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?"

Comments

This is my advice.

[elvesRgay]

First remember to be considerate of your fellow cube mates. If you are listening to some good tunes, don't withhold its enjoyment for your own personal pleasure, crank that stuff up! Let everyone enjoy! This creates appreciation for your fellow workers.

Second, in the interest of improving coordination and communication among all the people who you work nearby, make sure you hit the speaker phone button and turn the volume up, and don't forget to speak REALLY loud (remember those speaker phone microphones can't hear so well). This way everybody can hear your phone conversations since there are no pesky cube walls to block the sound. This will save you the time of having to explain the conversations that you just had will your coworkers that may be directly involved with what you do. Also, people who don't have anything to do with your job will get a chance to know how important and hard working you are.

Third, get some screen reading software. Use this all the time with the volume turned way up. This, like the previous advice will increase the likelihood of your coworkers getting valuable information from what you do, which they previously may not have been aware of.

Fourth, consider the savings of not having to call or email your co-workers! After all they are sitting just 40 feet away! There's no need to get up. Just yell out there names and have your conversation with them from your desk.

Fifth, you will be most comfortable and productive in this environment if you don't worry about hiding certain activities which where previously blocked from view. Go ahead and pick that annoying booger and whip it under the desk, feel free to scratch where it itches. We are all human anyway, and everybody was doing these things before, so to hell with it.

Sixth, buy a second monitor. Make it point the opposite direction of your monitor and mirror its content. Since your screen and the actives you are performing are already in the public view you might as well save the people the hassle of walking behind your monitor to peer over your shoulder. Note that this was not an option before the cube walls where taken down. And your nearby co-workers will appreciate the latest and greatest of your comments that you posted to slashdot. Note this step may not be necessary if followed the third piece of advice.

Hope this helps! Before I did all these things nobody ever noticed me in the office, and so I was often over looked. But now I'm the most talked about employee in my office!

Re:This is my advice.

[MisterMoney]

Nice list but I have to add one thing:

Get voice recognizition software to go with the screen reading software. That way your co-workers can hear both sides of the conversation between you and your computer.

l'etiquette d'cube

[Tumbleweed]

1) the aforementioned listening to voicemail (or any call) on speakerphone.
2) Play your music on headphones
3) ditch the amusing new mail sound. Silence is golden.
4) Get your own lighting so everyone can leave the nasty overhead fluorescent lights off and light to their own specifications. better on the eyes, too.
5) To get someone's attention, arc a rubberband over the cubicle wall. Or hand-toss a nerf dart.
6) If you're the nervous twitch type, don't thump your pen on the desk incessantly, or whack your heel against the side of your chair, or whatever irritating thing you do.
7) If you have any brains, get some earplugs or a noise-cancellation headset.
8) Set the temp to a standard 72. Deal with it however you need to. "Space-heaters & deskfans for some, miniature American flags for others!"
9) Talk to the Claw! Don't stand around chatting with someone when it's obvious they're trying to get some work done. Be considerate - cube farms are hard enough to work in without a Chatty Cathy around.
10) PROFIT! :)

End of Line

Flaming Nurf Darts Are A No-No

[thecampbeln]

I once worked in an office where a developer thought it would be a good idea to return a volley of Nurf darts stuffed with flaming toilet paper... Needless to say management was not to pleased with this decision! So I guess this should be slotted in the "do not do this" section of cube etiquette ;)

Dont stare....

[camilita]

Seriously. If you are not going to talk to somebody, dont stare at their work area without a reason.

People already feel without privacy without the looking.

Stealth eating

[MarkusQ]

My biggest gripe in a cube farm:

Eating.

If you want to eat in your cube, fine. Just keep it within your cube. I don't want to know about it. I don't want to smell your questionable fish-and-garlic-suprise, I don't want to have to wipe your barbeque sauce off my white board, and whatever it is you are eating I don't want to hear you chewing it (or doing what ever that guy in the fly did to consume his food).

And speaking of flies, take your trash to the lunch room as soon as you are done. The janitors will not dig through your pile of printouts to find your week-old pesto pieces, but there are six legged clean-up crews that will.

Thank you.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Stealth eating

[MarkusQ]

You have six legged rats?

Sorry. I neglected to mention what industry I was in.

-- MarkusQ

Don't wear strong perfume/cologne

[SolemnDragon]

Seriously- i worked at one place where the woman near me wore perfume that made my eyes water and my athsma go off... her kid had bought it for her, so she wore it every day until i finally convinced her to stop by threatening to go to HR and discuss with them that i'd already gone over my medical issues with the woman and was having to use my inhaler several times just to get through the mornings that she came to work.

Also, don't transact personal business on the telephone unless you REALLY want the whole office to know about it. That goes for making appointments, calling friends, the works. Sound carries well, and people tend to talk louder when they're on the phone with people they know well, because they're more comfortable.

Don't listen to music without headphones, don't pop popcorn and bring it to your cubby, and remember that anything you put on your wall may be seen by anyone at anytime.

that said, personalising your cubby can make you feel more comfortable. Even hanging colth on the walls is oke in some places, so get a good set of guidelines put out for what IS acceptable as well as what isn't. Offer, if possible, several types of whiteboards, corkboards, whatever, so that people feel that they can customise it at least a little.

Re:Don't wear strong perfume/cologne

[dcocos]

I used to work with a woman whose presence was known because you could _smell_ when she was in when you stepped off the elevator. Funny though it all ended the day a guy walked in and said "What smells like French whore?"

Engineering loves cubicles

[NanoGator]

I reside in the Engineering cubes. We like to pretend we're on the Enterprise by tapping our chest and shouting the name of whoever we wanna talk to. Couldn't do that when we had offices.

