Office : Do we still need one?

One of our main grouse every day is the commuting that we have to make to reach our office. As we have now reached the year 2012, I am wondering about the need for the existence of office. If we dissect the television series The Office, in a situation where people comes to their office which sells paper, the series never look like that the office ever need to exist. The people keep on coming and going. The people is always out to sell the paper. The account department can exist anywhere as long as the record of transactions are kept.

What do we use office for? We use it to type out our work. We need computers for that. We have mobile devices for that. Laptops and tablets. Computers can be linked securely virtually with each other, right? Google and IBM have tools for that if I am not mistaken? Storage space? Isn't cloud computing the thing everyone should jump on at the moment? How about meeting? Can't work be distributed among the staff with use of emails and meetings be about "Where are we now?" than the need to sit down and ask everyone how their work is going. Even my own legal firm rarely got visitors as we always meet client at wherever is convenient for them.

I think we are too traditional whenever we think of the existence of office as a need. We have the biggest businesses in the world like Google and Apple which use office as playgrounds. We have people feeding businesses in the world like Starbucks and McDonald's as they congregate there to hold meetings. When I was writing my books, I tend to go out and write them at whatever cafes I can find. My house has an office which my wife uses more than me as I use sofas and lounge chair to do any work done.

The only institution which I consider really needs an office or buildings are banks. Offices or buildings for banks or financial institutions are more than just offices. They are assets as they can't actually holds money as assets as the thing they trade in money. Then, there is still the issue whether we need real fiat money to transact which is another issue altogether. Maybe storage is an issue like my legal firm which has to deal with such matters. The only thing that makes me wonder is if everyone is not going to office anymore and have offices in their houses, why do property developers still keep on building offices?

All this issue about the need for an office is boils down to the fact of a new social media start-up of mine. Which has an office but does not really being used. So, I am going to add a few items to make into a playground or more of a hangout place. As it is a penthouse which has a nice view,  I want it to be a barbeque place with pool table inside and beanie bags all around.

Isn't work is for you to make money and survive the world? Then, why has it become a thing we live for? I long for the day we make a living out just so that we can feed ourselves and not die of starvation.