I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

I once worked 2nd and 3rd shift for a project that encouraged such hours because there weren&#x27;t enough servers to handle the load for everybody during the day. A few mornings around 5:00 AM I heard a weird high pitched noise but it went away before I could figure out what it was. The next time it happened, I immediately hunted it down. I narrowed it down to the men&#x27;s restroom and opened the door to find a man standing in the nude using a blow dryer. He was a contractor who had moved from another state. He had been sleeping in his truck and using the shower in the employee restroom every morning.<p>I became less enthusiastic about hunting down the source of weird noises after that.

Some years ago I worked at a large aerospace firm in the L.A. area. 20,000 people worked there and with that many people there are bound to be a few odd ones. Several lived in their cars in the parking lot. But the weirdest one was the guy who was living in the ceiling above his office. The story goes that one night a security guard noticed some movement in a hallway and went to investigate. He saw some wet footprints that led from the bathroom into an office and right up the wall. He pushed up the ceiling panel and found a room outfitted with lights, seat cushions and a sleeping bag. The guy had apparently been living up there for several months.

I used to do this when I was an executive at a software firm in Boulder, Colorado. I maintained a home in another state but commuted to Boulder every week. For a while I had a great deal on a shared condo but when the owner sold it I was faced with staying in hotels or... sleeping in my cubicle under the desk. There was a shower for employees so I would just get up early and be ready to go by 6 am. No one ever discovered me in my sleeping bag.

I read a couple of essays from googliers who did this. Google provides nearly all your needs in office- free food, recreation, laundry- save a many hour sleep spot. And people work and hang out 12, 15 hours then. So why pay high rent only to sleep and put up with terrible commute traffic. In the open office environment of new techs finding sleep spots is harder. But many sleep in their vehicles in a climate rarely freezing or roasting.

The main problem I see that led to this situation is the author picking one of the most expensive places in LA to live, Venice Beach. The author could have chosen a much less expensive (but less glamorous) area, say in Koreatown or somewhere else inland. There are lower rent areas in LA, you just need to compromise your lifestyle a bit.

Must have been pioneer in this area. A bit over ten years ago I once had a good job in Santa Monica, but was tired of paying ridiculous rent for a shoebox that I was never at. So I packed up, slept in the underground parking garage, and went to the gym every day.<p>Was in the best shape of my life and saved 40k that year, which I later turned into a 2-year trip around the world. Was definitely worth it.

I wonder what would happen if this form of housing became more popular. Maybe soon we&#x27;ll be reading accounts about two office-overnighters who inevitably found about one another.

This was not rare in college. One school had a 364&#x2F;24 library and students took over a study correl with their books and a few belongings. Others lived in closets or cars. I think the janitors knew but did not care. I did this a few times myself when there were gaps between residences and I run out of placed to crash.

It might change for me in the future, but at this point in my life commuting seems really inefficient and annoying. It&#x27;s not just the time lost while in your car (I listen to music anyway) but the stress of having to basically exist in two places.<p>I appreciated the Thoreau references in the article. Perhaps moving into my office isn&#x27;t the best simplifying solution, but it&#x27;s a nice parable for improving daily routine.

At the end of the 1980s, I worked with a guy who was forty, newly divorced after about twenty years of marriage, and out to have the early twenties that he considered he had missed. After hearing about a late-night burglar alarm once or twice in the building, I asked the programming section&#x27;s administrative assistant whether this guy was living in his office. She looked away, and didn&#x27;t want to discuss it. I don&#x27;t think that he was destitute, just thrifty. He had, he said, a twenty-one-year-old girlfriend, but I suppose he couldn&#x27;t stay with her all the time.

I lived in my car under similar-ish circumstances. Was getting a company off the ground, needed to be in Silicon Valley to raise money, was unwilling to pay $800&#x2F;month for a single terrible bedroom, and had read a lot of Thoreau and already given away almost everything I owned to vagabond around China.<p>It&#x27;s kind of a pain living on $200-300 a month, but it&#x27;s really not that bad. You start to realize that most of the stuff people spend their whole lives working to buy they don&#x27;t need. The forced routine of going to a gym is one I&#x27;ve tried not to get out of the habit of. I actually think it&#x27;s a very healthy way of life, assuming you find a way to eat well.<p>More here: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;austenallred.com&#x2F;voluntarily-homeless-in-silicon-valley&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;austenallred.com&#x2F;voluntarily-homeless-in-silicon-vall...</a><p>Now I have an apartment (am married with a baby on the way), but I put about half of what I earn into killing debt&#x2F;building a savings. I&#x27;ll be debt-free next month with 10k in the bank, having had 0 savings and 20k in debt a couple years ago. I only pay myself 50k&#x2F;yr.

Maybe companies could start offering that as a perk. Perhaps something like the Japanese Capsule Hotels? A place to sleep in the office.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Capsule_hotel" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Capsule_hotel</a>

I did that for just a little while, when going through a divorce. It was kind of fun. I had what I needed at work: shower room, place to sleep, Internet access.<p>A fridge to keep groceries and a microwave oven too.<p>I ate canned food, combined with fresh vegetables.<p>I discovered that using a microwave, you can easily bring water to a simmer in a plastic container, and by that means, you can cook pasta very nicely. (I&#x27;m sure it saves energy compared to stove top pasta boiling. It takes about ten minutes (same) and the wattage of the microwave is not only lower, but you don&#x27;t use it on full power.)<p>Toaster ovens help too. If your office doesn&#x27;t have one, just go out and buy one. You can revive a store-bought frozen casserole dish in one of those things.

I lived in a grape cooler on a grape farm for several months once (in the non-cooled part). It had a bathroom but no shower. I made one out back on a cement slab with a hose, a garden water wand and a tarp.

I&#x27;ve slept in my office a few times and could probably do it for a month or so without anyone being mad about it. I&#x27;m not a morning person at all so being first at the office is a great feeling.

One day I got into work much earlier than usual. I didn&#x27;t think anyone else was there until I started typing. A programmer who had fallen asleep in his chair awoke with a startle, then started typing himself.<p>Funnily, he always left early in the day and was lauded by his teammates for doing the hard work in the morning when no one was around so he could concentrate.

I don&#x27;t recommend doing it in a small startup in a small office where people come in early and stay late - we had someone trying to live and work nights in our office in Shoreditch years ago, and he did get noticed after a while.

There was a Doonesbury strip that did this. Seems to be too old for the doonesbury.com to have in their online archives, though.

I&#x27;ve heard people who live with their parents proclaim how great it is. They don&#x27;t have to pay rent or do their own laundry or anything us terrible materialistic people do. It&#x27;s great for saving money. For reasons that I hope would be obvious I&#x27;m not interested in that sort of &quot;lifestyle choice&quot;.<p>This guy is worse because at least people who are mooching off their parents aren&#x27;t literally stealing from them.