Cubicle, oh cubicle, how I miss thee ...

[aja8888]

I'll bet no one remembers days before the cubicle wall was invented:

PT-AP668_manage_G_20100820153607.jpg

open-plan-office-in-the-1920s-C4532F.jpg

[nuisance]

When we moved into a new building with an open floorplan, I was responsible for occasional server maintenance and provisioning. I had some supplies related to that, and they didn't fit on my newly assigned desk, so I dumped them on the desk next to mine. That lasted until I left. :-) I never tried too hard to keep that extra desk clean and organized.

[unclemick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffInSeattle Until recently my workplace at a large company was a sea of cubicles. But they were pretty nice; 10 x 10 feet with privacy (tall walls) and autonomy; I filled mine with my photos (big hobby). And the overall layout was good in terms of team collaboration ... but we all had our own sacred domains. I'm an electronics hardware engineer, so my cube was also my lab, with microscope, soldering station, network analyzer, oscilloscopes, power supplies, components, wires ... which equals "home" for me. Then some very senior manager got the open floor plan bug. Now we all sit in 7 x 7 foot stalls, with low partitions, ending any semblance of privacy. The place looks like an Ikea showroom. And the distractions of overheard conversations, people walking by, and the sense that the guy behind you is looking at your monitor, is the pits. Not enough room for my gear, so we use a communal lab area, much less convenient. I'm the most senior engineer in the company but my work space is now the same as a call center employee's. THE GOOD NEWS: Next week is my last. At age 61 I'm out of there as of January 2. Given the above, it's just in time! Adios!!

Interesting. Circa 1966 - exact opposite. Aerospace major aircraft company. Sea of desks or drafting tables. Up to several ?hundred? per work area. At quitting time each desktop had to be completely clean with our telephone in our desk chair. As the decades went on the cubicles showed up more and more in the 1980's I had to make the mental adjustment in the opposite direction to avoid feeling isolated.

However I usually had a personal area 'in the lab' which I cluttered to my heart's content.

heh heh heh -

P.S. Style drift also - suits and ties/spiffy white lab coats - to casual Fridays - to the casual dress you see now in tech and elsewhere.

[Calico]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 I'll bet no one remembers days before the cubicle wall was invented: Attachment 27428 Attachment 27429

I remember. This looks exactly like my first j*b out of high school.

The hairstyles and clothing are older, but the furniture arrangement is exactly the same. I'm having flashbacks. {shudder}

[MRG]

My first office job in a sawmill. First I was part of the main office, that was ok. Later, due to the mud brought in from the yards I was exiled to a trailer with the logging company. It's okay too, I'm not in there often, mainly to pay for logs brought in by individual loggers.

I come in one day to write a draft for logs and there's a guy sitting at my desk. It's winter and he has torn a chainsaw apart on my desk. It was full of oil and sawdust, that's all over my stuff, in drawers and inventory files. He's actually torn the engine apart, I'm moving the piston to get to my drafts. [emoji111]

A few years later I'm an entry-level programmer at Megacorp and nobody ahead of me wants an open office. I'm sitting in a private office with a great view of the downtown KC airport. Nobody's bringing in chainsaws either.

[adrift]

During my post-university career as a programmer I went from a shared office, to a private office, to working remotely part time out of a home office. The single exception to this was a year I spent working in Japan. There, we had cubicles with walls that were about 4 feet tall. The cubicles were in a big room with perhaps 60 people.

There was usually quite a lot of noise with people talking to each other. I quickly got use to that. Occasionally, there was a conversation in English (a visitor, a couple of other gaijin, etc.). That always threw me. The general noise and Japanese conversations were not a problem. But, English conversations I always found distracting.

A month or so before I started working there, I went for a week of meetings peripherally related to what I was going to be working on. I was assigned a cubicle and I left some handouts from the meeting in a filing cabinet in the cubicle. Several months after starting work there, a security search was done and it turned out the handouts were deemed to be company confidential information. For that, I had to attend a series of disciplinary meetings about corporate security.

