Slashdot Mirror
Cube House
drkanta writes "Hey, I decided to decorate my cube for a holiday decoration contest. Well, I went all out and had a lot of fun and turned my cube into a house. I thought it was very very funny. What bugged me was that some people asked me where I saw this before to get my idea. What? Saw something like this before? My question is: has anyone done something like this before?"
Some of Pixars' work areas have more imaginative cube mods, decorations etc than this
there was a whole interview on some evening magazine type tv show in the SF bay area a few years back, where some guy did that PERMANENTLY to his cube.
he used wood for all the framing and used real wood shingles for the roof!!!
his boss said, ok, but that no one else was allowed to do it.
Lots of places, so long as its a salary based job and you meet all your deadlines it often doesn't matter if you take a few moments off to do something interesting. My boss would be happy that I was finding a way to prevent my burn out since that seems to be one of the big things where I work now days.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
"Everything's been thought of before. The trick is to think of it again."
Don't get your knickers in a knot just because someone else once had the same brilliant idea you had. It happens. A lot. It doesn't in any way diminish your own insight, no matter what some dimwitted nebish in the third cube over says.
Or even what you think.
I've always liked Pete Seeger's definition of "sophmoric," the itch to be original. Let it go.
I've never had the "pleasure" of working in a cube farm, but I tend to work in open office like enviroments of one sort or another. I like to dress up my space on a periodic basis. Right now it's a simulated Japanese tatami room, floor seating with the computer on a kotatsu with nonfunctioning wooden hibachi ( actually, it functions as a waste basket). A scroll painting and a rack of swords as a finishing touch. Very comfortable actually, and a damned sight cheaper than an Aeron. It's pretty easy to do in a cube space.
In the past I've done a simulated traditional Mongolian yurt, the rectangular Tibetan equivilent, various native American styles and an English country cottage.
Of course on a workaday basis it helps to have enough authority that no one can give you shit over it.
Next Christmas you might want to try a traditional middle eastern house or nomadic tent for the true Christmas spirit.
KFG
I love the cube creativity. I expressed such "creativity" twice at my previous employer...though the "previous-ness" has nothing to do with my cube creativity.
...
This is all true, as I have MPEG movies of both of these. If someone wants a copy, I'm happy to share, just email it to me at cubicoasters_on_slashdot@emailias.com. If anyone has some bandwidth and wants to host them, I'd be very happy to forward them to you, too.
Cubi-coaster 1997: Christmas 1997, I converted my cubicle into a "ball and gutter" kinetic energy machine. Basically, it's a small version of the contraptions you would find in a good science museum or in a progressive airport or mall (for entertaining the public). It started with a slingshot of a small plastic ball across the cubicle into a funnel made of paper that led to the other gutters (made of paper, tape, paperclips)...through a loop-the-loop, and down into a trashcan. But this was no ordinary trashcan. I had rigged it as a "triggered catapult" (I kid you not!) to throw the ball back up into the original funnel across the cube one more time. It only made two laps because I had to re-cock the trashcan catapult.
Cubi-coaster 1998: Christmas 1998, I created a motorized version using several pingpong balls. Using a desktop fan and removing the blade, I created a "chairlift" with fishing line and paperclips (for the "chairs"). The balls would be lifted out of a paper tube and dropped into a clear plastic funnel (made of overhead transparencies and tape) near the ceiling. It could then go one of two ways through clear plastic tubes, across highly-tensioned parallel "rails" of fishline, and over a couple of other pendulum-like devices. This was perpetual, thanks to the motor/fan.
This was a lot of fun and sure drew a lot of visitors. Friends commented that for the "next year" that I'd either have to expand to "outside the building" or would have to quit work...I chose the latter.
Happy to share...both then and now! Happy Holidays!
...a submarine. I work as a reserve officer and spend several weeks every summer at a nearby air force base. This summer, a few guys in my office took it upon themselves to turn another office-mates cube into a submarine like environment. Using nothing but card-board and duct tape, they enclosed the cube from floor to ceiling. At the cube entrance they left a fully functioning hatch-style door complete with wheel. They then proceeded to decorate the outside to look like steel and rivets (not quite as much effort as your cube-house though).
By the way, good job on the cube-house!
Everyone's house is very different. So walking into the animation area you get the feeling of entering a village full of very short, very eccentric people.
Not all random numbers are created equally.
We do this stuff at our office all the time. Usually for birthdays and the such. I really should throw together a web page with all the pics sometime.
The best ones so far where.
We took a bunch of cubicles and covered them with taped together black trash bags. This created a very cool cave. We put plants and a fog machine in as well.
Our boss is from Alabama, so for his birthday we decorated the whole office like some kind of back woods farm. We took his desk out and replaced it with a piece of plywood, and put a bail of straw in his office. We all dressed up in overalls and even staged a wedding ( the groom was at gun point and the bride about 8 months along ).
The next year we staged a murder mystery with our unexpecting boss at the middle of it. His brother was murdered and he had to figure out who it was. We staged it like a 30's private eye office.
For my birthday the guys decorated my office like a rave. Including a bunch of techno and monitors with cheesy colorful screen savers. Again the smoke machine was brought in, and they all laughed as I got lung cancer and couldn't even see my screen.
We've made people where bunny suits like at an amunsment park, had a toga party theme, made people work in a tent all day, and a whole lot of other things.
We've been slacking as of late with less revenues and more stress, but this stuff can really really boost morale in your office. We are a small company with very few rules, so we can get away with this stuff, if you can go for it.
We had a guy turn his cube into a wrapped gift. Pretty hot in there though.