The Intern Who Redesigned the Office

Idris Calloway: This is The RightUp, and I'm Idris Calloway. Picture a studio handing its entire physical space to its newest hire. One month, no oversight, no budget cap, and the partners abroad for two weeks with no way to undo anything. Lena Sato was that hire. Lena, welcome.

Lena Sato: Thank you. I was three weeks into the job when they told me.

Idris Calloway: What was your first thought?

Lena Sato: Honestly, that it was a test I was supposed to refuse. It wasn't.

Idris Calloway: So where did you start?

Lena Sato: I watched how people actually worked for five days before moving a single desk. Nobody used the meeting room. Everyone took calls in the stairwell.

Idris Calloway: And what did you change?

Lena Sato: I took out the meeting room and built four small phone booths. I moved the partners' desks into the middle of the floor, and I put the model workshop right by the entrance, so clients walk past the work first.

Idris Calloway: How did the partners react when they came back?

Lena Sato: One of them loved the booths. The other one hated sitting in the middle, and said so, for about a week. Then he stopped mentioning it.

Idris Calloway: So not what anyone expected.

Lena Sato: In either direction. We lost the big table, and people did miss it. But the stairwell is quiet now.

Idris Calloway: Lena Sato, thank you. That's The Intern Who Redesigned the Office, on The RightUp.