How Can I Make More Of My Cubicle? 473
hv writes "I reside in a 10' x 10' space better than 12 hours a day... as do a lot of you. How do you make the most of the space? I'm looking for creative ways to add storage and unclutter the stacks of lab notebooks, USB peripherals and the O'Reilly Zoo that also inhabits my space."
One Word: (Score:3)
ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com]
rats nest of cables (Score:4, Insightful)
FWIW
-- Cameron
Work at home, dude! (Score:2)
Work at home, dude!
No cubicle is as nice as home: No driving. Everything you need is always there. Possible afternoon delight with your honey.
One word... (Score:2)
One word: (Score:2)
Always Tripping Over Cables. (Score:4, Funny)
Fridge.
Of course! That's a given. But with a twist.
Okay. Here's a list.
Every now and then, dumping a little bit of compost heap activator (available at any gardening store) will help the disposal process.
One more word... (Score:2, Funny)
OOOOOOOoooo where did you get it (Score:2)
Get promoted. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get promoted. (Score:2)
Evidently, the perimeter of each floor will be all conference rooms of various sizes and if you need an office/privacy you snag one. Should be interesting. I wonder how many of the managers, who just love to check their voice mail on speaker phone while they read emails, will like this. I've heard a little bit of grumbling, but not a lot. Evidently, this is already policy at a couple of other sites within the company.
Re:Intel (Score:2)
I wear headphones a lot. It helps, but it would be nice to have a door to close in addition. I think it will be interesting. I'm all for making things more 'equal'. I've been here about 8 months, and you can get used to the noise, but I still think it's detrimental to productivity. Perhaps you gain it back in people not being able to surf the web for hours at a time, since anyone can walk by and see your monitor.
Work for an fc! (Score:2)
Up, up and away! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Up, up and away! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Up, up and away! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Up, up and away! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and a bunch of people suggested getting a fridge and filling it with beer. You could suspend it from the ceiling on a retractable steel cable.
I hope this helps.
Re:Up, up and away! (Score:3, Informative)
Be careful here -- you can get in trouble with facilities and/or the fire marshall. We've been told to keep at least 1' open, because otherwise you block the sprinklers, the fire marshall yells at facilities, and they come and tell us to tear it down.
And if you live in an earthquake-capable part of the country, be careful about building too high or putting things like monitors on things. Back before the 1989 loma prieta earthquake, we had a number of people do that. We also had to dig many of them out of their cubes after the quake, when everything fell in on them. No serious injuries, fortunately.
Vertical is good -- but too vertical can be a probelm...
Take it all home (Score:3, Insightful)
Toys, of course (Score:2)
A cubical? (Score:2, Funny)
Artwork is important! (Score:4, Interesting)
Mass-produced posters ("Hang in there!"), to me, are tacky. If you're living in a place eight to twelve hours a day, get something better, and more personal.
Re:Artwork is important! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:nets (Score:2)
Been done before...
jwz's tent-of-doom [jwz.org]
Making "more" (Score:4, Funny)
10x10? They got me in a 6x8 cubicle (Score:2)
Not for the claustrophobic, that's for sure - just another trend in the industry I suppose - save on real estate costs - at the last place I was at, the new plans call for everyone to be in 60 sq. ft including managers ...
Odors are your friend. (Score:5, Funny)
When everyone moves out, take over their cubicles.
How to spruce up your cubicle. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you are part owner (and I don't mean like, you have some options or a bit of stock.. I mean like a HUGE interest in the business), there is no reason for you to be spending 12 hours a day at work. Get a life (I mean that seriously.. you will regret the wasted youth later in life.)
As for 'sprucing up' your cube... why do you need suggestions? Just do what you want, within what your office will allow.
As my guru once said, you aren't doing your job properly if you can't do it between 9 and 5.
12 hours a day? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Americans... (Score:2)
with the economy going the way it is, and especially (at least for me) working for a stock brokerage, there's a certain amount of fear involved on my part to demand to work only 8 hrs a day. If I was to just leave at 5 pm (like some of my european friends do) and leave things undone until the next day, there would be some serious hell to pay.
although I don't make those kinds of demands of the guys who work for me... I try to get them to work only 8 a day, and leave early if there's nothing really pressing that requires them to be there. I don't mind picking up some slack so the guys with families can spend more time with them, since our management is totally dicking them in the pay dept. (no wage increases, no bonuses, hiring freeze, layoffs... etc.)
