps the concept of leisure cannot exist without work in the first place. When I get lost in these ridiculous thoughts, I always remember the last years of Howard Hughes, though I know his life mainly through the movie The Aviator.

Hughes was a millionaire by birth and an industrial titan, but his last years were miserable. He locked himself alone inside a room, commanded his staff remotely, and rarely met anyone. My point is not the naive question of “whether money can buy happiness,” but the more profound one: What is work truly all about for us?

The stylish paradox: Offices designed for absence

Funnily enough, this existential question about the meaning of work came to the fore last month when I was visiting some stylish and trendy offices in Tokyo, seeking reference points for our own planned office renovation.

We visited the headquarters of several office furniture makers. These companies naturally treated their offices as the ultimate showcase, equipping them with the latest, most beautiful products. Indeed, the offices were so stylish they looked more like popular cafes or restaurants.

But what surprised me was the Stylish Paradox: All of these companies have also fully introduced remote work systems. It’s funny, isn’t it? They invested heavily to build a fantastic working environment, while simultaneously setting up a system where people don’t actually have to come to the office. This forces us all to face a fundamental question: What is the ideal working environment—working together at the office, or alone at home?

The mystery of human connection

For clarity, these furniture makers are not trying to force their staff back to the office. They didn’t even prepare working spaces for $100\%$ of their staff; the maximum expected attendance is around $70\%$ to $80\%$. They seem to be redefining the “company” back to its original meaning: a group of people heading for the same goal, not necessarily a physical working place.

They are trying to make the environment as comfortable as possible, expecting staff to work most efficiently without stress.

Yet, when I saw people working in those beautiful offices, my mind immediately returned to the image of the isolated Howard Hughes. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the mystery of human nature: Why do we like working together as a team? The average one-way commuting time in Tokyo is about one hour. The workers I saw there want to come to their offices, even at the cost of two hours a day for commuting. Of course, those employees are likely judging the beautiful offices to be worth the long commute. But the underlying drive is deeper than mere aesthetics. It is a profound need to be connected.

Our humble trial: Designing for presence

The major renovation of our office will be completed in about six months. We will likely not introduce a comprehensive remote work system yet. Therefore, our goal is slightly different: our new office must be something that does not easily make us tired, prioritizing comfort and human connection over aggressive efficiency.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure at this moment if we can truly make it the “ideal” environment, but it will be an interesting trial: An ideal working environment proposed by a luxury wooden furniture maker—one designed to encourage connection, not just maximize output. (We will try to prove that the opposite of Howard Hughes is a good chair and a friendly colleague.)

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Shungo Ijima

He is travelling around the world. His passion is to explain Japan to the world, from the unique viewpoint accumulated through his career: overseas posting, MBA holder, former official of the Ministry of Finance.

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