This is the sort of occasion you might like to celebrate by building a nice big bonfire at your workplace, but it’s worth noting that this month is the fortieth anniversary of the office cubicle. The “veal-fattening pens,” as Douglas Coupland called them, first appeared in Kansas City in 1968, and by now anyone over thirty who’s never worked in a cubicle either has a great career or a really, really bad one. Joe Schwartz was marketing director for the firm that created the first cubicles. He’s now 82, and will probably be with us for many more years because he’s not really human. According to Schwartz, “this was a wonderful concept.” From the link:
The basic idea of movable walls was a beautiful thing for employers and employees. For management, reconfiguring space could be accomplished without costly and messy drywall work. Employees gained storage, some privacy, even shelves.
Unfortunately, there’s some truth to that statement. For most office workers, the alternative to the cube wasn’t a teak-lined private office but working in a huge room full of desks and clattery typewriters, an environment so dehumanizing that it makes the cubicle look like a suite at the Ritz Carlton. So those of you stuck working in cubicles might want to take a moment to consider that things could be worse, and show your gratitude by putting up a new picture or something. But lose the action figures and stuffed animals. You people are supposed to be adults, for heaven’s sake.
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I read an article last year about the man who invented them (I think he had died). In the article he spoke of how they were never intended to become the monstrosity that they have now become. It was a simple, cost-effective way to provide privacy and storage for those ordinarily in a pool (as you state), it was never intended as a replacement for actual offices for the majority of working stiffs.
At our company, a $2B dollar division of a very big corporation, I am responsible for marketing and strategy for more than a $500k book of business. The gal next to me is repsonsible for all communications for said business; advertisements, commercials, brochures, speech-writing, etc. She and I sit in cubes, in the middle of the floor, right along with the data entry clerks and the management trainees.
Of course, it could be worse, at my friend’s place of employment, the AVPs are in cubicles too.
“…but working in a huge room full of desks and clattery typewriters, an environment so dehumanizing that it makes the cubicle look like a suite at the Ritz Carlton”
That’s where I work. And my co-workers are talky, and like Rap.
I would give good money for my own personal cube; and Thank Christ for headphones.
I often wonder why people in offices like that don’t go mad.
I will never be able to work like that.