Maggie says:
I've only had one cubicle job in my life, and I hated it. It was a single cubicle in a huge Wal-mart-sized room full of cubicles. I was an ant using company e-mail. A bee buzzing back and forth to the copier. Never again, I swore.
I'm used to communal office space where coworkers can see each other, where we share resources and laughter and make faces at each other over our laptops. But also where we brainstorm together, take notes on flipcharts and chalkboards, and spread out our working materials so we can all look at them together. In collaboration, great work is born.
Did I mention I watched Office Space four times in the last week?
Starting a new job soon, and I'm pretty sure I'll be in a cube. Such is life, perhaps. At least in planning the whole point is that we're out in the community, not at a desk all day. Right? Right?
Anyway, there's a surprisingly fascinating article today in Fortune of all places. In Cubicles: The Great Mistake, it's described how cubicle inventor Robert Propst came to malign his own creation before his death. What began as an inspiration for increased productivity is now "the Fidel Castro of office furniture," seemingly undying in the face of change all around it.
"The Action Office wasn't conceived to cram a lot of people into little space," says Joe Schwartz, Herman Miller's former marketing chief, who helped launch the system in 1968. "It was driven that way by economics."
Economics was the one thing Propst had failed to take into account. But it was also what triggered the cubicle's runaway success. Around the time the Action Office was born, a growing breed of white-collar workers, whose job titles fell between secretary and boss, was swelling the workforce. Also, real estate prices were rising, as was the cost of reconfiguring office buildings, making the physical office a drag on the corporate budget. Cubicles, or "systems furniture," as they are euphemistically called, offered a cheaper alternative for redoing the floorplan.
Designer Douglas Bell recalls the letdown after seeing his vision in action. "I thought I'd be excited, but I came out depressed. It was Dilbertville. I'd failed to visualize what it would look like when there were so many of them."
Cubicle backlash has been going on for years, from Peter Gibbons and Milton to Dilbert to hordes of folks choosing to work from home if the option exists rather than being squirreled into their boxy workspace. And as the Fortune article suggests, although new office systems are being developed by the latest innovators, the cube isn't going anywhere.
I can't help but think of the planning parallels here. How far removed are dozens of workers caged in tiny cubicles from dozens of families housed in matching starter homes in sprawling new bedroom communities? In both cases, interaction is discouraged. Privacy is king. The mantra of "this is mine" rules. And in both scenarios, we compete in a fervor for resources without anyone winning at all. But in our most honest moments, can't we admit that neither the Westside starter home nor the jam-packed cubicle is the American Dream?
Propst is right: down with his cube. Bring on the loud newsroom-style offices of yesterday. Bring on interaction and free-flowing information exchange. Bring on engagement!
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