There's kind a grinding capitalistic thing going on here too, at least in my industry. you get ahead by busting your butt, and that's the perception that many of the higher up sorts (IT and otherwise) have. I've personally made the decision to work hard while I'm still young so I get to a more comfortable place by the time I'm thirty. If that means I have to put in some 12 hr days to singlehandedly pull off huge projects, so be it. my resume was pretty good before the last 2 years but now it's like a book, and at least for me it's been worth it...
YMMV I suppose.
10 x 10 by how much? (Score:2)
Making the most of desk space. (Score:2, Interesting)
I cleared everything off the desk, lay this piece of plastic down, used a tad of scotch tape on the corners to hold it in place, and slipped some papers under it. Pages I need to refer to frequently that used to be stacked on the desk now sit under the plastic where I can see them, but don't have to sacrifice space for them.
The most useful thing, however, has been sliding a piece of blank copier paper under the plastic. Now I can use dry-erase markers to make lists, diagrams, any temporary lists or notes (or doodles) I want right on the plastic with the white paper background. A napkin wipes it clean and it's always in easy view.
At home my wife got these little mini self-standing shelves at Home Depot which she put in some of our cabinets. Makes a lot more efficient use of empty space when you have a lot of small objects.
My $.02. Keep the change.
Coach
Ikea (Score:2)
Re:Ikea (Score:2, Funny)
You are not your Swedish furniture!
-Tyler
More useful space (Score:2, Funny)
Gasoline and a match... (Score:2, Funny)
Have fun
Milk crates (Score:3, Informative)
And for a subtle effect, get plants. Like cactus (hard to kill).
Fish... (Score:5, Interesting)
-sk
Re:Milk crates (Score:2)
Aloe vera plants are pretty easy to grow too, and (IMHO) are a little friendlier-looking than cacti. Pepperomia (sp?) are easy too; mine survived just fine when I went on vacation for a week and forgot to get someone to water it.
Re:Milk crates (Score:2)
storage bins (Score:2, Funny)
Go Camp Style (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at how Jamie Zawinski [jwz.org] did it.
Ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
All you need is (Score:2)
Bunk cubes (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Bunk cubes (Score:2)
Re:Bunk cubes (Score:2)
To make it even more interesting, just pack your employees into The Cube [cubethemovie.com]. Just think how you can cut down on all those unproductive breaks that your employees take. They'll sure think twice if they know that could very well be julienned or incinerated on the way to their coworker's cube.
A few solutions I've used (Score:2, Interesting)
Here are a few things that have worked well for me. YMMV, of course :)
Get the power strips off of the floor. Currently I have mine attached to the cubicle desk supports with cable ties. Bolting them to the underside of the desk works well too. The same (naturally) applies to your personal network [hub|switch].
Cable ties are your friends. It's amazing how much better things look when the rats nest is sorted out and tied up nicely out of the way. Velcro strips or wire twist ties (the kind that come with plastic garbage bags) work well too, when you need something less permanent.
See if you can't get a nice KVM switch. Getting rid of the extra two or three monitors, keyboards and mice makes a huge difference :)
My current switchbox only does KV, so I still have three mice on my desktop, but still...
Bookshelves are a nice addition to any cubicle. The little 3- or 4-foot ones from Shopko (or WalMart or Target, if you prefer) work well and don't cost much. Milk crates or file crates can be helpful, too, if you use them right.
A couple of hooks on the wall for headphones and such like things do wonders, too.
YMMV, but I find it useful (and better for my poor aching back) to set part of my work surface about 4 feet high, and stand up while I work. With the typical three-section L-shaped cubicle desk, I generally put the corner and one long section up high, and leave the other one at the usual height with all of the drawers underneath it. This has the side effect of giving me lots of space under the desk for my extra computers, etc., and could theoretically do away with my chair altogether. (In practice I keep the chair, but most of the time it's under the desk in the corner of the cube, where it's out of the way.)
Flat panels (Score:2)
Also Anthrocart http://www.anthro.com/ makes some very cool computer workstation furniture and accessories that can clear up some desktop space. I have been very happy with their products. (No association with the company other than being a happy customer).
