Covid-19 launched a series of “ghost offices” for apocalypse: Super-security, despite all kinds of catastrophes.

Do you still remember the September 11, 2001 terrorist event in the United States? At that time, the al-Qaeda Islamic terrorist group hijacked 4 civil aircraft and crashed into the World Trade Center Twin Towers. The disaster killed 2996 people and left 6,000 injured. After the disaster, it can be said that the whole of New York City was paralyzed. Companies and businesses are temporarily closed. Estimated total economic losses amounted to USD 3,000 billion.

And also after this event, the construction industry suddenly appeared a new design. Those are the offices used to fight big disasters.

The 9/11 event opens the trend of building reserve offices.

Secure and super “clean” during the epidemic season

The Office of Great Disaster Prevention is a kind of reserve office. It can only be used in the event of a disaster.

The world is currently in pandemic Covid-19. The number of people killed and infected with Covid-19 is increasing day by day, many places enforce blockade. From schools to companies, corporations are temporarily closed. Many employees are allowed to work remotely at home.

However, for businesses that already have a reserve office, there’s nothing to worry about.

The reserve office is always full of facilities, ready to welcome staff

According to Sungard Av Available Services (USA), a global reserve office building group, they have built a total of 60 reserve offices in 9 countries, including the UK, the US and India – three countries are wobbly for Covid-19.

For security reasons, Sungard refused to disclose the location and customers of backup offices. In the UK, however, they say there is a reserve office building for rent on Southwark Bridge, London. It is divided into several rooms, a total of about 1700 desks.

Office buildings are usually built in secret places and are durable materials

In the context of the epidemic season, each backup office is fully equipped with disinfectant solution. The cleaning staff is available 24/7, dividing the inspection shift and cleaning continuously, making sure not to get a single dust. Customers who use the backup office must also adhere to strict hygiene regulations.

Super solid, comfortable, guaranteed despite all kinds of great disasters

The first condition of the reserve office is to be extremely solid, guaranteed regardless of natural disasters or bombs. Some took advantage of military bunkers and bunkers during the war. According to the consultant for the design of the great disaster response office David Teed (USA), most of the offices are built in secret places, away from crowded residential areas.

The appearance of this type of office is nothing special. They may be built underground or on the ground, but there are no signs or instructions. As the technology company Corus360 (USA) has an office built in Norcross, Georgia. It is large enough to place 150 desks, designed semi-underground.

The walls of this building are extremely thick concrete, while the roof is made of super-strong material, does not accelerate even before the wind is over 160km / h. Below the floor, there is a backup generator system with enough fuel for 48 hours continuously. Corus360 also prepares a bathroom with a shower, serving staff to stay when needed.

Besides building a backup office similar to Corus360, companies can also rent or rent them together. According to Sungard Av Available Services, they have two types of office for lease: “hot office” and “cold office”.

“Hot office” is a type of office room with all necessary equipment available. Staff just sit at the table and immediately start work. “Cold office” is completely empty, tenants bring machinery and equipment to arrange and use.

The usual “ghost offices”, mostly burning maintenance costs

Before the Covid-19 season, the reserve office building for rent on Southwark Bridge, London, England was always empty. Although it has up to 3 entries, the 2 ports are always locked. Inside the offices there are only rows of desks lying dormant. Occasionally, this place is a glimpse of employees from the customer company coming to practice “disaster day work”.

This is similar to all other reserve offices in the world. Although they are built super solidly, equipped with the most advanced system, but no one uses it. So much so that people often call them “ghost offices”.

Except for construction costs (using all expensive materials), “ghost offices” also “consume” maintenance money, especially in the form of “hot office”. Because of that, the computer system is always in the booted state, pre-entered data, installed the necessary software. So, electricity alone is very much.

And yet, the “hot office” is full of all necessary office equipment. All desks are in a ready state, employees just need to step in, sit down and work. There are things because they only come when there is a great disaster, so normally everything is … abandoned.

Some experts say that the cost of building and maintaining backup offices is not necessary. Because if a catastrophe happens, companies just need to be flexible to allow employees to work from home. However, this solution is not suitable for companies with sensitive information or need fast, strong data processing speed. Therefore, Sungard Av Available Services still “foraging” effectively. In the context of Covid-19, they were “more expensive”.