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Cubicle Culture
 By Tom Shoop | Monday, April 14, 2008  |  04:01 PM

Are you one of those lucky people who works in a vast cubicle farm, or oversees those who do? If so, you may be interested in "The Moral Life of Cubicles," by David Franz, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Virginia, in The New Atlantis. Franz has an interesting take on how cubicle-based workplaces came into being. Aside from the obvious cost savings associated in replacing individual offices with prefabricated work units, there was this:

Offices in the 1970s and 1980s seemed to their critics burdensome remnants of an older age, symbolic shackles of bureaucracy—a system as inhuman as it was ineffective. Cubicles, by contrast, seemed to lack the fixity, and the constraints of bureaucracy of the old office. Moreover, cubicles eliminated the hierarchical distinctions between managers and workers; every cubicle had an open door, everyone was equally a worker. Empowering and humane, cubicles seemed to create a workplace with a soul.

It hasn't quite worked out that way, has it?

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)



Comments


Deb, I agree that they are violating cube-protocal. The 1st instance is 3 day suspension and the 2nd is termination, give me a break....

dan ketter  | Thursday, April 17, 2008 |  10:39 PM


Debra- your cube-mate is violating cubicle protocol. He needs to be told this, either by you or by his supervisor.

Susan  | Wednesday, April 16, 2008 |  11:35 AM


I enjoy cubes. They are far better than open floors with everyone seeing everyone. You at least can scratch.

The removal of smoking was a big improvement too. Good riddance to typewriters too.

Wise Old Owl  | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |  10:52 AM


I didn't have a great problem with cubicles that have high walls, for some privacy. But, having a person on my team who constantly talks creates major problems for me. I have to listen to the constant droning, ruminating, ummmms... which causes me anguish, less productivity, feeling intruded upon. This person also, I guess because of the lack of doors and walls, listens to every conversation and butts into every business and personal conversation I have. Anxiety producing and stressful, to say the least. There ought to be some rules about working in cubicles.

Debra Rose  | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |  09:32 AM


No, it hasn't. It's more like class and the principal. All the workers get a 6X6 cube, and if you get called to the principals office, you get to close the door as you walk in, and set in front of the desk while the principal tells you where you were a bad person and what your punishment shall be.

Civil Slave  | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |  08:47 AM


No, it hasn't worked out that way. Everywhere I look, managers have offices with floor-to-ceiling walls and doors, and workers sit in cubicle farms, usually 6' x 8'and some with ceiling support pillars within that space. There's no such thing as a private conversation and no escape from the noise bombardment that comes from having radios, cd players, etc. going in multiple cubicles.

Mike  | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |  08:33 AM


Spoken as one whom has no idea what a cubical is! News for you after 34 years of Fed service I have never, never seen a manager in a cube. They are still in thier high towers. There is two kinds of people in Gov. "us" & "them". And you are one of "them"!

TOM USN  | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |  07:27 AM



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Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.

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