How To Get Rid of the Cubicle? 368
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?"
fp (Score:4, Funny)
Re:fp (Score:4, Funny)
I want my own office!
Simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
I would speak to "them" with your voice (mouth, tongue, voal cords, et. al), either in person, or via telephone. Barring that, I would use a written format, such as "email" or "letter", in a lanugage that "them" would readily comprehend.
Are there some other, hidden, secret forms of communication that I'm missing, here?
One argument *for* cubicles (Score:5, Funny)
Years ago, our company had an office that was fairly low-rent, and didn't have cubicles. We just set up some desks around the edges of the office space, and some in the middle. One of the coders, in particular, had his desk facing the wall, and everyone in the room could see what was on him monitor.
This same coder had his email client set to automatically open new messages. Yes, you can guess what it coming - one day, right after he left for lunch, he received some porn spam. Not just any porn spam, but some pretty far-out stuff, the kind that even most people who like porn wouldn't go for. The next person to walk past his desk was the VP of the company...
Re:fp (Score:2, Funny)
9 of 10 people with office browse the internet for more than 1 hour per day
The rest doesnt know how to open the browser
Private Offices and Open Plan Offices (Score:5, Funny)
1) Showing higher status
2) Shagging the Intern/Teenage Junior
3) Surfing on the internet without being spotted by other employees
4) Playing music in
5) Watching TV in
6) Sleeping in
Open Plan Offices
1) being forced to do what you are paid to do as long as someone else is bothered to monitor your activity
2) Daydreaming about Orgies involving all the teenage interns and juniors until interupted by supervisor for not looking like focused on work
3) Chair Races when supervisor in toilet
4) Smelling other people's farts
5) Organising fag breaks
6) Discussing last night's TV, night out or spousal problems.
A modest proposal to deal with open space offices (Score:5, Funny)
- Whenever you're on a business trip abroad, buy small plush toys at the airport to make gifts for your co-workers.
- When you've done enough trips, everybody has at least one plus toy on its desk
- Twice a day (possibly more), when the project manager is out of the room, yell : "PLUUUUUUUUUUUUSH FIGHT !"
- Enjoy as the plush toys begin flying around.
- If this does not decide your manager to create smaller, separated offices, at least it's a good way to have fun.
;-)
This is really what happened daily a few years ago when I was working with some 20 other co-workers in an open space lab. Oh, and the fact that most of us were under 30 *did* help us enjoy itDon't They Know I'm Trustworthy? (Score:3, Funny)
Thank god someone dared to say this.
I've been looking for an just such an environment: where I can stay home, doze in a really comfortable chair with no one around to catch me, completely refuse to interact with team members except via IMs and e-mails on my own passive aggressive schedule and justify my lack of productivity on my home ISP that's like totally unreliable so it's not my fault I wasn't even logged in all morning, let alone working. I'm never going to power level my Warcraft character if I have to keep alt-tabbing out whenever my boss walks by.
Now when will managers get a clue and realize this kind of shining future would be awesome for my morale!?
Re:One argument *for* cubicles (Score:3, Funny)
Right?
Re:Can't be done. (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a minute! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Can't be done. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:cubicles are all bad (Score:3, Funny)
That alone defeats any possible benefit of having cubes. Right now, my cube is surrounded by the most annoying people I've ever met.
One lady can't shut the fuck up, and freaks out about EVERYTHING. Her coffee's getting cold? It's the end of the fucking world! Better tell the person on the phone, or the person in the other cube, or the guy walking by.
Then there's the guy who has some kind of sinus problem. Enough said.
And the third person has some disorder where he can't tell the difference between his and other people's business. He feels it's his duty to look over people's shoulder and see what they're doing every time he walks by. Often making comments or asking questions. And god forbid you have a conversation without him. This dim-witted moron forcefully inserts himself into ANY and all conversations within earshot. He has no idea what the conversation is about, but that never stops him from trying to find out. Fucking idiot.
It'd almost be funny if it weren't driving me crazy 5 days a week.
Even worse than that (Score:3, Funny)
Fortunately for him that manager had just popped out of his office.
Cue Mission Impossible style assault on that manager's office by the employee in question, in an attempt to delete the e-mail from the manager's e-mail client while remaining hidden in case the manager returned.
Amazingly, he managed to get away with it!
Make yourself unreplacable..... (Score:5, Funny)
1. Start talking really loud.
2. Stop taking showers.
3. Fart atleast once every 10 minutes.
Good thing here is if you are located very close to your manager
Do it the Agile way... (Score:5, Funny)
Create groups of 5 co-workers strap them together with ropes back to back eliminating the need for chairs or desks.
Every morning pitch scrums against each other making them run from opposites sides of the office to clash in the middle. The team that manages to push the other team back to their side of the office gets to spend half the day eating coffee and drinking doughnuts, whilst the other team is forced to refactor all the work done by the winning team the previous day.
I think I should be writting books on this stuff.
Re:Private Offices and Open Plan Offices (Score:5, Funny)
You've just worried a lot of Americans.
Re:cubicles are all bad (Score:1, Funny)
Re:I Quit (Score:3, Funny)
As an added benefit, you can add another layer of cubicles on top of the old ones (employees must provide their own ladder).
Re:Simple solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I like open plan (Score:1, Funny)
Re:I like open plan (Score:4, Funny)
Re:One example of such a mentality... (Score:2, Funny)
I once showed my boss that if everyone was given a month's worth of postage stamps we could work from home for a ridiculously cheap amount compared to renting office space. Envelopes through the mail works out even cheaper than telecommuting!
Amazingly he didn't think that it would help his company and rejected it. Something daft worries about "no cohesion", "total lack of communication" and "impossible to supervise". Maybe your VP has the same lack of vision.