Anyone else tire of sitting in the cube? (aka I want an office!) 8

[Fasteddie82]

I've been in various engineering jobs for about 10 of the last 13 years. In each one, I was in some form of cubicle. The best was probably my previous place, where the cube walls were about six feet high (can't see over the walls unless you really try), and the room was relatively quiet. My current cube is probably one of the worse ones I've had. It's only four feet tall (folks can easily see over the walls), and its in a huge room where someone is always on the phone, or having some sort of impromptu discussion at their desk.

Not to mention, the folks who talk on speakerphone at their desk. Those guys deserve their own Dilbert comic.

Listening to music on headphones helps, but dang, if it isn't still difficult to concentrate on what I'm doing with all of the noise in the background.

Anyone else tire of sitting in cube land? At this point, I think I'd probably accept a pay cut if I just had an office with a door.....

 

[ScottyUK]

At the lower levels of my paperwork mountain I am starting to produce coal. My hope is that, with a few more years of paperwork added, I will eventually be able to make diamonds.

 

[JohnRBaker]

My office has no windows, but it's larger than a normal managers office as it was originally intended as a small conference room, so I'm not complaining.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[brandonbw]

"One old manager of mine declared a "clean desk policy" once. The response from the outspoken staff member of the department: "I don't want a desk then"."

That's pretty funny. We would try to clean our desks after a large project went to print. Didn't stay clean for very long. The stacks of paper, bond and mylar piled on my desk most days was amazing.

I liked being in a cubicle over an office. But I had 3 large desks and a small area for a library. And a lot of room to pin up the enormous plots (36x60) for people to come by and look at, and/or markup for their own needs. I was lucky to always have a window seat starting from my first job. I think a window is more useful than closed walls and a door.

B+W Engineering and Design
Los Angeles Civil Engineer and Structural Engineer

http://bwengr.com

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http://bwstructuralengineer.com

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http://bwcivilengineer.com

 

[JohnRBaker]

In our current office building (at least here in our Cypress, CA office) the only hard-walled offices with windows are on 'Mahogany Row' where the corporate executives had their offices when our building was still the divisonal headquarters (that has since moved to Plano, TX). These offices are now occupied by the CTO and few higher level managers. For the rest of the managers and senior technical staff with offices, like myself, we have no windows. The 'window-walls' around the periphery of the first and second floors around the front portion of the building are reserved for high seniority technical personnel who wouldn't otherwise qualify for a hard-walled office but whose cubes are laid out such that they get to enjoy the view and the natural lighting. That being said, the vast majority of the people at this site (about 250 total), primarily software development, training and customer support (the 800-number people), have their cubes in what was originally used as warehouse/factory space before we occupied this building back in 1992 and so it's a bit of 'mushroom farm' but they've tried to make it as habitual as possible with large faux-skylights and bright colors.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[cry22]

I've got a cube but I use the conference/meeting room any time it is free. Perfect retreat to get things done.
Sometimes, I sit at that small table between those catalog shelves.

 

[Maui]

The worst part of the cube environment is talking with people who stop by. EVERYONE listens in on the conversation, and I've had to remind visitors mid-sentence that they should chose their words carefully because everyone else in the office can hear what they are saying. Now I'm in an actual office in a different part of the building, and it's much better in that respect. People can say what they like without fear of unwanted repercussions. But it's also about 1/2 the size of my old cubicle. "Cozy" is the way people are describing it. It's barely large enough in size, but it does the job. An office is better than a cube any day. Grab one if you can.

Maui

http://www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com

 

[ctopher]

It could be worse...
Office Space

Chris
SolidWorks 13
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[Maui]

ctopher, lol! And don't ever think of borrowing my red swingline stapler.

Maui

http://www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com

 

[IRstuff]

I had a cube like that, but I did it intentionally, so that people would have to go out of their way to even find out if I was in the cube. I had it so that you would have to go 3 ft into the cube before you could even see me. And all that paper provided sound dampening ;-)

TTFN
faq731-376

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[wadavis]

I was considering moving out of the Alberta oilfield just to see how the rest of the world did things, this thread has made me doubt the wisdom in that.
wadavis, E.I.T.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Ok, so one of my least favourite things just happened. Up-himself manager wanders past my pod talking on his phone, the conversation (at least what he was broadcasting to us) seemed very important. It's clear he's made the call, not received it, so he could have made it somewhere more convenient for him and less intrusive on others. Maybe there was nobody at the end of the call and he was just bigging himself up?

- Steve