“ Nothing articulate 3 - day - weekend has ended like HEARING SOMEONE CLIPPING THEIR anathemize NAILS FROM THE NEXT CUBE OVER , ” my supporter write in a status update this morning . I do n’t think he knows how lucky he is to have a cubicle .
While I sympathized with my admirer ’s plight — the sound or visuals of someone clip their nail in public is unadulterated and grating — my immediate reaction was “ HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE YOUR OWN CUBE ? THE DREAM ! ” The idea of a cubicle of one ’s own is an antiquated concept in many modern offices . I ’ve only worked in digital metier , and every part I ’ve occupy feature of speech the open layout — rows upon rowing of desk , with nary a divider between workspace .
Open offices were primitively conceived as a style to open up the lines of communicating . But as the New Yorkerwrote last year , “ a spring up torso of evidence suggests that the subject office undermines the very things that it was designed to attain . ” Noise befoulment is generally target to as the bad perpetrator in damage the aspiration of a free space utopia .
Open offices have become enough of a problem that organizational psychologist are investigating . When an office in the New Yorker piece was monitored following a variety from a “ traditional ” plan to an open model , “ the employee suffered according to every measure : the Modern distance was riotous , nerve-wracking , and awkward , and , instead of feeling closer , coworkers felt upstage , dissatisfied , and resentful . Productivity fell . ”
On our trading floor at Gawker Media , we ’re all author and editors ( also : video and photo editors ) . There is zero privacy in an open agency . composition is an intensely secret action that , in my experience , is well reach with a lower limit of beguilement . The romantic idea of scribble away in a engaged coffeeshop does not equate with trying to focus in a elbow room of 100 other people attempting the same .
We have long table lined with the great unwashed on both sides , and the office is subject to sudden bouts of strident laughter , the production of Slack conversation that not everyone is a party to — it ’s like being incessantly exposed to a joke you do n’t get . In the past , I ’ve share space with unrelated team in open plan — all of whom had different ideas and precedence in terms of talk and even act medicine without headphones . The point is that in an open office , you ca n’t ever control your own environment .
I ca n’t help think that if we all had cubicle , productivity and felicity would increase . Of course , the opposite may be true . I read dateless Dilbert cartoons growing up and adored movies like Office Space that make cubicles seem like lonely , isolate places best designed to waste one ’s time .
So I ’m curious about your own experience where federal agency plan are relate . Has the unadulterated office layout been designed ? Do you influence in it ? Or does the way your office is setup interfere with the very workplace you ’re hypothecate to be doing ? say us all about it . Bonus points for pictures of your desk .
Images : Office Space ; Gawker Media office via Flickr ; Dilbert by Scott Addams
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