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Piimpin' Out Your Corporate Office? 133

Posted by Cliff from the motivational-decorations dept.
ignoringReality asks: "I just moved into a new office at work that is considerably smaller than my previous one. The furniture is crappy, the walls are plain, and there aren't any windows. I'm trying to think of a unique way to keep myself entertained but not distracted day in and day out. It's a corporate office, so there are obviously limits. Working in a box must be a pretty standard situation for a lot of Slashdot readers, so how do you guys personalize your offices?"
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Piimpin' Out Your Corporate Office? More

Piimpin' Out Your Corporate Office?

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  • Obvious: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:31PM (#11714684)
    I use OpenOffice.

  • Lighting (Score:4, Informative)

    by Leroy_Brown242 ( 683141 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:33PM (#11714703) Homepage Journal
    For myself, when I had a converted closet for an office, the most important thing for me was good lighting. I kept it darker than most people liked it, but it was warm and gentle lighting.

    I've seen a lot of people hang what look like drapes from thier walls, to give some solour and texture to the room.

    Don't forget the music, and toys.

    • Re:Lighting (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ScottSpeaks! ( 707844 ) *
      My first job out of college I spent the summer in a cubicle that had previously been one of the execs' storage space... basically a closet. I didn't even get a waste paper basket.

      The last place I worked had everyone in wall-n-doors offices (which was generally a horridly antisocial environment, IMHO) and there were a few people who'd taken the "living room" approach, with warm incandescent lamps, etc. I found those rooms almost dreary, though; in my office I turned on every fluorescent light I was entit

    • For myself, when I had a converted closet for an office, the most important thing for me was good lighting.

      Back before our company moved us all into cubes (grrrr), I had Christmas lights lighting my office. They last perhaps three months before they start burning out (and at $1/100 or so, it's often easier to just replace the whole strand than find out which one burned out) so you want to buy quite a lot right after Christmas, but they definately do make a nice light for the office when you want it dim

  • if you can afford it.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:33PM (#11714716) Homepage Journal
    the Dilbert Ultimate Cubicle [ideo.com]

    Complete with lighting that simulates the sun moving across the sky as the day goes along.
    • Wow, I'd never seen that before.

      I wonder if I can seel my boss on that . . .
    • Man.... Please tell me they're really going to ship those... I'd love to have one. although, I wouldn't need the Sun thing. I've got a window seat. Looks out over the Georgia Tech stadium...
      • I wouldn't need the Sun thing. I've got a window seat. Looks out over the Georgia Tech stadium...

        I used to work for a college, and managed to finagle things such that my desk faced a window with a good view of one of the main pedestrian routes from one section of campus to another. This ensured that once an hour I'd take my eyes off my monitor and "rest" them on the parade of students commuting between classes. I especially enjoyed the shorts-wearing seasons. {wistful sigh}

  • hot lava (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How about a lava lamp?

  • pornography (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    in plain view.

    gets everybodys pulse going.

  • Two words... (Score:4, Informative)

    by J-Doggqx ( 809697 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:37PM (#11714797)
    Think Geek [thinkgeek.com]

    (Especially the cube goodies section. My co-workers love the Acrobots [thinkgeek.com]

  • I hate Tyco (Score:1, Funny)

    by dauthur ( 828910 )
    Move absolutely all of the furniture out of the room, and replace it with Lego furniture. That'll keep you busy for a fortnight or two.

  • Obligatory /. Reply (Score:3, Funny)

    by orkysoft ( 93727 ) <orkysoft@m y r e a l b ox.com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:49PM (#11714982) Journal
    The furniture is crappy, the walls are plain, and there aren't any windows.
    So what are you complaining about?

  • Well, look out (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @02:55PM (#11715073) Homepage Journal
    Nothing says status like space. The fact that you're in a smaller space is not a good sign.

    That said, if we're talking an actual office with a door, the you're lucky. For now.

    My suggestion is that you decorate your space with -- space. Keep it uncluttered, so that you appear to have more room. It also sends the subtle message that you're not making yourself too much at home, that you plan to move up or out.

    I should make it clear I don't follow this advice myself. If you are a happy geek with no ambition to move up (like me), feel free to ignore this advice (as I do).

    • Re:Well, look out (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Keep it uncluttered, so that you appear to have more room.

      That is a ticket for getting a roommate.
      • "That is a ticket for getting a roommate."