Re:Flat panels (Score:2)
As for the ADC, that is on only one of the monitors but I wish it were on all three. The point of the post was clearing up desktop space, and the ADC eliminates potentially several cables that would clutter up the desktop as it carries power, video signal, and USB all in one cable. Previous workstations I have had with multiple monitors have had cable mayhem behind the desk.
From your post, and the fact that you posted as an anonymous coward, I will have to call bullshit on your alleged ownership of Macs. I have only owned one Mac that was a steaming turd and Apple replaced it after two months with a brand new model without hesitation. As for other steaming turds that I have owned, I can count two Microns, an Acer laptop, an HP workstation, a Compaq desktop, and an SGI O2 that blew power supplies monthly. SGI's service however was good. My Dell's I have been happy with and the SGI Octanes as well.
here's an idea (Score:2, Funny)
Bryguy
Media Wall (Score:2)
(Note: may require some assembly)
(PS: sorry for the lack of links, but I tried and tried and couldn't find anything worth showing.)
Dart Boards (Score:2)
We came across this old dartboard that had to date from the vietnam war. It had a picure of the old president Lyndon Baines Johnson on it. You could hardly recognise him for all of the holes in the newspaper on that board from all those darts thrown over the years.
I wish I had kept it. It would be a genuine collectable.
you could have matching Gates and Ballmer Dart Boards, or whatever.
They could even be sold on Think Geek, depending on the taste.
- - -
Do you have your White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug [radionfreenation]?
Re:Dart Boards (Score:2)
Cubicle? (Score:2, Informative)
Zeus_tfc
A few ideas (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A few ideas (Score:2, Funny)
The odd snake or two to keep down the managers...
Fish tank is soothing.
Incense stick for atmosphere.
KILL THOSE @#$#$ FLOURESCENTS!
Nothing convinces me more that they are out to get me than the flourescents.
Persian rugs are nice.
Get a sheet of Popping plastic. (Know the stuff the poppaholics get off on? Used for packing monitors and the like? That's the stuff.) Anyway, get a sheet and put it under the carpet.
Watch the interesting dance visitors make when they stand on it!
Get a large sign for the entrance. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T REMEMBER THE ERROR MESSAGE?" Listen for footsteps, hear the silence while they read the sign, hear the footsteps retreat never to return....
Interesting looking components that itchy fingers reach out to fiddle with, and find that they are wired to charged capacitors.
Posters (Score:5, Funny)
Get yourself a poster of Doris Day or Racquel Welch so that the warden doesn't see the hole that you are digging.
Re:Posters (Score:2)
Nope, you're right. It was Rita Hayworth.
Re:Posters (Score:2, Funny)
Where did you expect her legs to go?
Who does the stuff belong to? (Score:2)
There's really very little that I need to be able to reach out and grab without moving my chair. Everything else (work-related) can take up employer space, not MY space.
LCD Display (Score:3, Interesting)
10'x10' Cubicle? (Score:4, Funny)
Our VP's are in 10x10. Mine's more like 7x9.
Don't gripe to us because you're in the lap of luxury and can't figure out how to use it.
Re:10'x10' Cubicle? (Score:2)
My elaborate file system (Score:2)
hilarious cube prank pics (Score:2)
The boys over at bacon [ilovebacon.com] have some of the most incredible cube pics Ive ever seen
For instance, The cube comode [ilovebacon.com]
or the nativity cubicle [ilovebacon.com]
They also got some classic packing peanut cube pics [ilovebacon.com], but 've all seen those before.
Plants! (Score:4, Insightful)
If you go to a Nursery they may have specific indoor plants, or look for 'shade' plants. Spider plants are reliable and tough. Aloe is a good one too, and you can cut off a sprig and squeeze the sap on cuts and burns. If you need a plant with personality to keep you company, try raising a Bonsai Tree.
Spider plants (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Spider plants (Score:2)
--Blair
Or if you really want to impress your coworkers, (Score:2, Funny)
10'X10'? (Score:2)
Here's an idea (Score:3, Funny)
Anyways, what I usually do is to clean my desk once a month. Anything I haven't touched in the last month I put in somebody elses inbox.
Solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:2)
i hope you at least bothered to encrypt the traffic over this tunnel, or have you been leaving copies of the company's sensitive objects all over Spacetime, where any competent spatial engineer or timelord can just grab them?