At the first meeting, there were perhaps 30 people. The tone of the meeting was that we had brought dishonor on the company. I was the only non-Japanese offender. But, because of me, they had to conduct the meeting in English. For both the presenter and most of the audience, this was problematic. After about 20 minutes and a bit of bowing, I was asked if I had learned enough and it was OK for me to leave. I had and I did.

[FreeBear]

I started my career in semi-private offices. I had a roommate, but also a locking door. This lasted only a few years.

In the 2000's we moved to cubes with 4 ft clear walls, but they were massive in size, perhaps 9x12 ft. Most of us youngsters preferred the open layout for collaborative purposes. It worked well for us only because of the very low seating density. The cubes were large, with very wide aisles. This cut down on the noise greatly, but you could still hear enough of others' conversations to determine if something relevant was being discussed.

Best of all, the guy in a nearby cube became my informal tech mentor and we collaborated on some amazing projects, which were the highlights of my professional career. Also, several intractable technical problems were solved when guys just stopped by a cube to shoot the bull, but ended up kicking some good ideas loose.

Some truly good memories, but it didn't last. Of course it wouldn't. They re-organized the department, and spatially exiled me from my great mentor. We never did another project together. The department was offshoring, and I FIRE'd a few years later. I spent the last 2 years hiding in my cube with my headphones on, trying to avoid BS meetings while doing busy w*rk well below my skill and pay level.

Now, I think I've re-created my own office space in the basement, complete with tons of my toys clustered around my aging workstation class computer with 30 inch monitor. So perhaps engineers don't really retire, we just start w*rking on only projects we enjoy and only w*rk with folks we like! Should have done this years ago...

Thanks all for trip down memory lane. It's much more fun now that it's over...

[Shanky]

Mid Career my office had its own bathroom, my company car was fueled and washed for me in the basement of the building. My domestic travel was corporate jet and international was business class. That industry went bankrupt. The end of my career was with a large silicon valley outfit with no assigned office space, Travel was coach. and in executive conferences we were booked two to a hotel room. Every nickel was pinched. And I felt like a contract employee even though I was a well compensated executive. It is amazing how different Fortune 50 sized companies can be surrounding perqs like offices and travel.

[FreeBear]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanky Mid Career my office had its own bathroom, my company car was fueled and washed for me in the basement of the building. My domestic travel was corporate jet and international was business class. That industry went bankrupt. The end of my career was with a large silicon valley outfit with no assigned office space, Travel was coach. and in executive conferences we were booked two to a hotel room. Every nickel was pinched. And I felt like a contract employee even though I was a well compensated executive. It is amazing how different Fortune 50 sized companies can be surrounding perqs like offices and travel.

Wow! Two bodies per hotel ROOM, not suite??

Yuck! Haven't done that for w*rk since grad school...

[socca]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffInSeattle Then some very senior manager got the open floor plan bug. Now we all sit in 7 x 7 foot stalls, with low partitions, ending any semblance of privacy.

Does productivity really improve when you plop a lone gorgeous female engineer into an open floor plan with 19 male engineers? Call me skeptical.

This thread reminds me of one of the advantages to being self-employed: being able to create your own office space. I converted the master bedroom in my house into an office; I use one of the smaller rooms as a bedroom. This gives me an executive washroom - ooh la la. If I had a wife, she would probably strongly object to my priorities regarding the utilization of space in the house, which is one of the advantages to being single.

[Yarnstormer]

Doesn’t it seem ironic that everyone is looking for adhd meds - and yet people are expected to in such distracting environments?! I really can’t work in a room with other people unless I wear earplugs or earbuds

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeBear Wow! Two bodies per hotel ROOM, not suite?? Yuck! Haven't done that for w*rk since grad school...

That would be a dealbreaker for me. I liked many of the people with whom I worked, but not THAT much- male or female!