        You got that right. My first task on getting a new office is making sure that all the stuff I have fills it up as much as possible. Other than a cubicle or no walls at all, there's about nothing worse than having a office mate.

    • Nothing says status like space. The fact that you're in a smaller space is not a good sign.

      I hate working in a cube -- but I've come to accept that there may be some wisdom in banning private offices.

      War story 1: I worked at Borland, whose main building is designed around one simple (but expensive) feature: everybody who works on the third floor gets a private office with a Window. But who gets to work on the third floor? Originally, the idea was, Top Management and R&D developers. Which is nice for

  • light (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beegle ( 9689 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:00PM (#11715137) Homepage
    My only decorations are some reference docs that I refer to often enough that I stuck 'em to the walls and craploads of light. In addition to the pitiful office lighting, I have three 100 watt-equivalent "full-spectrum" (I hate that terminology. The blue-ish ones.) bulbs. Two compact fluorescents (different brands) and one incandescent.

    A few people have commented on how spartan my office looks. The thing is, I don't look up often. I don't -care- what's on the walls around me. What I -do- care about is light. Our whole building is Too Damned Dark®, so I often end up with other light-junkies on my office because they "like how bright and happy" my bare-walled office is.

    I've tried to convince people that ergonomics extends beyond "chairs that don't suck" and "goofy keyboards", but it's a hard sell, particularly when your managers include a lot of the "We had VT-52s and we liked it!" crowd.

  • The cubicle in the Capital One commercial featuring David Spade ("1001 Ways to Say No") is pretty well decked out. I'm betting that it wouldn't go over very well with upper management though. The video for the commercial is here: http://www.advertisementave.com/tv/ad.asp?adid=573 / [advertisementave.com]

  • personalize?!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by kendoka ( 473386 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:01PM (#11715148)
    What are you talking about? We're just a bunch of soulless drones anyway. I'm going to decorate my office with the barcode my manufacturer gave me as I was being assembled in the plant.
  • Picard turns out the borg queen to make some money for new "Quad"litium crystals

  • Forget you guys. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neck_of_the_Woods ( 305788 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:03PM (#11715179) Journal

    I have one word for you:

    Strippers.

  • I truly don't understand the question (Score:3, Informative)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@@@gmail...com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:06PM (#11715221) Homepage Journal
    What exactly is "entertained but not distracted"? Seriously, I'm asking.

    I've got pictures of my family pinned to my cube walls (on the one wall that allows things to be pinned to it :-/). On the file cabinet behind me I have 6 framed pictures, but rarely do I turn around to look at them.

    I have juggling balls, which I pretty much never touch.

    One statue of Buddha. Green.

    Framed picture of the Red Sox beating the Yankees.

    I have an iPod which I listen to on the commute in, and carry up to the desk, but it usually sits there and I dont put my headphones on. Probably because I tend to listen to podcasts rather than music, and find those distracting when trying to work.

    And so on. It gives me stuff to look at when I take my eyes off the monitor, but it's not really there for entertainment. Nor is it distracting. It's decoration. I don't think that's what you were asking for, though. You want toys.

  • Less is better (Score:4, Insightful)

    by girth ( 40643 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:14PM (#11715303)
    The less stuff you have, the less crap you have to carry to the next job.

  • Common reply: (Score:5, Funny)

    by duggy_92127 ( 165859 ) <doug DOT shea AT gmail DOT com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:16PM (#11715329) Homepage

    I think I speak for all cubicle-dwellers when I say:

    SCREW YOU!

    Do you have a door? We'd kill for just a door. And some walls! Glorious, glorious walls...

    <huddles in a corner, shivering>

    Doug

    • I have a door, two desks, serveral computers, and the job of two full time programmers. Id rather have the cube. Course, the grass is always greener. Wait, i just remembered, theres two doors. One to a conference room, one of the main hall. Yeah
      • Oh, i forgot. Two big windows. Too bad im in western NY and the windows are drafty as hell and its always freezing in here. But hey, i can lean back in my leather chair and dream i was making more then pennies a day
        • A cold office? I'm jealous. My cube is always hot. In winter the heat is blasting and in summer no one cranks up the A/C. I'd _really_ dig an office that's cold.

    • Re:Common reply: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by isorox ( 205688 )
      Cubicle? You're living the dream mate!

      I get a desk with no partitons seperating my from everyone else in the office, although I can hide behind 5 (count em) monitors.

