Cubicles a Giant Mistake

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."

Cubicles a Giant Mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha-ha, you fool. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", but only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a nerd, when *first post* is on the line.".
Hahahahahah.

[Vizzini falls over dead]

Stuff that Matters...

[Slipgrid]

My cubicles walls help give me more free time to spend on Slashdot... And, that's Stuff that Matters...

Now wait just a minute...

[PenguinBoyDave]

Without cubes, we never would have been given Dilbert, Office Space or User Friendly. Cubes aint all that bad!

Cubicles are Cubs Fans ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cubicles are Cubs Fans who sit in their ice-cold stadium

In other words ...

[tomhudson]

... now that he's made as much money as he can off getting people into the box, he's going to try to make more getting them back out of the box.

Considering his track record, HE should be put in a box.

cubicles are great for raising livestock

[swschrad]

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!

[rob_squared]

To remedy this, I suggest corner window offices for all office employees.

Easy fix...

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

We just move to icosahedronicles.

Don't have that problem...

[__aaclcg7560]

... 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.

Of course they are a bad idea!

[DaveV1.0]

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.....

Re:In other words ...

[timster]

He IS in a box. RTFA.

Re:What the dead believe

[mopslik]

he's been dead for several years.

You heard it here first: even brain-eating zombies hate cubicles.

You should know the sordid history of this design

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked on design of the cubicle. The original idea had us placing workers inside transparent spheres, but testing revealed some office environments devolved into crazy pinball machines or a bumper car ride from hell. Our second revision merely squared off the spheres and lowered the height for visibility. There was no long-term view to our design. We were just trying to meet a deadline.

Re:Stuff that Matters...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to your employer's http proxy logs, not for long.

Re:Windows

[HardCase]

I don't think it's practical to give everyone a corner office, but everyone _could_ have a window.

whoosh!!!!

Re:Not quite true

[wildsurf]

Now, they are about 1/6 to 1/8 of the size of an office.

"Counselor, see me in my quarte-- .. er, my sixteenths."

Re:Can we kill the paging system as well?

[corbettw]

Nothing like finally slipping into the zone to get some real work done when everybody leaves for lunch when suddenly there is the blaring overhead, "Will the owner of a black jeep please come to the front desk? Your lights are on."

Especially since, if you just wait a little while, the lights on that jeep will magically go off! It's a self-correcting problem!

Re:"Now" believes it was a mistake?

[Daniel_Staal]

No, actually it was after that. When he was welcomed to hell with open arms, and placed in his cubicle.

Though I'm not sure exactly how he got the message out to us...

Re:Bullpens are bullshit

[Cro Magnon]

It's especially bad if one of the people is a heavy Coke drinker. The sound of the pop tops opening! The coughing when he swallows wrong! The loud burping!!

I don't know how my cubemates could stand it.

I don't see how this could be

[iamdrscience]

Cubicles a Giant Mistake

Impossible. Most cubicles are very tiny, and even of those that aren't I have never seen one that could be described as "giant".

Re:From the perspective of a new cube monkey...

[Amouth]

I just picked a corner in the server room.. set up two 8ft folding tables.. used some extra file lockers as a rear wall and moved in..

everything i need is right here. shure it is a little noisy and cold.. but who cares.. no one really bothers me

Re:Windows

[Zerth]

Hell, I don't even have an office, let alone one along an outside wall, and I have a window!

In fact, nearly everybody here has a window, because the building used to be a window factory, so the previous company used their own product nearly everywhere in the construction. If it was to showcase them or to cut down on the cost of drywall, I'm not sure.

Of course most of them look out onto stairwells or warehouse shelves, but at least they are windows:)

Re:Just Another Tool

[RevMike]

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.

Les Nessman

[Derling Whirvish]

How about a strip of masking tape around you and your desk and a pretend door? Would that be any better?

Re:Windows

[Bull999999]

work better in offices with windows

This is Slashdot. I recommend that they get Linuxes instead.

Re:Windows

[StikyPad]

So you just put windows in everyone's cubicle. Problem solved.

Re:I agree completely!

[StikyPad]

Yep.. nothing worse than impromptu conference calls in the bathroom.

For the love of God, pipe down! I'm tryina take a crap over here..

Fun with cubicles

[Ratbert42]

In my office, one guy used cardboard to increase the height of his cube walls. We almost put in a masking tape / Les Nesman 4th wall and door for him, but he got moved to an office because he whined so much. Which led to everyone whining.

I did something similar to keep my chatty neighbor from driving me nuts. I started by putting up a huge whiteboard so it stuck an extra foot above the cube wall. Then he couldn't Kilroy over the wall and chat. Then I put two extra desktop machines at the end of my desk to keep him from sitting on my desk to chat. As bonuses, it blocked the view a bit more and the extra white noise drowned him out. Then I had to put an old monitor and desktop on the floor behind my chair so there was nowhere left to stand in my cube to chat. My cube looks like something from Sanford-n-Son, but it keeps people away.

Re:I agree completely!

[teklob]

I don't know why nobody pointed this out before, but having Windows in offices definately does not improve productivity. *Ducks*

Re:Just Another Tool

[That's Unpossible!]

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

True. To coin the grandparent poster, I often experience "the flow" when in these private sanctuaries.

Re:Windows

[Duhavid]

But imagine the license fees to Microsoft!

Re:Just Another Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

People that don't understand "The Flow" are nitwits who prefer to spend their time gossiping around the water cooler and talking about their golf handicap. Some of us lock ourselves down and produce very high quality work rather than treating the office like some sort of nightclub. Spend more time working and less time chatting up the girls in HR you jock.

Re:Just Another Tool

[karnal]

You should move a little to the left. No one likes it when you crap in the sink, fyi.

Re:Stuff that Matters...

[sgt_doom]

It still beats being shackled to those damn oars...I hated those Roman overseers....

Re:Just Another Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people have likely experienced this: ever start working and then suddenly realize it's already lunch time?

Only on days I don't show up to the office until around 10:30-10:45. So, yes, lots. Sometimes that half hour passes verrrrry slowly, though.

Coffee flow

[Trejkaz]

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.

I certainly enter a state of "flow" when I've had too much coffee during the day, but I'm not sure it's the kind which actually enhanced productivity.

Re:Just Another Tool

[Anonymous Coward]

On heavy flow days, I stay home and eat things with lots of salt or chocolate.

Re:Forget cubicles, go for telecommuting

[kevingolding2001]

I still dont understand why companies dont like telecommuting.

It's because most middle-level managers get paid on the basis of how many employees they have under them. In order to increase their salary, they prefer to have lots and lots of inefficient and unproductive employees rather than only a few efficient and productive ones.

It's called 'empire building'.

Dilbert comic

[nickyj]

Dilbert complains to the PHB, "Just as I thought, my cubicle is two inches smaller today than yesterday!" PHB replies, "We installed real-time status adjusters in the cubicle walls. Sensors monitor your work and adjust the cubicle size according to your value." In frame three, co-workers sit in milk-crate sized cubicles as Wally says, "It's amazing how fast you get used to it."

I can't find the original comic, but I have it printed out and stuck up on my cubical wall.