How does one come up with the idea to move into his office?

The short answer is: Gradually.

When you are a child, you might overhear a classmate ask the teacher if she lives at school. During your first job at a waterpark, you might sneak into the premises late at night to ride the waterslides. After college, you might backpack across Europe on minimal funds, waiting until after sunset before finally figuring out where you’ll sleep for free that night. These are all situations that challenge convention. The defiance of principle that begs the question: Do we really need the principle in the first place?

Stumbling into my office one evening after an evening event, I rediscovered that verve within me. It was the relative tranquility of the place, its lack of atmospheric interference, its gaping availability. Clearly this space was being underutilized.

At the time, I was dating a lovely, independent girl who, as luck would have it, tended to humor my whims and oddities. So when I surfaced the idea to Shani, I expected a chuckle and her kind contribution of a few minutes of open ears to get this idea out of my system. I explained to her that I was considering living rent-free. That, I don’t know, maybe I could sleep in my car, rent a storage unit, and subsist on a Subway and burrito diet. Or, actually, the other night… I don’t know… Maybe I the office–I could sleep there.

It didn’t go over quite as well as I’d planned.

When Shani and I went our separate ways, the idea began to fester even more. And without a lovely lady in my life to stop me, it didn’t take long before the idea became a plan, and the plan took hold. The veritable straw that broke the camel’s back came during a 3-week period in the summer of 2012. In that short time I experienced identity theft, unplanned medical costs, the indefinite delay of an expected salary increase, and the freeze of a performance bonus. All of this while weathering the usual challenges of student debt, car loan payments, and rising rent. In order to stave off the prospect of debt, I’d have to make some serious sacrifices.

The obvious sacrifice became my apartment.

Within twenty-four hours of getting the bill for surgery, I posted an ad to sublease my apartment. A week later, I’d have to vacate my place and enter the unknown.

And with that, the experiment was underway.

– TOH