      Of course friends in other departments envy me. They get to share a hotdesk with 5 other shifts. I have a calender on my desk, they have a tiny locker to keep their toolkit in

  • no window? make one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by supersuckers ( 841107 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:19PM (#11715372) Homepage
    Go to a yard sale and buy an old window, then hang it up in your cube. Put a poster of a nice beach or some other scene inside of it. Instant beach side property!
    • That's almost what I was going to suggest: stick a flat-screen behind a window frame, or put a window frame on one side of the room and a projector on the other. Get a nice webcam of somewhere, or a slowly moving virtual 3D render, or a music visualization, etc.
    • ...Put a poster of a nice beach or some other scene inside of it...

      I swear the first 3 times I read that line I read it as nude beach.

  • A Rug (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JackBuckley ( 696547 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:21PM (#11715391) Homepage
    Nothing brightens up a crappy office like a decent looking area rug over whatever yellowed tiles or stained carpet is down. I had a windowless office for years as a grad student. One night I bought a $100 oriental rug at a big box home goods store, the next few weeks everybody kept saying that I had the nicest office on the floor.

    Just my $.02

  • Use your creative muscle people! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QuietRiot ( 16908 ) <cyrus@80[ ]rg ['d.o' in gap]> on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:24PM (#11715439) Homepage Journal
    Please don't "just google it."

    Come up with something cool nobody else has done before. Not even people "on the internet."

    I once saw a room in college where the ceiling was covered with wrinkled aluminum foil and had red and blue lights pointed at it. It was a pretty nice effect. He did a really nice job too - right up to the corners and *lots* of crinkles. It was all probably about 2-3 inches thick. Neat look, relatively simple to do. (shiny side out!)

    But you can't do that. It's taken. Just kidding. Do what you want.

    Another guy in the same place had a very small room so he put his bed on a system where he could raise it up to the ceiling using some steel cable, pulleys, and counterweights to get it out of the way during the day.

    Collect random junk and try to make something that looks like a person standing in the corner. Dress up a coatrack with random junk. Spare CAT5 for hair (or shredded paper), some spools of some kind for eyes - be sure to add some shades. Old t-shirt from the thrift shop. Think up some other stuff for the rest.

    You could put color filters in your flourescent overhead lighting.

    Build a LARGE binary clock for your wall.

    You can always hang models or random crap from the ceiling.

    Use tape or rearrange the tiles for some kind of boardgame layout on your floor. Pac-Man

    Do what you can to "0wn" your friends cubicles in a non-destructive way.
    All your cubicles are belong to us!
    Racing stripes. Get some from an auto parts store and stick it to the side of your computer or monitor cases.

    Have an artist friend do a mural. Mosaic-ify it and do it on the tiles, overhead, on the wall, in the bathroom.

    Put up and "I'm from here." map. Even if it's just your city or tri-county area.

    Maps. Just find maps from random places.

    LEDs. Can't forget LEDs. (Just be sure to over drive them with an incorrectly designed power supply so they burn out and/or try to catch things on fire... HHOK) LEDs everywhere! (Everybody else is doing it.)

    Get some lasers and front-surface mirrors. Get a laser to bounce back and forth across the office a few times then smoke something in the dark to make it appear :)

    TUX. Can't forget TUX. He could use some wall space - right?

    Beastie. Can't forget Beastie. Make a blanket! :)

    Random sports equipment usually looks sorta cool hanging from the walls. Find a surfboard.

    Replace some standard office equipment with the same piece, but made out of LEGOs.

    Spare/Junk/Coastered CDs can be put on the walls in interesting patterns or made into clocks.

    Make the coffee machine run off a generator connected to an exercise bike. Put people on rotation and make sure they get to work on time. Maybe riding the bike is enough exercise to replace the need for coffee?

    Build a still. Like on *M*A*S*H* Imbibe on Fridays.

    Build a file-cabinet maze.

    Get some flourescent paint. Buy some blacklights.

    Mess with the bathroom somehow. Make visitors wonder.

    Paper airplane airport. Practice landings. Make a launcher with rubber bands.

    Print out banner ads for your wall.

    Tin-can-and-string telephone/intercom???

    Get some fish.

    Get yourself a "Jump to Conclusions" mat for the office.

    You could probably etch a number of carpets or other surfaces with bleach or acid. Just mask and pour! (Carpet would probably need something heavy to push down into the pile to prevent run-out. Masking tape won't work unless you use a spray bottle. Mask -far- back.)

