Cube Farming
I’ve worked for my company for nearly 13 years and I’ve sat in eight different cubes and offices. We like to keep things hopping, apparently. The longest stretch was the last one where I’ve had the same office for about three years. It was pretty cruddy, to be honest, and needed some fresh paint and carpet when I moved in but it was supposed to be temporary as we were going to do a complete remodel of the upstairs of our building.
Enter the recession and remodeling became an expense we could avoid so our department stayed in a few offices and really old cubes with all the leftover furniture from other areas. We finally decided to redo one of the old offices into a conference room and got it painted nicely and even bought some new chairs. Buying new chairs is huge. Mine is really old and has a worn corner on the seat but it’s in good shape compared to others still in use.
But, suddenly, the remodel was back on and it was even supposed to be done in a hurry. We revisited our old plans and made some changes based on losing three people to a reorganization. The original plan was to demo two offices at the end of the room and build three “manager” cubes. They’re bigger and have a table that can be shared with a visitor.
Since there are only two managers left, we decided to leave the rooms and make them conference rooms. One can be reserved, the other is first come, first served and intended for long discussions, personal phone calls and the like. Since everyone is now in a 52 inch high cube, sound carries so much that it can be distracting.
So, I ended up moving out of an office into a 6 by 8 cube. To do so, I had to condense 13 years of my stuff plus inherited items from my two predecessors. Ugh. Two boxes of knick-knacks and sports memorabilia went home (well, technically to the trunk of my car where they still sit). Years of old documents were either shredded or recycled. When I says years, I’m talking back to 2002. I managed to fit everything in but only because we each got a three foot long, two drawer filing cabinet.
Moving went pretty smoothly. We mostly moved ourselves. The where to move was the hard part. We went through so many seating iterations that it got to the point of “let’s just call it done because we don’t want to think about it anymore”. Then, it got changed again. Sigh.
Ultimately, I ended up at one end of the three cube rows while my boss is at the other end. He’s having some separation issues but there was logic to it. I’m close to the Help Desk and near my Project Managers and the Software Developers. These are the people I work with the most. My boss is with most of his System Admins and those are the people he works with the most. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get moved again but I’ve made it clear that I won’t be happy. Much as I like our System Admins, I’ve sat near them for the past few years and they’re a chatty group. I’m enjoying the quiet of my Developer neighbors.
It is very nice to have new cubes, carpet, paint and window blinds. And, it’s nice to have us all sitting near each other in a simpler fashion. Our old cubes were a bit of a maze which made it hard to have quick communications with each other.
Nearly half of the staff is out this week between training, vacation and telecommuting so it’s been good so far. Next week will be the real test of our success in keeping from annoying each other in our closer quarters.
Enter the recession and remodeling became an expense we could avoid so our department stayed in a few offices and really old cubes with all the leftover furniture from other areas. We finally decided to redo one of the old offices into a conference room and got it painted nicely and even bought some new chairs. Buying new chairs is huge. Mine is really old and has a worn corner on the seat but it’s in good shape compared to others still in use.
But, suddenly, the remodel was back on and it was even supposed to be done in a hurry. We revisited our old plans and made some changes based on losing three people to a reorganization. The original plan was to demo two offices at the end of the room and build three “manager” cubes. They’re bigger and have a table that can be shared with a visitor.
Since there are only two managers left, we decided to leave the rooms and make them conference rooms. One can be reserved, the other is first come, first served and intended for long discussions, personal phone calls and the like. Since everyone is now in a 52 inch high cube, sound carries so much that it can be distracting.
So, I ended up moving out of an office into a 6 by 8 cube. To do so, I had to condense 13 years of my stuff plus inherited items from my two predecessors. Ugh. Two boxes of knick-knacks and sports memorabilia went home (well, technically to the trunk of my car where they still sit). Years of old documents were either shredded or recycled. When I says years, I’m talking back to 2002. I managed to fit everything in but only because we each got a three foot long, two drawer filing cabinet.
Moving went pretty smoothly. We mostly moved ourselves. The where to move was the hard part. We went through so many seating iterations that it got to the point of “let’s just call it done because we don’t want to think about it anymore”. Then, it got changed again. Sigh.
Ultimately, I ended up at one end of the three cube rows while my boss is at the other end. He’s having some separation issues but there was logic to it. I’m close to the Help Desk and near my Project Managers and the Software Developers. These are the people I work with the most. My boss is with most of his System Admins and those are the people he works with the most. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get moved again but I’ve made it clear that I won’t be happy. Much as I like our System Admins, I’ve sat near them for the past few years and they’re a chatty group. I’m enjoying the quiet of my Developer neighbors.
It is very nice to have new cubes, carpet, paint and window blinds. And, it’s nice to have us all sitting near each other in a simpler fashion. Our old cubes were a bit of a maze which made it hard to have quick communications with each other.
Nearly half of the staff is out this week between training, vacation and telecommuting so it’s been good so far. Next week will be the real test of our success in keeping from annoying each other in our closer quarters.
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