Tag: Cubicles

Smelling Roses

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I have two computer monitors at work.  Sometimes I wish I had three, or four, or as many as I could possibly fit within the rotational range of my neck.

I am, like all cubicle monkeys, a master of simultaneous activity.

If a coworker doesn’t immediately answer my chat question, I turn to my other monitor to shoot an email to a client, and while it sends, I “thumbs down” that terrible song Pandora has the audacity to suggest to me a second time.  During all of these activities I have also been processing a long list of data changes.  It takes about three seconds for the screen to refresh between each update, and I have been making the most of that time.

At the office, my efficiency is an asset.  I can fragment my mind into a billion tiny rooms and dart in and out of them at lightning speed.  The problem is, my multi-tasking has spilled over into my actual life, and I find this very disturbing.

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The Office Handbook: A Guide for the Reluctant Corporate Employee – Chapter 4

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Introduction
Chapter 1: Combating Office Awkwardness
Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Office Real Estate
Chapter 3: Tools of Forced Social Interaction – Mastering the 15 Second Conversation

Chapter 4: Rules of Engagement – Mastering the Passive Aggressive Email

Remember in the 5th grade when your teacher paired you with the smelly kid for that group project?  When you complained, she told you, “In the real world, you’re going to have to work with people you don’t like all the time!” 

This wisdom offered little consolation during the pioneer diorama catastrophe of ’95, and unfortunately, she was right.  When you work in a corporate office, it is likely that at least 65% of the people you collaborate with on a daily basis will irritate you to no end.

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The Office Handbook: A Guide for the Reluctant Corporate Employee – Chapter 3

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Introduction
Chapter 1: Combating Office Awkwardness
Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Office Real Estate

Chapter 3: Tools of Forced Social Interaction – Mastering the 15 Second Conversation
You’re leaving the office down a narrow back stairwell, but this alternative to an awkward elevator encounter doesn’t go as planned.  Suddenly, another employee comes bounding down the stairs from the floor above you and you find yourself caught in a classic piggy back stair walk.  Do you continue down at the same pace, pretending your new companion isn’t a mere two steps behind you?  Do you slow down and hope they pass, risking an awkward shoulder to shoulder, synchronized descent?  You have 15 seconds of stairs to go; what do you say?

You’ve gone into the kitchen to fill your enormous water bottle and Nick, the sales guy whose open office door you pass three times a day on the way to the bathroom (?) enters.  Or maybe it’s Rod, the dev guy you email on a weekly basis but have never formally met (?) who walks in.  You seem to be blocking the vending machine where he gets his 3:00 daily fix of Blazin Hot Cheetos and your bottle is filling painfully slow.  Nick/Rod shuffles awkwardly, you smile apologetically.  15 seconds of pouring remains; what do you say?

Fig. 3.1. - It takes less than 15 seconds to say something completely regrettable.

 

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The Office Handbook: A Guide for the Reluctant Corporate Employee – Chapter 2

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Introduction
Chapter 1: Combating Office Awkwardness

Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Office Real Estate
To the untrained eye, every cubicle in a corporate office is identical. Three walls the color of dirty gym socks, mostly unused drawers stuffed with shit from the last twelve inhabitants, migraine-inducing florescent lights, the nicest desk chair and computer monitor you’ve managed to scavenge vulture-like from other recently abandoned cubicles; each is custom designed in the spirit of The Giver to dim memories of color, natural daylight, creativity, joy and other such luxuries that may cause you to wonder about the world outside of the community between the hours of 9 and 5. You may hang up pictures of your baby and/or puppy, important looking documents marked with highlighter, comic strips about sad cartoon characters who also work in a cubicle, or, if you’re an Active employee, the bibs from every 5K you’ve ever “competed” in, but most would agree that even these sad suggestions of personality are not enough to distinguish one cube from the other three that share its dingy walls. Cubicles, with their drab sameness, in their tidy little rows, appear to be the great equalizer, the Levittown of the work world.

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