Re:Solution -- TARDIS! (Score:2)
Most Important Things to Have in a Cubicle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Most Important Things to Have in a Cubicle (Score:2)
Forget the headphones! Bring in a big shelf stereo. Let everyone know ahead of time and explain that if they don't like what you're playing, they can ask you to play whatever they want...
This is actually a true story from a dorm. A guy moved in to the "quiet floor" of U. Hall at Depaul University a few years ago with a rack system and about 1400 watts of amplified speakers. He made the above offer at the first mandatory residents' meeting and never had a problem... even when he made full use of all that wattage.
my solution (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.mskf.org/roof/ [mskf.org] - directory of pictures
not for everyone, but it keeps me happy.
Re:my solution (Score:2)
I haven't had one of those since I worked at the University. Course back then I had my own office, and such.
Now I have the 7x7 cubicle.
Fluorescent lights suck. (Score:2)
I was fortunate enough to work for a company (for 8 years) that had indirect lighting that was mounted at the intersection of four cubes, shining upward against the white ceiling tiles. So much nicer. That combined with a small incandescent desk lamp (I had a green banker's lamp) and you're all set. Of course, there's no substitute for ample amounts of natural light coming from windows.
But then I eventually ended up with fluorescent overhead lights for a while. Covering the top of the cube occured to me! But they wouldn't have let me get away with it. Now I work at home. Complete control! At the moment I have no lights on. Just the window!
Re:my solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:my solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Privacy through Obscurity (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people will bitch, but the trick is to know how the pile works. People will ask me for some 'important' piece of paper, assuming it will take an hour to find it. It doesn't. If they complain, the answer is "it only took me a second to get it, what's your problem".
Another good trick is to keep extra cards lying around (I have an abundance of ISA SCSI cards and NIC's. Almost useless, but most people are afraid to touch them. Ergo, my stuff isn't touched.)
damn straight! (Score:2)
and the piles of cards- that works out awesome. make sure you get neurotic with people about ESD problems and the dangers of it, and then pile tons of expensive looking cards around. this works out really well if you have lots of old EISA cards or things that you KNOW will never be used again (this can backfire if you've got other technically competent people who realize that EISA is dead.)
another really good thing to try is to leave stacks of unlabeled burnt CD-Rs around. it's a good way to keep people from digging through your software collection(s) if you say there are IMPORTANT files in there that can't be put out of order... you get the picture.
it's not really much of a BOFH thing as much as it is a keeping your space kind of thing. nobody likes it when the desktop guys decide they need to browse through your stuff, and relieve you of that triple channel ultra-3 raid controller (even though they don't even know what it is.)
so cheers to you, my fellow comrade in messiness
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Always have a messy cube. This will make people think that you are actually BUSY, and already have too much to do, and may get them to dump new work on someone else. This leaves you more time for things like experimental kernel compiles, mp3s, pr0n, and long lunches.
Ideas for a busy looking cube include:
- Techie books left open. It is best to do this with books you actually use, so that they get moved around. Good choices include Unix in a Nutshell, The UNIX System Administrator's Handbook, and anything related to PERL.
- Coffee mugs. Don't wash old ones, get more from vendors and pile them up.
- Manila Folders. Leave them open too, as if you are actually doing something with the information they contain.
Follow this path, and offload all of your work onto PERL scripts. You will soon be free, as in beer.
Re:Kids today (Score:5, Funny)
Thats Nothing!
Where I was working, they told me to move back, 'cause they had to put more boxes in my cubicle. ...somebody stole my stapler.
Then they made me move into the basement and told me to get some spray for the roach problem.
Then. Then, somebody stole my stapler. We had been using the Swingline stapler, and they wanted to switch, but I didn't want to switch. And they, they...
I'll burn down the building...
think Office Space
Re:Kids today (Score:2)
I came up with that after about my third cube move to a new building, when they moved us from 10'x10' to 10'x8' cubes (back in the pre-A.C. [slashdot.org] days.)
But these new cubes are ridiculous. Over the course of years, I tend to accumulate more stuff, not less. I just have to pack it tighter and stack it higher now. 'Course, if I had any brains at all, I'd get a KVM switch instead of having six monitors staring at me all day.
