A Japanese amusement park has found the antidote to workplace monotony, something adults have been struggling with since the coronavirus pandemic forced millions to work from home.
Yomiuriland Amusement Park, located outside of Tokyo, is renting out Ferris wheel seats styled as cubicles, for the ultimate “office space” with a view, as well as free WiFi, CBS News’ Lucy Craft reports.
“Lots of users told us, the time just flew by,” park spokesman Yu Okutani said in Japanese.
For an $18 ticket, customers get a poolside lounge chair along with a one-hour rotation that takes them up to 500 feet in the air.
Among the riders so far was online events manager Seiichi Asai, who took a Zoom call while up in the air.
“My coworkers said it looked like I was on vacation. They were jealous,” he said.
The amusement park features dozens of other rides, but very few are suited to desk work.
“The roller coaster and merry-go-round are not laptop-friendly,” Okutani said. “We advise customers to ride these when they take a break from work.”
Meanwhile, Japan’s thousands of cheap, rent-by-the-hour karaoke rooms are being repurposed as well.
A “Big Echo” karaoke outlet in downtown Tokyo is seeing growing demand, but from white-collar workers, not amateur singers.
A meeting in one of their super-ventilated karaoke rooms instead of a coffee shop offers something new, and if work gets too intense, an employee can always belt out some tunes on the microphone.
However, one group of colleagues found just one drawback: “When we file our expense report, it’s going to look like we were loafing,” an employee said.
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