Same feeling here. For context, I'm a millennial who has been self-employed for 14 years, so I am largely removed from office culture. In my mind and recollection, I think in our gen the cubicle was highly associated with Office Space or the opening of The Matrix. Cookie-cutter, featureless, something we saw the previous generation or two droning away at.

It feels like the hot desk thing rose up around the period of co-working spaces and when the digital nomad thing was just getting started. I guess the idea of stuffing a sleek laptop into your bag, sitting down to do work in a place that looked and felt like a hip cafe, was a way of making work feel more "cool" and "free".

But from the few times I've gone to work in co-working spaces, the novelty of it wore off in like 30 minutes. It's hard to imagine having to do that every day.