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Cubicles a Giant Mistake

Posted by Zonk on Thu Mar 09, 2006 04:13 PM
from the we-already-knew-that dept.
Businesses Technology
J to the D writes "Apparently even the designer of the cubicle believes now that they are a bad idea." From the article: "After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box."

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[+] Ask Slashdot: How To Get Rid of the Cubicle? 368 comments
wikinerd writes "How can we get rid of the widely hated cubicle and its ugly cousin, the stressing open-plan office? Some business owners and managers cannot understand the advantages of teleworking, different office layouts, or the morale benefits of private offices with Aeron chairs. There are still people in high positions who seem to think that stuffing a bunch of engineers into a noisy landscaped office is the best way to organize a company. It is not, and we all know it, but can we prove it? How can we communicate to them the fact that living in a groundhog warren is bad not only for the engineers, but also for the organization?"
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  • Stuff that Matters... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slipgrid (938571) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:14PM (#14885721)
    (http://1fp.us/ | Last Journal: Friday March 10 2006, @11:22PM)
    My cubicles walls help give me more free time to spend on Slashdot... And, that's Stuff that Matters...

  • Just Another Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tverbeek (457094) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:14PM (#14885725)
    (http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/)
    Like any tool, the fault isn't the tool but the people using it. I've worked in (and helped design) some "cubicles" that were closer to Propst's vision... less a cubicle farm than a garden. They beat working in a doored, fully-walled office, and definitely were better than what used to come before them (rows and columns of desks, one-room-schoolhouse style).

    • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mordors9 (665662) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:42PM (#14886004)
      But there is also human nature. Someone hidden behind any sort of wall MAY take the opportunity to goof off. Having said that, the fault then really lies with management. They have to recruit good people, train the people properly, motivate them and reward them for good performance. It doesn't matter if there are cubicles, offices or an open area. We are all adults working together to reach the obejctive.
      [ Parent ]

    • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Abcd1234 (188840) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:55PM (#14886136)
      (http://del.icio.us/Abcd1234/)
      They beat working in a doored, fully-walled office

      You must be on crack to believe that. Anyone who works in a job that requires any kind of concentration (software development being the most obvious example) will, given the opportunity, enter a state of "flow" where they are wholly committed to the work they're doing. Many people have likely experienced this: ever start working and then suddenly realize it's already lunch time? Have you had periods where you spend a couple hours deeply focused while getting enormous amounts of work done? That's flow.

      The thing is, getting into this state requires at least 20 minutes to a half an hour, and it can be very easily disturbed by outside distractions, such as noise, conversations, etc. And any break in ones concentration just requires another 20 minutes of recovery time. Consequently, open, cubicle-style workspaces are exactly the *worst* kind of work environment for these kinds of professions. All they do is increase the amount of distraction and make it more difficult for employees to enter a proper state of flow, when they are most productive.

      This would be why I greatly favour offices over any other kind of open concept design, at least for these types of jobs. Does that mean slackers can slack off more easily? Sure. But you'll see greatly increased productivity from the quality employees, as they'll be able to get more work done due to less distraction. And for those slackers, well, the more they slack off, the more obvious it is that they're doing it, giving you the opportunity to cut out the chaff from the wheat.
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Funny)

        by RevMike (632002) <revMikeNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday March 09 2006, @05:23PM (#14886370)
        (Last Journal: Thursday January 18 2007, @09:10PM)

        Anyone who works in a job that requires any kind of concentration (software development being the most obvious example) will, given the opportunity, enter a state of "flow" where they are wholly committed to the work they're doing. Many people have likely experienced this: ever start working and then suddenly realize it's already lunch time? Have you had periods where you spend a couple hours deeply focused while getting enormous amounts of work done? That's flow.

        The thing is, getting into this state requires at least 20 minutes to a half an hour, and it can be very easily disturbed by outside distractions, such as noise, conversations, etc. And any break in ones concentration just requires another 20 minutes of recovery time. Consequently, open, cubicle-style workspaces are exactly the *worst* kind of work environment for these kinds of professions. All they do is increase the amount of distraction and make it more difficult for employees to enter a proper state of flow, when they are most productive.

        Even in a typical private office, however, there are still distractions. The telephone ringing or your neighbor speaking too loud or any of a million other things can be disturbing.

        A good compromise is to provide flexible space, cubicles for handling the normal day-to-day stuff, team rooms for collaborative work, and small private spaces with no distractions for deep solo concentration.

        Actually, lots of companies provide the third. The room is generally tiled and has a row of tiny offices equipped with porceline chairs.

