Finding office space seems to be as easy as finding an employee – it sucks. We’ve been looking for space for a while now going through the negotiating process a couple of times getting terms turned around on us from what was advertised – what I’d deem a bait and switch. It’s all frustrating. Agents don’t care to represent a company our size since the commission is so small. Landlords don’t care to make a deal so much because there are larger potential clients than little ol’ Volano. All of this detracts from our ability to actually work – which is what pays the bills after all.

But maybe we shouldn’t care about what our office space looks like? I’d like to have open houses in a space where more than seven people can stand – not to mention when we want to invite a potential client to our office for a presentation.

Or maybe we should just work remotely? I recently heard Jason Fried talk at Big Omaha about how this is what 37signals does and productivity is extremely high. I’d agree with that; I’ve spent a day here and there coding from the coffee shop and those were some of my most productive days. But we have junior coders in our shop and we want to mentor them the best we can – I would hope that the most valuable benefit we offer our employees is expanding their knowledge in software development.

So, in my mind, we’re stuck having office space – so it might as well be exactly what we want, just like finding an employee – you need to wait it out for the perfect match.