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Cubicle Privacy
DarthDilbert writes "The NYTimes has a story about a noise canceling box for nosy cubicle neighbors. " Still no protection from mind readers. They know stuff.
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Does the company use one-way scrambling or will there be another device to unscramble the scrambled voices in case PHB wants that feature?
And in an open office organisation, everybody will "tune in" if one suddenly starts whispering. So is this device used as always-on or when-required basis?
If it's always-on, the tantalizingly familiar yet incomprehensible waterfall of voices can be equally annoying.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Cubicle farms suck. There's no avoiding it--they are soul and productivity killers.
Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.
Full disclosure; I got an office when I threatened my employer with working from home four days a week due to the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.
Remain calm! All is well!
"Can you hear me Chief?"
"What did you say?"
"Chief, do you hear me?!"
"What are you saying, Smart?!"
There. I feel better gettin that out of my system.
My cubicle is my own little world and I feel free to do whatever in it. If someone asks me to be a little less loud, I judge their request on how often they are similarly noisy. The more noisy and more often, the less attention I pay to their complaints. If I have to hear them screaming at technicians in the field, they have to hear me every so often getting a call on my cellphone.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
It appears this is nothing to do with blocking unwanted noise. It rather for those who did not RTFA has to do with distorting speech to foil ease-droppers(sp?). Personally working in a office filled with a large cube farm I think this is a terrible idea. There is already a dull roar of unintelligible conversation. The last thing we need is out and out noise pollution, in the form of this thing adding other sounds in to screw up interpretation.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Musings I had this last Friday afternoon, stuck in Yet Another Traffic Jam:
I have 95-99% of what I need to be productive with my Thinkpad and my PKI token.
Yet I haul my ass out of bed every day, put on office togs and get in the car. I drive 60 miles (that's about 2.5 gallons of gasoline) and walk into a cubicle farm, sit down, and plug my laptop into a docking station.
60 miles away, in my home office (which has a door and a view, mind you) sits another docking station which can do exactly the same thing.
After 8 hours, I get up, pack up the laptop, and drive 60 miles back home.
Now THAT's insanity.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
What most of us want is a noise-canceling box for noisy neighbors.
What this is is a noise-creating box for nosy neighbors.
You might manage to get your company to pay to put the former in your cubicle. Since the only point of the latter seems to be for allowing personal calls, somehow it seems more likely to get outright forbidden.
1. When my cubicle neignbor (who gets lots of phonecalls) leaves his moblie phone on his desks and leaves for hours on end (especially when he sets the thing to vibrate and ring).
2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.
So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.
This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.
My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.
Of course, you could just ask them to stop peering over your shoulder. But that would probably mean you'd have to talk to him...
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Authors of Peopleware gathered excellent information about disruptive work environments. It is a good book to make circulate when workers begin to complain about bad office space. I believe the book was written in 1987.
I don't think there is more to say in 2005, except the following question: Why is the debate not over? Are the crazy managers that powerful?
Managers often become totally illogical when discussing the possibility that people work from home, because they try to hide their fear of losing control over their workers.
Leave rude voicemails for them. Have a friend use a payphone to do it. Believe me, once the whole office hears her listen to a message from last night's one-night stand, she won't be afraid to mess up her hair.