[FreeBear]

Quote:

Originally Posted by socca This thread reminds me of one of the advantages to being self-employed: being able to create your own office space. I converted the master bedroom in my house into an office; I use one of the smaller rooms as a bedroom. This gives me an executive washroom - ooh la la. If I had a wife, she would probably strongly object to my priorities regarding the utilization of space in the house, which is one of the advantages to being single.

Some insight here. I have a DW and the master bedroom IS her office, complete with a sunny window and an executive washroom. My office is in the basement, just like the stapler guy in Office Space.

Can't complain though, we both are FIRE'd and now we do whatever we like in our home offices.

[Souschef]

When we bought our home., we got 2 semi triangular computer desks for our office. We are back to back at about a 90 degree angle. That way neither monitor is a distraction to the other person.
If need be, one or both of us put our headphones on.
Life is good

[socca]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeBear Some insight here. I have a DW and the master bedroom IS her office, complete with a sunny window and an executive washroom. My office is in the basement, just like the stapler guy in Office Space.

Future wife: "I'm taking over the master bedroom as my office. You can move your crap into the basement."

Me: "There is no basement."

Future wife: "Dig one."

[CaptTom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeBear Wow! Two bodies per hotel ROOM, not suite?? Yuck! Haven't done that for w*rk since grad school...

I've done volunteer work that involved travel paid for by Uncle Sam. Same deal, IF you're lucky enough to be put up in a hotel instead of a barracks.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeBear Wow! Two bodies per hotel ROOM, not suite?? Yuck! Haven't done that for w*rk since grad school...

Quote:

Originally Posted by athena53 That would be a dealbreaker for me. I liked many of the people with whom I worked, but not THAT much- male or female!

I did like that much a female and young engineer at megacorp, but she was in a different department. Never a chance of sharing a hotel room anyway.

[ExFlyBoy5]

Quote:

Originally Posted by socca Does productivity really improve when you plop a lone gorgeous female engineer into an open floor plan with 19 male engineers? Call me skeptical. This thread reminds me of one of the advantages to being self-employed: being able to create your own office space. I converted the master bedroom in my house into an office; I use one of the smaller rooms as a bedroom. This gives me an executive washroom - ooh la la. If I had a wife, she would probably strongly object to my priorities regarding the utilization of space in the house, which is one of the advantages to being single.

Ah, the home office! We have two areas that could be called "office" like, one upstairs that is off the LR. This is where our primary desktop (with two large monitors) is. The view is great as the large desk/table is catty corner to two large picture windows. In our furnished basement, we have a "proper office" where the DW can w*rk when she chooses to stay home. It's quite nice there, too...quiet and comfortable. The best part? No annoying people to bother us!

[kgtest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffInSeattle Until recently my workplace at a large company was a sea of cubicles. But they were pretty nice; 10 x 10 feet with privacy (tall walls) and autonomy; I filled mine with my photos (big hobby). And the overall layout was good in terms of team collaboration ... but we all had our own sacred domains. I'm an electronics hardware engineer, so my cube was also my lab, with microscope, soldering station, network analyzer, oscilloscopes, power supplies, components, wires ... which equals "home" for me. Then some very senior manager got the open floor plan bug. Now we all sit in 7 x 7 foot stalls, with low partitions, ending any semblance of privacy. The place looks like an Ikea showroom. And the distractions of overheard conversations, people walking by, and the sense that the guy behind you is looking at your monitor, is the pits. Not enough room for my gear, so we use a communal lab area, much less convenient. I'm the most senior engineer in the company but my work space is now the same as a call center employee's. THE GOOD NEWS: Next week is my last. At age 61 I'm out of there as of January 2. Given the above, it's just in time! Adios!!

We just had a sr guy quit, the day he was to move into his smaller, lesser cubicle. It does send some people packing.

I always ask in the interview if I can see the spaces I will work and collaborate in, if they don't show me, I thank them for their time.

[kgtest]

Mega moved us into a wide open table space, that was collaborative. The next day everyone came in with the biggest head phones we've ever worn. So much for collaboration. Eventually moved back to cubes, and I ended up with a view.