Companies Move Away From Cubicle Culture

Makarand writes "According to this Mercury News article companies are freeing employees from their cubicles to save on corporate real estate costs. By eliminating the need for offices for thousands of employees they are reducing their building needs by thousands of square feet. Employees now work in shared areas or from home or elsewhere outside the traditional cubicle. Those who prove to be unproductive when they have to share space with others risk getting fired. This trend is expected to accelerate as wireless technologies are making workers more mobile and capable of working from anywhere. About 13000 of Sun Microsystems' 35000 employees working in Santa Clara (CA) currently lack offices."

Comments

Re:No, bad - it may violate federal laws

[Schezar]

Not to sound mean, but if a disability makes someone less able to do a job, they should not get that job over someone else who is otherwise equally qualified.

ADD, for example, makes someone less able to work in open, group environments, and thus makes one less suitable for certain jobs. A quadraplegic can't be a fighter jet pilot: it would be insane to require the Air Force to implement "adaptive technology" for that.

Re:They SHOULD fire them

[Schezar]

Not everybody performs well in the same environments.

Then find a job with an environment that suits your needs. Don't force others to adapt to you, because like it or not, you're the odd man out: not them. (See Darwin.)

And how is discrimination based on social skills any different from discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or right-handedness?

The color of your skin, or the god(s) you believe in will have no effect on your ability to perform a job function. Furthermore, they are things that cannot easily be changed.

Social skills are just that: SKILLS! Learn them! If you can't, you're no better than a coder who can't learn Python or C.

"Unpopular people need not apply"? Will they have you bring your high-school yearbook as references?

Hate to break it to ya, but the world is -just- a giant popularity contest. I'm sorry you didn't have any friends in high school, but that was your problem, not that of everyone else.

Being friendly, charismatic, and relatively good-looking had done far more for me than my IT skills ever have or ever will.

Re:They SHOULD fire them

[stephanruby]

A team of 2 interesting, friendly people will ALWAYS outperform a team of 5 people.

welcome back to the bull pen.

[twitter]

your place

Johnson Wax, 1936

The difference? Your place is built before a great depression, the Johnso wax building is built at the end of one. David Byrne says, "Watch me work. Ah, work, work." Now get back to it, slave. That or revolt to take your life back. Home is a place you take care of and take comfort from your spouce and children, not simply sleep and change clothes. Then as now, the non freeness of forgeiners leads to our own. Fight for your life and that of others.