Or: Cubicles are Wildly Undervalued and I Am Jealous of Everyone Who Has One
I work in an office that has run out of space. The Company is growing, which is fantabulous*, but it also means that cubicles have become a high-value commodity and offices are non-existent. Because of this, Marketing has migrated into a “collaborative workspace.”
*Totally a word. And The Company pays me for wordsmithing, so it’s pretty silly that you’d question me about words.
What this means is, we are no longer entitled to the luxury of walls. My office space looks like this:
Note that those are not cube-boxes. Those are deskspace mini-cubes. The few “walls” don’t even come out past the desk chairs.
But we do have desk chairs. So basically, we’re pretty spoiled.
This has led me to become a believer in giant headphones. I support them for a variety of reasons:
- They make it legitimately impossible for me to hear my coworkers when I’m working.
- They clearly signify to my coworkers that I cannot hear them.
- They have a microphone on them, so I can use them in place of my telephone headset for conference calls.
- See reason 2. This is important enough to repeat.
These headphones are clearly not small.
Also, this is my zen and productive work pose.
However, no matter how giant my headphones are, I have found that my coworkers still firmly believe that I am listening to all the conversation going on around me. Now, it’s true – the conversation is much more interesting than work. But as someone who is held responsible for creative** writing, as well as practical business*** writing on a regular basis, I need a bubble of clear headspace to accomplish my mission.
**Manipulative
***Also manipulative
This is an accurate representation of this situation happening.
When I become aware of people looking at me expectantly, I’m forced to do the polite thing and pull my headphones off to find out what was said. I mean, maybe my valuable advice**** is needed. Or maybe a new assignment has come down the pipeline. Maybe, as productive and essential marketers, everyone decided to get started on a new campaign idea.
****Valuable advice available here, here and here.
IT WAS A TRICK.
Nope.
This is never the case. And so I return to the delightful land of my cone of silence*****.
*****Or music. Cone of music. Same thing.
Whereupon the cycle promptly starts again.
So value your cube space, my friends. Value it…and send me some walls.
Perpetual Plot Hole 
Buy walls here: http://officefurniturewarehousews.com/
And all my problems are solved!
I’m secretly planning to slowly build lego walls.
Ahaha! I can’t tell you enough how I MUCH I love your sketches! I’ll admit, I’m lucky enough to have my own office *GASP*. But you know what? Some people have no common sense and still invade your space. One of the women i work with will literally stand outside my office and stare at me until I can physically feel her stare *I have glass walls*. Literally! I think what the companies should really invest in is ‘common sense’ training. The world will be so much better 😀 Needless to say that I’ll be a much happier person since I can’t take dumb people :)))
xoxo
Olena
I second your idea for common sense training. In fact, I even volunteer to build the Powerpoint for it. And I HATE building Powerpoints. That’s how necessary I think this is! 🙂
Haha! 😀
I am catching up with your blog a little bit each day…
I miss my headphone induced cone of silence 😦 headphones have been banned at my work because of one employee before I worked here not hearing the boss when he failed to notice her headphones…since then the rest of us suffer in our 15 person open plan office!
I want walls too…and allowable giant headphones and a cone of music…
Oh man – That’s terrible! How do they expect you guys to focus?!
I am not sure…I assume that they just turn a blind eye to the flagrant blogging I do, accepting this as a side effect of the lack of headphones…
Well they should. I mean, for me, no headphones = no productivity. So at least you’re being productive on MANY levels 😉
😀 I get a lot done…
work may not agree if they ever actually checked…
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