Hey, anybody wanna trade me a 21" flat screen monitor for one 10" flat screen, one 15" and four 17" monitors? It's a heckuva deal, 93" of monitors in exchange for a lousy 21"... that's a 4X return on investment! How can you refuse?
John
Re:Kids today (Score:2, Funny)
My cubicle was so small, when I sat around the cubicle, I really sat around the cubicle.
Re:Kids today (Score:2)
[ long pause] Riiiiiiight.
At my first job, we worked four to a desk - two sitting on the floor and two sharing the chair. They didn't have money for computers, so they gave each of us two paper clips and an electrical outlet, and we had to modulate our data into the building power by running the electricity through our bodies and flexing various muscles in phase with the 60Hz AC pulse. If we made any mistakes our manager would punish us by connecting us to the 240V, 30A laundry room circuit.
Ah, you tell the kids today that, and they won't believe you.
Re:More Space (Score:4, Funny)
This notice is being sent to inform you that your "geek" status has been revoked.
You have been found in violation of article 12, paragraph 7 of the Geek Code by noticing a member of the opposite sex. Furthermore, this offence has been aggravated by noting that member of the opposite sex as "cute", violating paragraphs 9 and 12 of article 17.
Please remove all O'Reily books from your shelf, disassemble two of your computers and return the parts to the original manufacturers, and disconnect all active internet connections at your home.
Failure to comply with the above request will result in severe penalties up to and including the installation of Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on all active computers in your home and Rosie O'Donnel pouring cold grits down your socks!
Improving Your Work Environment (Score:3, Funny)
2. Don't interrogate your co-workers in your cube. Use a small conference room outside your department.
3. Keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train yourself in their use. That way -- even if management manags to neutralize your power generator and/or render your energy weapon (you
4. Keep your pet monster in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which you could not accidentally stumble.
5. Dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw your manager into confusion.
6. Shave off your goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
7. Make sure your main computers have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
8. Hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine your cubicle and inform you of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that you might not know about.
9. Don't install a sentient computer smarter than you are.
10. No matter how many shorts you have in the system, treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
11. If all your co-workers are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt you, pull out a conventional weapon instead of using your unstoppable superweapon on them.
12. Do not shoot at any of your co-workers if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
13. Make sure that your doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
14. Cover your vats of hazardous materials when not in use. Also, do not construct walkways over them.
15. Do not design your Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
16. If you ever talk to HR on the phone, do not taunt them. Instead say that their dogged perseverance has given you new insight on the futility of your evil ways and that if they leave you alone for a few months of quiet contemplation you will likely return to the path of righteousness. (HR is incredibly gullible in this regard.)
17. Design your door mechanisms so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
18. Pad any data file of crucial importance to 1.45MB.
Speaking of... (Score:4, Informative)
Changing a few words doesn't make it original.
Re:The "Dilbert" wall... (Score:2)
"...and also giving people reasons to stop by and linger"
I'm guessing that you aren't a Network Administrator [iinet.net.au], are you?
Re:guerilla remodeling (Score:2)
Actually happened to a friend of mine. She's very neurotic about decorating, so when she looked up one day and her perfectly-centered poster was no longer centered, she knew something was wrong. She looked at the carpet in her neighbor's cubicle and found fresh dimples from where their shared partition wall used to rest.
The best part was when she confronted the neighbor, asking "Did you move the wall this weekend?" and his response was, "Um, I don't remember."
Re:This old Cube (Score:2)
Re:Eco Sphere (Score:2)
Re:moo goo gai pan of Cubicles? (Score:3, Informative)
I also recall reading somewhere that the people who organized their desk (cleaned it up) on a weekly or even daily basis before going home, were more productive workers. I can attest to the fact that it's much more satisfying to sit at a desk that is free of a million pages of tech specs and memos than it is to sit down and have to *see* all the work waiting for me.
I had a little bonsai tree once, but it died from too much 'Coke dumping' before I would leave for the day. I'm thinking I should get some greenery back into my cube, and soon.
Re:Propaganda posters would be nice (Score:2)
> http://store.yahoo.com/modernhumoriststore/compan
I like the ones at http://www.despair.com [despair.com]. Beats the fsck out of those damn "Successories".
Representative sample: Mediocrity [despair.com]
Re:Creative??? (Score:3, Interesting)