    Take a Friday afternoon to go shopping for old couches and coffee tables. How about a gaudy lamp from 1964 for the corner of your office??

    Have a "Cubicle Pimp-Out Contest". Flashy and Gaudy wins.

    Remodel. Just moving stuff around will be fun and interesting for the next few weeks.

    No windows in your office? Buy yourself a sledgehammer. It won't come with directions. You don't need directions.....
    • My favorite college room mod was done by an old buddy of mine. Instead of a loft for his cramped, three-to-a-room cage, he built the "Anti-Loft". It was a raised floor with room underneath for storage and sleeping for three. Since he and his roommates were all below-average height, they didn't miss the headroom and had considerably more useable space than a typical loft would have afforded.

      The best part was that his sleeping area was accessed by a hatch in the floor, with a poster of a mushroom cloud un
      • With the limited space available, I've seen some pretty interesting combos, especially with those that have 2 or more in a room.

        Our dorm rooms had somewhat modular furniture where it could be hooked up in different ways. I hooked my bunk-bed to the back of my roommate's closet module and put my desk underneath. You can't beat floor space. It took a few hours to get all of our junk out into the hallway and do the transformation, but made the remaining 7 or so months there a great deal more comfortable.

        I
    • Collect random junk and try to make something that looks like a person standing in the corner. Dress up a coatrack with random junk. Spare CAT5 for hair (or shredded paper), some spools of some kind for eyes - be sure to add some shades. Old t-shirt from the thrift shop.

      Yeah, that's good thinking. I can replace caffeine with a terror-induced heart attack every morning.

    • Yo, every failed dot com from 1999 called. They want their decorating tips back.
      Seriously.
      • You are so very, very right.... :) Oh well.

        Readers should "consider the source" when deciding to implement these ideas. We *are* Slashdot - and with that dot comes great powers. Use your "creative muscle" wisely people! Don't ask your boss.... ask your conscience.

        I still think random maps on the wall are always fun. Don't deny the maps..... Got some blank wall you can put a tack into? Got some old maps in your desk drawer at home or one in your car from your last trip to Elba, NY [iinc.com] or Urbana, MO - ha
  • I'll create my own corporate office, with blackjack and hookers! In fact... forget the corporate office.

  • Bah (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:32PM (#11715542)
    Whenever we get a new employee and they bring in all their toys and music and fret about getting their space set up just how they like I think, "I am going to hate that person because their productivity is going to suck." 9 times out of 10, I am correct.

    • hear, hear. I've had exactly one good co-worker spend some time on her office... she painted it a non-ugly color, and brought in a lamp and a couple of plants. On the weekend. Everyone else that's spent more effort on it than sticking up a couple of posters and action figures wasn't around long enough to finish their grand plans :)
  • I have an office - a door, good music - and no window.

    I learned a long time ago that for my work windows just don't work for me... Either the monitor faces the window and gets a ton of glare, or the monitor faces away from the window and you get bright lights (the sun) in your eyes while trying to type. Either way - I prefer an interior office, no lights, and take a walk in the big blue room in the afternoon.

    • Either way - I prefer an interior office, no lights, and take a walk in the big blue room in the afternoon.

      If we ever work at the same place, I'll trade ya. :-) Can't stand being windowless, I get sleepy and depressed when deprived of sunlight.

      • If we ever work at the same place, I'll trade ya. :-)
        Not a problem. I did it where I am now - engineers at my grade are "supposed" to have a window office - when mine became available, I told my manager to give it to a junior co-worker that wanted the window... Win Win for both of us

  • Plants (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bishop ( 4500 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:41PM (#11715641)
    Real live plants are nice. Even without a window some plants will be fine under flourescent lighting. Look for "shade" plants.

    If possible you may also want to smuggle in a "super-daylight" flourescent light. You want something that is about 5500k with a CRI higher then 80. A single 2ft or 3ft tube, or 20w to 30w compact would be fine.

    • Re:Plants (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nelsonal ( 549144 )
      A great office plant is an orchid. They usually don't require much light which makse them great for windowless offices. They grow really slowly so they won't fill your office with green in a few years. Also when they finally send a flow spike up, everyone will be amazed.

