As the comic strip character, Dilbert, so succinctly put it, “Welcome to my cubicle hell.”
Work cubicles help companies recoup costs of expensively leased office buildings by cramming in more employees per square foot than “Cheeseheads” at a Green Bay Packer game.
A cubicle cannot be considered an office. An office cube’s drab blue or gray walls are only eye-high, doing little to preserve the privacy of the workers or to block out the sound of a neighboring employee’s annoying habit of snuffling his nose or clearing his throat every two minutes. Cubicle engineers favor the alphabet letters, “L” and “U,” and use them most often to design the interior configuration of cubes.
Most cubicles house two “cube-mates” in an 8’ x 10’ space. Each worker has the requisite computer consisting of a CPU (desktop or tower), over-sized monitor, extended keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, and wrist pad. Some computers also sport a woofer, usually placed on the floor, and two speakers located on either side of the monitor. The cubicle is already crowded, without even considering necessary workspace or other peripherals.
Next, employees need something to sit on. So now let’s squeeze in two ergonomically designed high-backed office chairs with arms. To avoid collisions, careful chair “dances” must be choreographed and executed by both cube occupants. Some reported chair crashes have been blamed for debilitating work-related whiplash, and consequently, days of lost work and sometimes temporary or long-term disability.
Two telephones per cubicle times 24 cubes per module equal 48 phones, all with the potential of jangling at once – cacophony to say the least. It’s like the close of a trading day on Wall Street. Attempting to hear the caller, trying to placate him coherently and courteously, and simultaneously dodging a cube-mate’s chair create an Indy 500 atmosphere filled with frustration, mental fatigue, and downright fear.
After installing the space-gobbling Computer & Co., desk space amounts to usually no more than two or three feet (if that!). Leg room is negligible. Gouged and bruised knees result from designers placing the regulation slide-out pencil drawer at the center of the “leg hole,” barely about knee level. Floor space beneath the work area diminishes by the addition of an adjustable footrest (optional). Add to the computer cables, telephone wires and power strips: now the floor becomes a minefield of potentially fatal jolts of electricity should the equipment ever short-circuit.
Counter space is also reduced by in/out baskets, desk organizers containing pens, pencils, scissors, rulers, paper clips, and the indispensable Post-It and telephone message pads. A plant, artificial or real, sometimes may be squeezed in for a touch of greenery to brighten the otherwise depressing décor. Behind and above the counter, attached to the walls by adjustable vertical metal rails, are padded, cloth-covered horizontal 15” strips for displaying company memos, holiday schedules, business cards, or personal photos, making the cube “homey.” Upper wall cabinets, resembling airplane overhead compartments, hang from the same metal rails, providing lockable storage space for each worker. When opened suddenly, these cabinets can cause serious bodily injury; notebook and files fly out with the deadliness and precision of Scud missiles.
A white board is usually installed on the only cube wall left and must be shared. Great anguish and resentment can result when one cube-mate demonstrates white-board hog-like behavior. Consider drawing a vertical line down the center of the white board; this sets boundaries and helps to prevent one cube-mate from writing an unusually long sentence or equation, imposing upon the white space allotted to cube-mate #2.
The opening to the cubicle is small: employees must enter or exit one at a time. Visitors to the cube gobble up precious oxygen; therefore, hyperventilation by one or all occupants may occur. Set a time limit when visitations must end. Brown paper bags are standard issue.
Outside the cube, nameplates are attached by Velcro. This allows interchangeability of workers should pressures become too much, causing the “going postal” syndrome – immediate grounds for termination. A nameplate comes down; a new one goes up.
Welcome to Corporate America.
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