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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: Huck
Dude, me too. "Office Space" changed my life. I left corporate work this year.

A few months ago I read an article about this film and how it all but went nowhere in the theater and then slowly turned into a smash cult phenomenon after it was released on DVD. Writer/director Mike Judge (who also played Jennifer Aniston's boss in the film) and actor Ron Livingston expressed surprise at the number of people coming up to them with tales of how much this film meant to them.

41 posted on 03/16/2006 5:52:44 AM PST by Drew68
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To: Drew68

Ron Livingston sorta reminds me of Bruce Campbell. Yeah, Office Space changed my life. I didn't see it in the theater. Saw it on rental, then got my own copy. Great writing, great characters. An inspirational story. Love it.


42 posted on 03/16/2006 5:55:03 AM PST by Huck (I only type lol when I am really lol.)
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To: Rebelbase
I work at home in my underwear. :-)

Now we're talkin'. The thing about having to work in a cublice - what does one do with that after lunch gas bubble?

43 posted on 03/16/2006 5:58:59 AM PST by IamConservative (Who does not trust a man of principle? A man who has none.)
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To: Rebelbase

I, also, work at home, but I do get dressed. And lately, I have had to lock myself in the library at home to get away from the cats. They want to be in my lap or on top of my paperwork. Not professional to send stuff back to the main office with cat hair.


44 posted on 03/16/2006 6:02:45 AM PST by KYGrandma (Kentucky girl who wants to go home)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG; Drew68; Professional Engineer

That's a great scene in that movie when Ron Livingston finds out Jennifer Aniston had slept with "Lumberg" and envisions his boss having sex with her.

You see him from the chest up, but all you see of her is her feet. He sets the ever present coffee cup on one of her feet and bangs away, saying "This is Greaaaaaat".


45 posted on 03/16/2006 6:03:28 AM PST by Still Thinking (Disregard the law of unintended consequences at your own risk.)
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To: Ditto

I spend some years in an environment just like that - dress code, be-at-your-desk with pencils up at precisely 8:00, etc. Also interviewed for officer position in similar environment except that the room was huge and the president sat on a platform up front to watch over all. The interview also included a day-long psychological exam that I failed (they said I was too aggressive because I drove a 68 Dodge Charger). LOL, those were the bad old days.


46 posted on 03/16/2006 6:05:45 AM PST by pt17
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To: IamConservative

cropdust!


47 posted on 03/16/2006 6:06:38 AM PST by rahbert
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To: pt17

It wasn't the black 68 Charger, it was the sawed off Winchester 12 gauge you insisted went with it. (Bullitt)


48 posted on 03/16/2006 6:23:42 AM PST by E.Allen
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To: Ditto

I have been in both. Indeed cubes are better. Still like my time in the lab the best. :-)


49 posted on 03/16/2006 6:24:21 AM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: Skooz

Your experience with roofs reminds me of my single father friend who's 16 year old son woke up one day and announced he did not need to go to school any more. My fiiend said,"Your sure about that?" Yes! he replied. Well then you can come and start working if you think you have had enough schooling. The boy was excited about that. The job of the day, tearing off an old roof. The boy went back to school the next day!


50 posted on 03/16/2006 6:26:49 AM PST by thirst4truth (I reject your reality and subsitute my own)
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To: Rebelbase

Har!

These days, so do I. It has pluses and minuses, though. On the plus side, the commute is very short and I don't have to put on a necktie.

On the minus side, I have to get up every five minutes or less to let one of five cats in or out, and since I am home all day anyhow, the little lady of the homestead sees no reason why I can't do the laundry, wash the dishes, clean the cat toilets, vacuum the floors and cook dinner.

Still, since she has to get up at 0530 and commute an hour and a half to her job on an Air Force base (yes, SHE does have a cubicle) I still think I have the better end of the deal.


51 posted on 03/16/2006 6:39:44 AM PST by Ronin
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To: Professional Engineer

Cubes are evil.

That is all. . . :)


52 posted on 03/16/2006 6:41:23 AM PST by Filo (Darwin was right!)
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To: Professional Engineer

I have an office with a door and a window but I also use a CAD computer in a cubicle and like it better cuz I can hide in there.


53 posted on 03/16/2006 6:46:51 AM PST by bkepley
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To: thirst4truth

That's what got me into college.

Really. :0)


54 posted on 03/16/2006 6:52:58 AM PST by Skooz (Chastity prays for me, piety sings............Modesty hides my thighs in her wings......)
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To: thirst4truth

Now that's what I call home schooling!


55 posted on 03/16/2006 6:53:33 AM PST by Mrs. Shawnlaw (No NAIS! And the USDA can bugger off, too!)
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To: Drew68
(though I stopped short of burning the place down).

Well, that was pretty selfish. Think of the others who'll still have to work there.
56 posted on 03/16/2006 6:55:51 AM PST by mysterio
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To: Skooz

Indeed. It would be very weird if my cube suddenly had a soul.


57 posted on 03/16/2006 7:15:14 AM PST by sportutegrl (People who say, "All I know is . . ." really mean, "All I want you to focus on is . . .")
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To: Professional Engineer

58 posted on 03/16/2006 7:18:33 AM PST by OB1kNOb (America is the land of the free BECAUSE of the BRAVE !!)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhRsVTpWYw&search=PC%20Load%20Letter


This is how I feel everyday...


59 posted on 03/16/2006 7:22:17 AM PST by matymac (Living in the Heart of the Beast...the People's Republic of Massachusetts)
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To: Professional Engineer

bump


60 posted on 03/16/2006 7:22:28 AM PST by Soaring Feather (Women Poets Rock the Babies, Baby Rocks the poet.)
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