If you've never experienced the joy of working in a cubicle, let me tell you, it's fun-o-rama! You get to experience the work habits, sounds, odors and personal problems of your co-workers. The only thing missing is the visual aspect. To compensate for this, people will often stand on their chairs to see over the cubicle walls if something interesting is going on. This gives the casual observer the impression that he is looking at a prairie-dog town.
Cubicle walls are different heights. This denotes your place in the herd. For instance, our receptionist's cubicle is only about three feet high. She enjoys the best view of anyone in the entire department. You never hear about receptionists getting killed in work-related shootings. That's because they can see who's coming and what they're packing. Unfortunately, there is ZERO privacy. When Dee's boyfriend calls to argue with her, everyone knows it. You would think that she has the least value to the department -- however, she not only makes most of us look good by covering for our boneheaded mistakes, but she lets a select few of us know when the boss is gone for the day so we can G.T.F.O. early.
Next are the worker bees, i.e., me. My cubicle walls are six feet high. I can just peer over the top while standing flat-footed. This doesn't offer too much more privacy than the three-foot walls, but casual passers-by usually can't inadvertently see that I'm digging in my nose, surfing for porn or engaged in some other socially unacceptable activity.
Then come the wannabes. These cube walls are seven feet high and occupy their own floor. These people include the CEO's personal assistant, and a couple of managers in the accounting department who think they deserve an office. These people have no real power, and they use the word "paradigm" a lot. Their only real talent is ass-kissing and styling their own hair.
Offices are for people who were bred for that purpose. Either these people moved into the office the day they were hired, or they never get one, no matter how many people they stab in the back.
The cream of the crop are the people in "sofa world." You must have a "C", some random letter and an "O" on your business card to rate an office in sofa world. I was at the office late one weekend working on some god-awful report and decided to take a tour of the top floor. Sofa world was named because these people have sofas ("Chesterfields" for those of you who speak Canadian) in their offices. Some have private bathrooms. All have oak or maple office furniture, and very few have anything on their desks. These people have no grip on reality. I say this because I took the stairs to the top floor. At about two flights before I got to the door, carpeting appeared on the concrete steps. When I got to the top I found out why. If you stand at the doorway and look down the stairs, the entire stairwell looks carpeted. I was tempted to sabotage something, but thought better of it and just took a Shakespeare in the Chief Operations Officer's bathroom. I didn't flush either. I bet he had to call a plumber to ensure proper information flow Monday morning.
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