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How Can I Make More Of My Cubicle?
hv writes "I reside in a 10' x 10' space better than 12 hours a day... as do a lot of you. How do you make the most of the space? I'm looking for creative ways to add storage and unclutter the stacks of lab notebooks, USB peripherals and the O'Reilly Zoo that also inhabits my space."
Thats Nothing!
Where I was working, they told me to move back, 'cause they had to put more boxes in my cubicle. ...somebody stole my stapler.
Then they made me move into the basement and told me to get some spray for the roach problem.
Then. Then, somebody stole my stapler. We had been using the Swingline stapler, and they wanted to switch, but I didn't want to switch. And they, they...
I'll burn down the building...
think Office Space
ThinkGeek
Reality has a liberal bias
One thing I've found really helps it look neat is that I mounted power strips to the underside of my desk instead of them sitting on the floor. I also cable-tied all my cables up underneat there as well leaving it so you can't really see any cables. Makes it look a whole lot tidier.
FWIW
-- Cameron
I shedule frequent "meetings" with the cute intern down the hall.
This notice is being sent to inform you that your "geek" status has been revoked.
You have been found in violation of article 12, paragraph 7 of the Geek Code by noticing a member of the opposite sex. Furthermore, this offence has been aggravated by noting that member of the opposite sex as "cute", violating paragraphs 9 and 12 of article 17.
Please remove all O'Reily books from your shelf, disassemble two of your computers and return the parts to the original manufacturers, and disconnect all active internet connections at your home.
Failure to comply with the above request will result in severe penalties up to and including the installation of Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on all active computers in your home and Rosie O'Donnel pouring cold grits down your socks!
Giving credit where credit is due
Changing a few words doesn't make it original.
Ice Cream has no bones.
-sk
Get promoted and move your arse to a wall office with a nice view and a hot secretary :)
Think vertical. I have cabinets, shelves and racks almost to the ceiling. Just make sure you keep the extra monitors on the bottom, not the top :P Also, bookshelves over your monitor, (not too close though) and on the sides are nice for getting to your reference quickly. I have about every piece of office equipment from steelcase and love them.
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Oh bother.
Most people keep more crap in their cube than they actually need. You can open up a lot of space if you trash or take home the stuff you haven't touched in six months.
I could see a 'Hang in there' poster with a noose. It might cause problems with the management, but everything interesting does that.
Reboot macht Frei.
Mass-produced posters ("Hang in there!"), to me, are tacky. If you're living in a place eight to twelve hours a day, get something better, and more personal.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Stop bathing. Learn a new love for limburger cheese, raw garlic and onions. Keep a bowl of durians nearby as a snack.
When everyone moves out, take over their cubicles.
For more information on building a cubicle roof, see also this Ask Slashdot thread on building cubicle roofs.
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Simple. Stay out of it. What the hell are you doing spending 12 hours a day in your cube?
Unless you are part owner (and I don't mean like, you have some options or a bit of stock.. I mean like a HUGE interest in the business), there is no reason for you to be spending 12 hours a day at work. Get a life (I mean that seriously.. you will regret the wasted youth later in life.)
As for 'sprucing up' your cube... why do you need suggestions? Just do what you want, within what your office will allow.
As my guru once said, you aren't doing your job properly if you can't do it between 9 and 5.
Or, get promotoed and move your arse to an area with a nice view OF a hot secretary!
Fridge.
Of course! That's a given. But with a twist.
Okay. Here's a list.
Every now and then, dumping a little bit of compost heap activator (available at any gardening store) will help the disposal process.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
1. Make sure your ventilation ducts are too small to crawl through.
/do/ have an energy weapon, right?) useless -- you will not be overrun by a handful of savages^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmarketing consultants armed with spears and rocks.
2. Don't interrogate your co-workers in your cube. Use a small conference room outside your department.
3. Keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train yourself in their use. That way -- even if management manags to neutralize your power generator and/or render your energy weapon (you
4. Keep your pet monster in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which you could not accidentally stumble.
5. Dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw your manager into confusion.
6. Shave off your goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
7. Make sure your main computers have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
8. Hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine your cubicle and inform you of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that you might not know about.
9. Don't install a sentient computer smarter than you are.
10. No matter how many shorts you have in the system, treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
11. If all your co-workers are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt you, pull out a conventional weapon instead of using your unstoppable superweapon on them.
12. Do not shoot at any of your co-workers if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
13. Make sure that your doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
14. Cover your vats of hazardous materials when not in use. Also, do not construct walkways over them.
15. Do not design your Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
16. If you ever talk to HR on the phone, do not taunt them. Instead say that their dogged perseverance has given you new insight on the futility of your evil ways and that if they leave you alone for a few months of quiet contemplation you will likely return to the path of righteousness. (HR is incredibly gullible in this regard.)