        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Just Another Tool by jadavis (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @05:29PM

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)

        by kov (262834) on Thursday March 09 2006, @05:36PM (#14886508)
        At the risk of drawing derision on financial software development, we couldn't possibly do what we do with offices. When the trading desk has a problem with your software system and you're bleeding money, it's battle stations. Much easier to have a big wide open room with everyone right there madly working on the solution. More sources of input, less redundant communication. The benefits of that are too good compared to the benefits of an office -- you just have to learn how to concentrate in the middle of a battlefield, sort of like that guy in the Seven Samurai who makes himself sleep when the time's available (and only when it's available!).

        Course, we don't use cubes either, just a wide open floor with desks.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Just Another Tool by CentraSpike (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @05:38PM

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tim (686) <timr@nosPam.u.washington.edu> on Thursday March 09 2006, @05:39PM (#14886548)
        (http://btk.sf.net/)
        Anyone who works in a job that requires any kind of concentration (software development being the most obvious example) will, given the opportunity, enter a state of "flow" where they are wholly committed to the work they're doing.

        Yeah, that's nice in theory. In practice, the people most dedicated to The Flow (tm), are the antisocial, uncooperative nitwits who hole themselves up in their offices for 8+ hours each day, only to turn out piles of un-reviewed, un-documented, poorly-specified crap (whether code or otherwise).

        With no exceptions, the best tech workers I know are balanced, social people who prefer not to hole up in their offices. The best coding environment I ever worked in was a room of 6 developers, separated by bookshelves, with small break-out rooms available for truly private conversations. Of course, you do actually have to like your coworkers for a setup like that to work, but I digress....
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Just Another Tool by Abcd1234 (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @05:56PM
        • Re:Just Another Tool by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @06:19PM
        • Hip hip hoorah. by crovira (Score:3) Thursday March 09 2006, @08:27PM

        • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Insightful)

          by aeoo (568706) on Friday March 10 2006, @12:33AM (#14888778)
          (Last Journal: Friday January 13 2006, @01:30AM)
          Ah, you should open up your mind more.

          I've had from about 1000 friends (not kidding) to almost none. I'm not this or that. I'm not social or anti-social. Sometimes I chat up almost anyone, and other times I want my space. Sometimes I am a party/clown type fool and others times I'm serious. Don't stick me with your idiotic labels just because you didn't have the priviledge to know me for more than 3 years, please.

          Right now I work in a cube. I love talking to others. Right now. I am not obligated to keep loving it. I am not obligated to hate it. And here's the kicker, I still enter the zone! Even in a social situation I can be as focused as anyone in a completely isolated and sound-proof office. AND it doesn't stop me from being able to chat with my cube buddies once in a while, or maybe a lot on some days. Or maybe not at all on others.

          For Pete's sake, just stop stereotyping. The zone, social, anti-social, good, bad, asshole, nice, it's not how you imagine. It's really not. It only seems you got it nailed down. But once you start asking yourself tough questions and start being really observant, you'll see that people are individuals and that many qualities you previously thought to be exclusive are not necessarily exclusive.

          Someone in an office can be very friendly and social. Someone in a cube farm or in a completely open environment can be able to enter the zone. Someone who can enter the zone can be very considerate of others. Someone who is a socialite could be an inconsiderate and narcisistic asshole. And so on. Just because you talk to others a lot and get your code reviewed doesn't mean you write good code. You might be stupid and resistant to change, no matter how much your code gets reviewed. The reviewers might be idiots. It's really, really hard to say. It's very context/situation dependent. And please, I am not trying to know code reviews -- I love open source and I constantly solicit reviews of my own code, even though code review is not even a policy in my workplace.

          In a word, just try to grow an open mind. Please. For all of us! Not just for your own sake.
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Just Another Tool by msuzio (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @01:11PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Informative)

        by fm6 (162816) on Thursday March 09 2006, @05:41PM (#14886580)
        (http://picknit.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday July 29 2006, @03:58PM)
        That's funny. I work at a company where almost everybody has a private office. And yet lots of people go home to work to get away from the distractions!

        The way to eliminate distractions is not to build walls, but to build awareness of people's needs. People need to be aware of how the noise they make affects others. That's not just important in cube land — somebody with a nasty case of "cell phone shout" can reach through walls!

        [ Parent ]

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Usquebaugh (230216) on Thursday March 09 2006, @06:01PM (#14886754)
        I'm just starting to experiment with sensory deprivation at work. I'm using a set of the monitors in glasses and also a set of ear defenders with an old set of mini headphones embedded.

        It's going pretty well and I can pretty much stay in the flow no matter what. Although I do worry about the fire alarms. Next I'm going to try a recliner.

        Ideally I'd like to dump the keyboard and mouse, but I can't think how.

