Monday, December 22, 2014

Potentially brilliant idea: People lockers

Okay, this one is either going to earn someone a million dollars (probably not me), or just be one of the silliest things I've ever thought of in my life.  Or, someone else is already doing it and I'm just late to the party:

Lockers for people.

You know how you can go to various public places and "rent" a locker for your bags, so they can be safely stored while you go off and do sundry things unencumbered by your goods and chattels?

What it if was possible to rent a locker the size of a narrow single bed, so you could lock yourself away for a nap?

I'm not talking about a pod hotel, or any of that sort of thing.  This won't have any "amenities".  Just a bed - more or less in a cupboard - and about as much head-clearance as you'd get on the bottom bunk of a set of bunk beds.

Singapore's Pod Hotel
Kind of like the really budget level rooms you can find in the Pod Hotel in Singapore, but not actually a hotel.  And way downmarket.  You'd find these things attached to gyms and train stations, or on university campuses.  Or in the same sorts of places you'd find laundromats.

I see it as being something so basic that it wouldn't even involve sheets.  The mattress would be covered in some sort of vinyl that could be easily wiped clean by an attendant.  You can bring your own sleeping bag/liner and travel pillow if you want niceties, or rent something from the attendant.

This isn't for a proper overnight stay, either.  This is for that siesta-type sleep.  You'd hire the locker for half an hour or an hour, lock yourself in the cupboard for a short kip, then use the nearby public "washroom" to freshen up before going back to work or tackling the afternoon's classes.

I've often felt that buildings need nap rooms.

Sometimes you just really need to crash for twenty minutes or so in order to keep functioning somewhat coherently during the day, but there's nowhere really to do that.

In Southern Europe, everyone goes home for two hours at lunchtime in order to get that mid-day snooze into the system, but those of us who were colonised by Britain only get about an hour or so for lunch - and with commute times and what have you, that isn't enough time to get home, let alone eat lunch and catch a nap.

But, if these little nap pods existed, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to just have a sleeping bag at your desk and hire a locker for your nap break.

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