At Plexus Chicago, a reminder office life doesn't have to be a drag

You will never have to strain to hear people who extol the virtues of working from home.
"You get more done!" some say. Others enjoy the peace and quiet. Some flat just like working in their pajamas.

Yes, working outside the office has its benefits. The advances in remote connectivity allow for efficiency and productivity outside the cubicle walls. If you so choose, your office can be a coffee shop, so long as you have the proper tolerance for background noise.

But working outside the office has its drawbacks. For one, it can be more efficient to walk 10 steps to ask a co-worker for help than sending an email or a chat message.

There is also the social aspect of working -- the camaraderie between colleagues that grows when together for hours on end day after day, week after week, month after month. This manifests itself in many ways. Maybe it's asking about a team member's kids while a pot of coffee brews in the break room, or it's taking a quick lunchtime walk with a co-worker during a sunny spring day.

Those are some of the perks of working in the office.

So too is the occasional baked good.

This week, our Plexus Chicago office threw a group birthday party for associates born in January, February, March and April. There were cupcakes with candles and chocolate chip cookies.

There was also the dry-erase-board drawing you see at left, the creation of Chicago Administrative Assistant Allison Dziak, with little portraits of those with birthdays in the first four months of the year.

Working from home is nice, and there are days where commuting is for the birds. But there is a certain something about working in an office where colleagues like each other enough to gather in the kitchen and eat cupcakes.

In this case, a picture tells the story as well as words could.