The Curse of a New Building

A friend of mine who has created several successful non-profit organizations adds a "no buildings" clause to the bylaws of every new organization he creates.<p>He believes that once non-profit organizations accumulate some capital, the first thing they do is build a big new building, and that's the beginning of a downhill slide.

It was the money ("our sales skyrocketed") that changed the company culture, not the building. It isn't hard to maintain an atmosphere of egality and shared sacrifice when there's no money to go around. Once the company is flush with profits, the founders are looking at a big payoff, and management is drawing full salaries, telling employees to continue on as if nothing as changed will eventually lead to discontent. Building a new office probably seemed like the easiest way to address all the complaints that had arisen after the company ceased being a startup, and became a success.

My old company did the opposite of this. As they expanded, they built worse and worse office environments. I started out in a nice 10x10 cube, and ended up in a 5x5 low-walled cube, on an 'expansion floor'.<p>After I quit, the primary building tenant moved to a new building, and the company I had had worked for became primary. This auspicious event was marked by the building cafeteria (fairly decent as these things go) shutting down, so not even hot food was available.<p>So yeah, not all companies get better digs as they expand.

On the other hand, I wouldn't want to work long hours in a cramped, smelly cubicle on a second-hand half-broken chair when the company is wading in cash.<p>"Good programmers are not motivated by material needs" and yada yada, but we <i>really</i> don't like feeling exploited.

Very true. Just moving everybody into their own offices can destroy interaction. Its as bad as communicating solely by email.

Can someone explain "tiltup" ?