(Note: I'm not really being sarcastic here.)

Depends on you!

[bluGill]

People tend to hire, and like to be hired by people who are like them. Thus most people will want the same thing. 3:00 nerf ball fight is expected for some, grounds for dissmissial in others. So customise all the rules you read for your enviorment.]

When you read all the funny posts that others have made, try to figgure out how violating that rule can be useful. In tech support you might want to turn up the speakerphone volumn when a really dumb caller is on for instance, so everyone can share the laugh. (or maybe not? what works for you)

Anyone who doesn't decorate their cube with pictures of the kids/spouse, and their "art" is not human and not someone you want to work with. I mention this because some companies try to enforce a no cube decerations policy. That said, keep it up to standards. (Even if everyone in the office is a nudist don't have nude pictures, customers may visit if nothing else)

Make sure their are whiteboards in every cube. I found that the whiteboard was the most useful thing in my cube, and so did most of the others I knew.

Get a laptop!

[Anonvmous Coward]

Get a laptop with 802.11. Take it into the bathroom with you and you'll have an office with a door!

Open Office?

[aspjunkie]

Moving to an Open Office environment, eh? I'd start here! http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/faq-questions.html Ohhh, open office.... :P

Speakerphone

[eric.t.f.bat]

1. Find out who's the highest-ranking pillock to use his/her speakerphone to listen to voicemail.

2. Have a friend of an appropriate sex call him/her up and give him the following message:

"Darling! Last night was the most amazing experience of my life! Did you really mean it when you said you'd leave your wife/husband/etc and run away with me to Madagascar? I'll be round at [some time about half an hour after he/she usually listens to voicemail] with my suitcase and string bikini! See you soon snooky-wookums!"

3. Watch the results.

4. [Please note how I did not add "3. ... Profit!" to this list. Are you amazed at my originality?

: Bat :

DONTS!

[josepha48]

DONT leave your cell phones ON at your desk and leave your desk. You may like your ring tone but it will probably bother others.

DONT use a radio without headphones. Background noise is what it will come off as to others, no matter how low it is it will probably annoy others. Some people don't like it. ASK FIRST!

DONT humm or make lots of weird noises, it may annoy those arround you.

DONT use the hands free on your telephone, cause most people WONT want to hear your conversations. You should use a conference room for meetings even phone meetings.

DONT surf porno sites, other may be offended, also watch what you do surf, as others may be offended. Yes many places have no web surfing rules, but most places are pretty laxed about it.

Not just any headphones

[superyooser]

2) Play your music on headphones

Not just any headphones. You need the over-the-ear kind that actually seals over the ears. A lot of headphones produce almost as much second-hand noise as regular speakers.

Headphones that cover the ears provide some benefits:

• They keep the sound inside, reducing the noise that others might hear.
• They block out external noises, so you don't have to turn up the volume as much.
• • This also reduces the noise that others might hear.
  • It allows you to hear your music more clearly.
  • It helps to prevent you from incurring hearing loss (not total loss, but partial loss; a serious and common result of using headphones)

If you intend to use them often, I recommend buying a high-quality pair. Don't consider anything under $40.

Seen it done well, and done badly

[travail_jgd]

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've been in a couple of environments where cube farms have worked well, and a couple where they've caused more problems than solved.

Since you're moving into a new environment, make sure that a couple of things are taken care of. These are more management-oriented, but they're things to think about.

• Verify that all of the office equipment is conveniently located for everyone. Having to walk down the hall, around the corner and down another hall just to get a one-page print-out gets very tiresome and wastes a lot of time.
  
• Try to plan for additional staff. Any new hires won't do well if they're stuck by themselves on the other side of the building because you ran out of cubes.
  
• If possible, have a meeting room (or just an unused office) for your group only. Personal calls can be made there, and having 3 or more people discuss projects is much easier. This also works well as a lunch-room!
  
• Be careful of "land-grabs" from other departments. I know one company that was pressed for space, and put minimum-wage phone-slaves right next to the programmers. (Think "sharing cube walls".) The minimum wagers didn't care about etiquette, so their radios were turned up, conversations were loud, and office supplies (including chairs!) were "borrowed" from other cubes.
  
• Get a large wastebasket that you can put in a somewhat isolated area. Let everyone know that any food-related trash should be put into the large wastebasket, and not at their desk trashbins. It's one thing to have someone eat something stinky -- another to deal with it for the rest of the day.
  
• Try to get locking drawers for the cubes. While common sense says that people shouldn't leave anything of value around, some people do need to store medication and other personal items.
  

For the general etiquette tips...

• As everyone else has said, keep the noise levels down. Headphones are good, and speakerphones are usually bad.
  
• Announce yourself before entering someone's cube. There is nothing worse than having a coworker walk right up behind you and suddenly start talking. Wearing headphones compounds this. (There are little "rear-view" mirrors that aren't too expensive in case anyone doesn't get the hint.)
  
• Don't hover outside someone's cube "door" if the person is busy. If the person acknowledges you, then you can sit down. Standing around like an idiot isn't going to make anything go faster. Standing around like an idiot for 15 minutes annoys you and them.
  
• Don't throw things over cube walls. Murphy's Law dictates that beverages will attract projectiles in the worst possible ways.
  
• If anyone has a walkman or portable stereo, write down the serial numbers. If (when?) it vanishes, there's some proof of ownership in case it appears elsewhere in the building.
  
• You don't work in a deli. Just because you're in an open environment doesn't mean that users can just walk in and place requests.
  

A couple of other horror stories

[ptomblin]

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.