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The Great Escape Forty million American employees toil in soulless cubicles
Fortune ^ | 15Mar06 | Julie Schlosser

Posted on 03/16/2006 5:08:05 AM PST by Professional Engineer

NEW YORK (FORTUNE Magazine) - Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."

Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence. More from FORTUNE Living it up on Wall Street Saving trees the smart way The First Mogul FORTUNE 500 Current Issue Subscribe to Fortune Photo Gallery launchSee more photos Photo Gallery launchSee more photos How I work E-mail and voicemail; yoga and personal assistants; structure and grooving: A dozen accomplished people tell what works for them. (See the gallery) Click here to e-mail us your own tips on how to manage your work life more efficiently.

See a gallery of cubicles -- from futuristic workspace to box.

Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator, it still claims the largest share of office furniture sales--$3 billion or so a year--and has outlived every "office of the future" meant to replace it. It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture.

So will the cubicle always be with us? Probably yes, though in recent years individuals and organizations have finally started to chart productive and economical ways to escape its tyranny.

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cubes; dilbert; dilbertville; office; workplace
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To: Professional Engineer

Stop the Mexican invasion and many of these poor souls can get second jobs in the fields picking fruit.


21 posted on 03/16/2006 5:23:32 AM PST by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN (Toon Town, Iran...........where reality is the real fantasy.)
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To: Professional Engineer
Someday I really need to see this movie.

Didn't you get that memo?

22 posted on 03/16/2006 5:23:50 AM PST by OXENinFLA
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To: Professional Engineer
Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."

Oh, like someone else wouldn't have thought of it eventually.

23 posted on 03/16/2006 5:26:27 AM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: CROSSHIGHWAYMAN

LOL!

Yep.

When I was a young buck, I was a professional roofer.
That's hot work down here in Louisiana.
I would carry 70-85 lb bundles of shingles up a ladder and across a large roof all day.
Tearing off old shingles was even harder work. Much harder.

After years of doing that in the blazing 100 degree Louisiana sun, I could kiss my cubicle.


24 posted on 03/16/2006 5:27:47 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: Rebelbase

I can only imagine what your sales presentations must be like....


25 posted on 03/16/2006 5:28:43 AM PST by thoughtomator (Nobody would have cared if the UAE wanted to buy Macy's...)
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To: theDentist

Funny movie.


26 posted on 03/16/2006 5:28:52 AM PST by Huck (I only type lol when I am really lol.)
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To: OXENinFLA

Want to know something scary? I have a current project at work in which I need to produce "TPA reports".


27 posted on 03/16/2006 5:30:02 AM PST by thoughtomator (Nobody would have cared if the UAE wanted to buy Macy's...)
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To: Professional Engineer

Please turn in your TPS reports before you do that, mmmhmm.


28 posted on 03/16/2006 5:30:31 AM PST by Aznar5
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To: Drew68

29 posted on 03/16/2006 5:33:36 AM PST by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: Skooz
"After years of doing that in the blazing 100 degree Louisiana sun, I could kiss my cubicle."

My thoughts exactly!!!

30 posted on 03/16/2006 5:34:17 AM PST by Niteranger68 ("Only 4 out of 3 Democrats actually vote.")
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To: Professional Engineer

When I got my first job and they showed me my cube (they called it a "pod" back then), I thought it was pretty cool. That was a long time ago. But, despite the bad rap, I still think cubes are pretty cool.


31 posted on 03/16/2006 5:34:29 AM PST by advance_copy (Stand for life, or nothing at all)
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To: OXENinFLA

You must have used the old cover sheet....

:D


Neal


32 posted on 03/16/2006 5:34:41 AM PST by HossB86
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To: thoughtomator
Want to know something scary? I have a current project at work in which I need to produce "TPA reports".

So have you gutted any fish on them yet?

33 posted on 03/16/2006 5:36:14 AM PST by OXENinFLA
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To: OXENinFLA

Nope but if I don't stop freepin' and get to work I'll be a gutted fish on them! Now if only I could bring myself to remove this sleeping kitty from my lap, I could go out and earn that living of mine.


34 posted on 03/16/2006 5:37:42 AM PST by thoughtomator (Nobody would have cared if the UAE wanted to buy Macy's...)
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To: Professional Engineer
And you will never see them in a Japanese office building. Weird, but true.

All offices I have ever worked in have been wide open. Sometimes taking up the entire floor of huge buildings.

You sit desk-to-desk, smile at your coworker across from you, see who's taking a heavy-lunch afternoon nap on his keyboard in the afternoon, etc.

I am not saying that Japanese offices are better, but they sure are different.

Oh, there are private offices for the heavies, but only at the very top.
35 posted on 03/16/2006 5:38:07 AM PST by Ronin
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To: Professional Engineer

Without cubicles, there would be no "prarie dogging!"

I've got a cubicle. Sort of... I'm next to a window, on the 15th floor. That's never happened to me before. I work in IT, so I've always worked in a cave. It's nice being able to see sunlight through a window every now and then.

Mark


36 posted on 03/16/2006 5:41:57 AM PST by MarkL (When Kaylee says "No power in the `verse can stop me," it's cute. When River says it, it's scary!)
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To: Drew68

ummmm, yeah. I'm gonna have to ask you to go ahead and come in on Saturday.


37 posted on 03/16/2006 5:44:31 AM PST by Washi
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To: Professional Engineer

38 posted on 03/16/2006 5:46:50 AM PST by Reaganesque
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To: Rebelbase
I work at home in my underwear. :-)

Sweet gig ... I work a 9/80 and get to work from the house every other Friday.

I'm still trying to get the powers that be let me do it any day I don't have meetings.

39 posted on 03/16/2006 5:47:46 AM PST by tx_eggman (Islamofascism ... bringing you the best of the 7th century for the past 1300 years.)
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To: Ronin

Nice screen name.


40 posted on 03/16/2006 5:52:32 AM PST by Still Thinking (Disregard the law of unintended consequences at your own risk.)
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