  • No Windows??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dethwulf ( 688120 ) <curtwulf@gmail.com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:44PM (#11715678) Homepage
    Find a good pic of your favorite landscape and Rasterbate it. (http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/ [homokaasu.org])
  • As seen previously [slashdot.org], you could add your own windows [hoagy.org]

    I know I would do it if I just happened to have 8 LCD screens laying around.
  • I keep mine filled with my art. So there are ceramics [flickr.com], neon [flickr.com], and plasma [flickr.com] in my cube.

  • You want to be different [just like everyone else] (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zorkmid ( 115464 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @03:57PM (#11715830)
    At the last dot.bomb I worked at there was some kind of arms race like thing going on with regards to "geeking out" your office.

    The amount of time, effort and money these happy idiots invested in this endeavor was truly astounding.

    The companies high lords of chaos (management) eventually shipped about 99% of the company offshore to Hyderabad and Bucharest (the 1% left in the US was, you guessed it, management).

    The message being if you have the time to waste making your office "pretty" you might not have enough real work to do. At least from the point of view of the bottom line fixated management.

    So these days I keep it spartan. Books (lots of java API manuals), maps on the wall (I do a lot of GIS related work). A couple of my large monitors display virtual fishtanks or random slide shows. And if you have tiled floors a good rug is a must.

  • Twisted "inspirational" posters (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jncook ( 4617 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:01PM (#11715897) Homepage
    I coat my office in posters from www.despair.com, which mock the corporate single-word-and-pretty-picture inspirational posters.

    For instance, "Limitations - Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can walk."

    James

  • Ideas for ya (Score:4, Informative)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <frank@fper3.14kins.com minus pi> on Friday February 18, 2005 @04:33PM (#11716319) Homepage Journal
    Thinkgeek.com [thinkgeek.com] has a lot of stuff to make your office your own. I personally have the binary clock work tends to freak people out, but I think it's cool.

    I actually posed this question [slashdot.org] to the /. community on what types of cool stuff they are growing at work. Based upon their suggestions, I started a few jalapeno plants which already have 2 leaves a piece.

  • Inspired by TGI Friday's (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As Moe would put it, [snpp.com] I've got "lotsa crazy crap on the walls":

    Two framed 27" x 40" movie posters from the first two Terminator movies.
    Between them on a plexi shelf mounted on the wall stands a 14" endoskeleton figure.
    A framed share of Apple stock from Oneshare.com.
    A few items of memorabilia from the local AHL team's championship season a few years back, including a photo of me holding the Calder Cup (being a season ticketholder has its privileges).
    The motherboard from my very first computer, a Tandy 1000 c

  • Enormous stacks of paperwork. (Score:3, Funny)

    by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Friday February 18, 2005 @05:08PM (#11716743) Homepage
    I like to put anormous stacks of paperwork all over my desk. Also, I pid very detail, hard to read data diagrams on the walls. Looks mean as hell.
    Of course, a nice collection of pens of many colors can provide enjoyment. Don't use the neon ligut under your overhang cabinets. Bring a small lamp.

    Finally remember this: Don't have anything at your cube you can't live without.

  • Cube life (Score:3, Funny)

    by Smallpond ( 221300 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @05:42PM (#11717118) Homepage Journal
    For the standard small office cube - unplug the ghastly flourescent fixture and put in a floor lamp with incandescent bulb and a cheap oriental rug. Instant class.

    If you can't do that and you like your neighbor, pull an Office Space. Tear out the intervening wall and share a double cube. This makes your area look roomier even though you still have the same space.

    If anybody asks, tell them Derek told you it was OK. Unless your company actually has someone named Derek, in which case use Sheldon.

    Not responsible for the reactions of Maintenance or Supervisory staff when they find out about these changes.
  • I squeezed a 4D cube into my cubicle. Instant infinite space! Whoot! I can type faster in the fourth dimension.

  • YOU ARE BEING DOWNSIZED (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Friday February 18, 2005 @05:54PM (#11717252) Homepage
    Get your head out of your behind and smell the coffee. How do I know? Because it happenned to me...

    I started out at my last company in a cubicle, about a year or so later I had an office. Not a large one, but an office nonetheless. Things were going good, then about a year later I was moved to a smaller office. I was being paid well and the work was cool, so I didn't complain to much.

    About a year after that, the office was reconstructed, while we worked, so people that had offices had to get cubes, and while some got their offices back - I didn't. I made a fuss, I tried to make deals - nothing, absolutely nothing worked. They said they didn't have room. My cubicle was a large one, but it had a weird "doorway", monitor faced out, and it was on a corner of an intersection where people naturally gravitated to hold impromptu meetings - meaning I could hear everything and had no privacy, period. Meanwhile, the office I used to have continued to be unoccupied.