        I'm much better at getting through work, although my wierdness factor is just gone up an order of magnitude.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Just Another Tool by teece (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @06:25PM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @07:15PM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @07:25PM

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ltbarcly (398259) on Thursday March 09 2006, @07:58PM (#14887593)
        Actually, that isn't 'flow'. It's Attention Deficit Disorder. It's very, very common among computer programmers, as intelligent people with ADD will self select CS because the instant feedback gives an immediate reward for concentration, and therefore they feel more successful at computer work than other endeavors.

        See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus [wikipedia.org]
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Just Another Tool by xiewadu (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @09:50PM
        • SNAP!!!

          Yes, if you are easily distracted, have trouble getting into a mental/emotional state where you can work and think clearly, and once in "the zone" you are hyperfocused on your goal, then you may have ADD. It might be associated with hyperactivity, or with inattention/phasing out. In my case, it's associated with an astonishingly small amount of mental RAM and extreme sluggishness in the morning before my first dose of (no I don't believe in Xenu) drugs.

          If you're a coffee addict or smoker, and you feel large amounts of these stimulants help you to function normally (and when you try to come off them you just CAN'T), that's more evidence that ADD may be responsible. Ask your doctor for a referral to a (good) psychiatrist!

          By the way, ADD can be successfully managed with a lot less drugs and a lot more yoga, and it has been associated with people like Einstein who clearly had a "nerd personality" but definitely not ASD. So it's not a delinquency/criminal illness and it's not mental retardation and it's DEFINITELY not an excuse for lazy people to get high! (I am a Buddhist and I hate drugs - I won't even take strong herbs without a doctor's orders.) Actually, there's often a genetic cause and usually related to the ASD gene (but with a different expression in brain function).

          Bring on the pink Hello Kitty labcoat for use in all those laser labs where my sparkly things are banned!

          xx
          Rocket
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Just Another Tool by pembo13 (Score:1) Friday March 10 2006, @12:15AM
        • Re:Just Another Tool by bit01 (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @08:57AM
        • Non-medical folk with poor logic skills. by sarkeizen (Score:1) Saturday March 11 2006, @07:14AM
        • Re:Attention Deficit Disorder is Drug Marketing pl by ltbarcly (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @07:05AM
        • Re:Just Another Tool by ltbarcly (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @12:49PM
        • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.

      • Re:Just Another Tool (Score:4, Interesting)

        by eric76 (679787) on Thursday March 09 2006, @08:26PM (#14887748)
        I now have two offices. Both are in the same building about 30 feet from each other.

        The larger office is my public office. It used to be a conference room but is now packed with book shelves, a several tables and desks, and a number of computers. Any more, I spend about three fourths of my workday in it.

        The smaller, private office is very quiet. It is well insulated and has no telephone. It has a large comfortable easy chair pushed up to a desk with a couple of computers and a monitor. It also has a CD player and small speakers, but I hardly turn it on. Everyone knows to bother me there only if it is really important.

        I can usually accomplish more software development work in two uninterrupted hours in the private office than I can in 8 hours in the public office.

        All it takes is one or two interruptions in that two hours and my productivity drops to about the same as in the public office.
        [ Parent ]
      • Coffee flow by Trejkaz (Score:3) Thursday March 09 2006, @08:57PM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @09:37PM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by DerekLyons (Score:3) Thursday March 09 2006, @11:30PM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by klept (Score:1) Friday March 10 2006, @12:00AM
      • Re:Just Another Tool by moro_666 (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @09:24AM
      • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Just Another Tool by Total_Wimp (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @05:53PM
    • Re:Just Another Tool by Jeff DeMaagd (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @06:15PM
    • Re:Just Another Tool by Darby (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @09:10PM
  • Without cubes, we never would have been given Dilbert, Office Space or User Friendly. Cubes aint all that bad!

  • Cubicles are Cubs Fans ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:15PM (#14885728)
    Cubicles are Cubs Fans who sit in their ice-cold stadium
  • In other words ... by tomhudson (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @04:17PM

  • cubicles are great for raising livestock (Score:5, Funny)

    by swschrad (312009) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:17PM (#14885749)
    (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday April 16 2007, @01:18PM)
    tell me you all aren't pumped full of donuts, chained to the desk, allowed to get big and fat, and then sold for slaughter right before the holidays....

  • I agree completely! (Score:5, Funny)

    by rob_squared (821479) <rob.squared@gmail3.14159.com minus pi> on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:17PM (#14885753)
    To remedy this, I suggest corner window offices for all office employees.

  • Easy fix... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS (313647) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:18PM (#14885755)
    (http://nymphs.org/)
    We just move to icosahedronicles.

  • What the dead believe (Score:5, Informative)

    by liveinthewire (648556) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:18PM (#14885759)
    "even the designer of the cubicle believes now that they are a bad idea."

    Unlikely, since he's been dead for several years.

