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Cubicle Etiquette?
zrgn asks: "Our team is moving to an open office type environment in a couple of weeks. The problem is that most of them have never worked in that type of setting before and thus may not know the do's and don'ts associated with a cube farm. I have two questions: what types of cubicle etiquette things have Slashdot readers come across that may help us in the new environment? (ie. don't listen to your voice mail on speaker phone); and What are some creative ways to relay 'cubicle rules' to the rest of the team?"
Some additional pointers from my experience in cube land...
11) Don't yell at your kids when the people around you are actually trying to work.
12) Talk at a normal volume when you're on the phone with your boyfriend/playmate/f*ck buddy. Whispering is actually more intense than talking and much more difficult to block out.
Our situation was really annoying where I worked because I was a developer on the border with the testing area. I would code all day long, and the testers would just try to break software (click click click click click click.......x1000) or run test scripts (way too much free time). At the same time, I liked being able to talk quickly with people in the next cube about WORK-RELATED issues.
More than enough BS
Just download some inappropriate audio file and leave it in thier messages. (Gotta love portable MP3 players aye?)
Make sure you use the boss's (or better yet your boss's boss's) phone after hours so the offender will think it's important.
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Produce posters advising staff that an amnesty bin exists for the print pornography and liquor bottles that they might be collecting.
JWZ may have some ideas
We have made a rule for people leaving their phones on their desk:
:-)
;-) ) :-)
If it rings we hide it
Good places to hide it:
- tape it under the desk, you'd be amazed how long it takes ppl to find it there
- put it inside their computercase (the shielding might make locating it a bit of a hassle
- in some places you can easily lift the ceiling tiles
- bring a screwdriver ; be creative
Be a good sport and leave it turned on, most ppl's directional hearing isn't as great as you would expect, and watching ppl look for their ringing phone is great entertainment.
beauty is only a light switch away
...I work in a cube farm and I use my Speakerphone for everything! I'm a programmer, and when people call its typically because they have found a bug, or something similar that needs to be addressed in the code. I NEED! both hands when trying to address such a phone call.
So...
1. Shutup and Deal!
2. Encourge companies to realize this and either use high wall cubes(The Walls are 7-8 feet instead of the standard 4 1/2 - 5)...or put programmers in offices...and managers in CUBES!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I worked at Frontier/Global Crossing, and it was the worst environment I've ever worked. Besides the fucktards who used the speaker phone to check voice mail, and the two women who used speaker phone to talk to each other when they sat 10 feet apart (which I've already mentioned), I also had the following. Note that instead of desks, we had these overgrown shelves that hung off the cube walls.
1. The guy opposite me used to drum on his desk, hard enough to make my monitor shake. When he wasn't drumming on the desk, he was stamping on the floor hard enough that I could feel the shaking through the floor.
2. The woman next to me had a poorly sheilded fan that she put right on the other side of my monitor which on hot days would turn my display into a bad drug trip.
3. She also had frequent visitors who would sit on her "desk", causing my entire desk and monitor to bounce up and down when they sat down or shifted weight. Just leaning forward or back would be an annoyance.
4. When "Little Drummer Boy" left, he was replaced by a guy who spent most of his work day on the phone talking to prospective buyers of his car, or talking to his former neighbours and coworkers back in New Jersey or arranging tee times.
Besides the poor working environment, the whole place was a massive cluster fuck of mismanagement, but that's a story for another time.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
HVAC contractors frequently install fake thermostats so people can enjoy the placebo effect of twisting a knob, without actually changing the temperature. The real t-stat is in the hallway near the boss's office, of course.