    For about a year this went on, and my old office continued to be unoccupied (along with about 2-3 others - but there wasn't room, remember?). I continued to have a cubicle, no privacy, and my one solace was that my supervisor allowed me to work from home over VPN three times a week, so it wasn't too bad for those two days I was in the office. My productivity never reduced, and my supervisor was pleased with my work.

    Eventually, another individual moved and took my old office (me and him got along ok, so I didn't begrudge him having it), even though we supposedly "didn't have room". Whatever. Several months went by, my project was cancelled, and I was "let go"...

    All in all, it was a fortunate thing to happen - I work for a business still in a "startup" phase, with fewer people than I have fingers to count them on. Furthermore, I sit in an "office" room which is quite large (24 x 16 feet), three walls of which have whiteboard space, plus a video projector and screen. I get to work on very interesting projects, and I make more money.

    I don't know what my old employer was smoking, but they need to give it up.

  • http://www.techcomedy.com/www.redswinglinestapler. com/
  • I used to have tons of conversation pieces in my office, but then I learned it led to, well, conversations. (The hermit)
  • Noise, quiet, and music: if I don't have quiet working conditions, I wear earplugs while I'm working. If the boss doesn't like it, he or she can do something about the noise.

    I like the suggestion for a rug, btw. When I go back to an office from working from home, I'm getting one.

    A professional-quality photograph of your family, girlfriend, or pet is good. Don't use a "wacky" frame.

    I also always hang up my patent plaque from a previous employer. I'll happily hang up any new ones, too.

    Hanging up dipl

  • Unnecessary Optimization Rules:

    1. Don't.
    2. If you feel tempted to violate rule 1, at least wait until you've finished writing the program.
    3. Non-trivial programs are never finished.

    The sign is to remind myself not to do unnecessary work.

  • A few thoughts (Score:3, Informative)

    by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday February 19, 2005 @12:09AM (#11720065) Homepage Journal
    Although I've never worked in a cube or office, I do have a home office which ideally functions similarly to a work office, that is to be asthetically pleasing while not being distracting. Here are a few ideas for decorating that I've come up with.
    First of all, if possible go with static decorations, as neat as those little moving doohickies and thingamuhwatzitz may seem, they tend to be distracting, often catching the corner of your eye. Along these lines, think color scheme, if you tend to just pick things willy nilly then you can end up with major clashage.
    I prefer a deep somewhat victorian color scheme, deep reds and browns, golds, things of that nature. If your stuck in an office then a more modern look might be appropriate, white and black with chrome.
    Light level is also important, Most people have an optimal light level that they like to work in, I prefer a low light environment, too much light makes me sick and gives me headaches. A lot of people have the opposite problem, be sure to know what sort of light level works best for you and go with that.
    Carpet is also important, along with adding a bit of style to the room, a good carpet can cut down on noise, especially if you have a lot of people walking through your area.
    When working with limited space, it's also important to think multifunctional, for example shelves can break up the monotony of a wall space, as well as providing much needed horizontle surfaces.
  • Well, if you're working in a corporate box, you're kinda screwed. You could go the office space route (demolish wall and climb the corporate structure by being honest (bigger office)) but for most people that isn't an option.

    Best thing to do is get a good desktop wallpaper/theme and keep your cubicle uncluttered. If you really wanna p1mp it bring your ibook/laptop and slideshow personal pictures or wath the Simpsons ;-)
  • I put up pictures of scenes that are relaxing to me. Also, I use my own photos for this, so it gives me a chance to show them off (and sell) them to my co-workers.
  • I have a cube. That changes everyday. And I can't bring anything at all to that cube.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @12:34PM (#11722671)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Personally, I decorate my office comics cut out of newspapers. I do work in the periodicals department of a university, though.

    I have a nice corner office with windows, at least that is how I describe it. It is inside the building with a clear view our reading room.

    I think of it as my own personal zoo. The patrons can watch me and I can watch them. I do remember not to feed the animals though.
  • ...has an awesome line of tech friendly workspaces. Some of them have self-contained air circulation and they can rotate on a preprogrammed schedule to follow the sunlight, multi-monitor support, lighting, pneumatically adjustable seating with presets for multiple users, etc., etc., etc. http://www.poetictech.com/index.html [poetictech.com]

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