  • Oh dear god no (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:18PM (#14885760)
    Open plan is even worse, jesus christ I can't bear open plan, oh dear god please don't make me go back to open plan, please!
    • Re:Oh dear god no by djdavetrouble (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @04:23PM

    • Re:Oh dear god no (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mykdavies (1369) on Thursday March 09 2006, @06:49PM (#14887097)
      I find open plan by far the best working environment for concentrating: being part of the environment means that I can let it all pass me by without breaking my concentration. If you hear a thud, you can just glance over, see that one of your colleagues has knocked over the water-cooler, and carry on working without breaking the flow. The buzz of background noise means that no noise really stands out - unlike say a library, where the noise of the person shuffling their papers may lead you to want to kill.

      Of course it works the other way as well - if you really needed a break at the point where the water-cooler toppled, what better excuse could you have?

      Perhaps you've never worked in a well-planned open-plan environment? I'm used to offices with sufficient space, lots of noise-absorbent material, and laid out so that you never have more than 10-15 people in direct sight.

      This [findarticles.com] article is a bit wanky, but makes some interesting points towards the end about the effectiveness of the environment (BA's headquarters at Waterside, a building I've worked at) being dependent on the motivation of the management team. This article [knowledgeboard.com] is an interesting review of how office layout can affect your team's effectiveness. Both well worth a read.

      Cheers, Mike
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Oh dear god no by zoid.com (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @07:56PM

  • Don't have that problem... (Score:5, Funny)

    by creimer (824291) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:18PM (#14885761)
    (http://www.creimer.ws/ | Last Journal: Friday January 26 2007, @12:40PM)
    ... theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them ...

    What if your work is in front of you, behind you, on both sides of you, and even hanging above you like a 100-ton anvil? Some cubicles are death traps waiting to happen. Especially if you got a Star Trek nut in a cube.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

  • Too little, too late (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AusIV (950840) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:18PM (#14885762)
    Unfortunately, stating that it was a bad idea decades after the fact does nothing for the poor beings trapped in these small cages.

  • Of course they are a bad idea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaveV1.0 (203135) <slashdot.veillon@us> on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:19PM (#14885768)
    (Last Journal: Tuesday July 15 2003, @11:13AM)
    Do you have any idea how hard it is to goofy off properly with people walking by?

    It bothers me even when I actually doing work.

    And here comes someone now.....
    • Goofy Off? by Bob Cat - NYMPHS (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @04:47PM

  • From the perspective of a new cube monkey... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeRT (947531) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:20PM (#14885779)
    (http://www.codemonkeyramblings.com/)
    My first real programming job had me working in a lab with a few other students at an internship. We worked in an environment where we could all see what we were doing because of the total lack of privacy. Now that I am a graduate and a cube monkey, what I see is that cubicles offer the worst of both worlds. They give people the illusion of privacy, which is why a lot of people look at porn at work, and it also makes it much more casual to walk in and engage in idle chit chat since you have no door to knock on or authenticate access to.

    Cubicles are, however, a very good way to cheaply maximize space use because you don't have to build the walls, buy the doors and install the windows that are, well, kind of par for the course with having a bonafide office of your own.

  • Not quite true (Score:5, Informative)

    by WindBourne (631190) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:21PM (#14885789)
    (Last Journal: Friday December 01 2006, @10:51AM)
    Some of the other articles speak about that he still likes the cubicles. What he objects to, is small cubicles. When he designed it, they were about the size of a standard office. Now, they are about 1/6 to 1/8 of the size of an office. Big difference.

  • My personal opinion... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ErichTheRed (39327) on Thursday March 09 2006, @04:21PM (#14885792)
    I tend to agree, although don't forget that cubicles are a huge imporvement over rows and rows of desks with zero privacy whatsoever. Personally, I'd rather have an office, or at least a cubicle-sized space with a door I can close. It's very distracting for some people to hear everyone's phone conversations, music choices, etc. When I work on a problem, I tend to go lock myself in a lab or some other closed space so I can have "alone time" and carefully consider things.

    It wouldn't be hard at all to give current cubicles full-sized walls and doors. I think it would greatly improve productivity. Think of how many times you've had to listen to people talking two feet away from you while you're trying to concentrate.

    One of the main barriers to adoption is the fact that you can't oversee your staff like you can in a cubicle farm or open office. But then again, if you have to constantly watch them, do you really want them as employees? :-)
  • Now he tells me by eviloverlordx (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @04:23PM
  • Moooo by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @04:26PM
    • Re:Moooo by Forbman (Score:2) Thursday March 09 2006, @05:21PM
      • Re:Moooo by nasch (Score:1) Thursday March 09 2006, @06:06PM
    • Re:Moooo by freeweed (Score:2) Friday March 10 2006, @12:29AM