17. Design your door mechanisms so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
18. Pad any data file of crucial importance to 1.45MB.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Milk crates are cheap storage that stacks nicely.
And for a subtle effect, get plants. Like cactus (hard to kill).
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
Take a look at how Jamie Zawinski did it.
I also recall reading somewhere that the people who organized their desk (cleaned it up) on a weekly or even daily basis before going home, were more productive workers. I can attest to the fact that it's much more satisfying to sit at a desk that is free of a million pages of tech specs and memos than it is to sit down and have to *see* all the work waiting for me.
I had a little bonsai tree once, but it died from too much 'Coke dumping' before I would leave for the day. I'm thinking I should get some greenery back into my cube, and soon.
- Plants, plants, plants! (But only in an otherwise unclutered cube) If your company allows it, these really make it feel better. However, in a cluttered cube, they just make it seem more closed in. Oh, and don't forget - just because you can live on Jolt doesn't mean your green friends can.
- Small bookshelf. A small bookshelf (1.5' wide, 3' high) can be aquired cheaply, and gives you more top surface - as well as removing the stacks of binders you have. It really is amazing where those will fit, so don't just give up on it!
- Pen jar - a mug or jar for your pens can really make a big difference if you are like I was. I had pens, pencils, slide rule, etc spread all over my desktop. Now, one coffee mug makes my desk ever so much neater.
- Cord keepers. Little bits of velcro strips make more of a difference than you think.
- Get rid of the 50 post-its on your monitor - it'll make your space seem bigger immediately
- organize and clean up the crap you have stuck on your walls.
Hope these help - they helped me!Get yourself a poster of Doris Day or Racquel Welch so that the warden doesn't see the hole that you are digging.
Get an LCD Display, if you haven't got one already. Saves a ton of room. Better yet, get one mounted on a hinged suspension arm. Another idea: Arrange to telecommute once or twice a week.
That's no cubicle. That's a friggin mansion.
Our VP's are in 10x10. Mine's more like 7x9.
Don't gripe to us because you're in the lap of luxury and can't figure out how to use it.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Don't laugh. The popular design company, Ideo, does just that in one of their offices. In fact, if you pick up the book about Ideo's innovative practices, The Art of Innovation, you'll read pulleys described as a technique for increasing office space and creating office decor. A photo of this technique exists here - second row, middle selection in the gallery.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Whuhu. These cant be killed by any normal human.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Live plants will do amazing things for your cube. Not only do they bring a little of the 'great outdoors' (that everyone is trying so badly to get to) in to your space, they can actually improve the air quality.
If you go to a Nursery they may have specific indoor plants, or look for 'shade' plants. Spider plants are reliable and tough. Aloe is a good one too, and you can cut off a sprig and squeeze the sap on cuts and burns. If you need a plant with personality to keep you company, try raising a Bonsai Tree.
Start Running Better Polls
Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? Got a cordless screwdriver?
Anyways, what I usually do is to clean my desk once a month. Anything I haven't touched in the last month I put in somebody elses inbox.
I had the same problem a while back, and then I realized that there were only two viable solutions: I could either get a better job or create an interdimensional gateway to a small pocket dimension for storage purposes. I created the gateway, but my company had an explicit "no portals to other dimensions" clause in my employment agreement, and I lost my job. Believe me, that was tough to explain away on my resume.
Got Rhinos?
i was sick of the fluorescent lights which others in the room needed, so i built a roof for my cubicle:
:)
http://www.mskf.org/roof/ - directory of pictures
not for everyone, but it keeps me happy.
0x0D 0x0A
Works for me. I pile EVERYTHING on my desk. Know where in the pile the important stuff is. Don't tell anyone else how the pile is arranged. Nobody will touch your stuff for fear of having to clean it up when it falls.
Many people will bitch, but the trick is to know how the pile works. People will ask me for some 'important' piece of paper, assuming it will take an hour to find it. It doesn't. If they complain, the answer is "it only took me a second to get it, what's your problem".
Another good trick is to keep extra cards lying around (I have an abundance of ISA SCSI cards and NIC's. Almost useless, but most people are afraid to touch them. Ergo, my stuff isn't touched.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Never, EVER organize your cubicle. When I started my first sysadmin jobs, one of the older guys gave me the following advice:
Always have a messy cube. This will make people think that you are actually BUSY, and already have too much to do, and may get them to dump new work on someone else. This leaves you more time for things like experimental kernel compiles, mp3s, pr0n, and long lunches.
Ideas for a busy looking cube include:
- Techie books left open. It is best to do this with books you actually use, so that they get moved around. Good choices include Unix in a Nutshell, The UNIX System Administrator's Handbook, and anything related to PERL.
- Coffee mugs. Don't wash old ones, get more from vendors and pile them up.
- Manila Folders. Leave them open too, as if you are actually doing something with the information they contain.
Follow this path, and offload all of your work onto PERL scripts. You will soon be free, as in beer.