America's Cubicles Are Shrinking 484
Hugh Pickens writes "In the 1970s, American corporations typically thought they needed 500 to 700 square feet per employee to build an effective office, but the LA Times reports that today's average is a little more than 200 square feet per person, and the space allocation could hit a mere 50 square feet by 2015. 'We're at a very interesting inflection point in real estate history,' says Peter Miscovich, who studies workplace trends. 'The next 10 years will be very different than the last 30.' Although cubicles have shrunk from an average of 64 feet to 49 feet in recent years, companies are looking for more ways to compress their real estate footprint with offices that squeeze together workstations while setting aside a few rooms where employees can conduct meetings or have private phone conversations. 'Younger workers' lives are all integrated, not segregated,' says Larry Rivard. 'They have learned to work anywhere — at a kitchen table or wherever.'"
Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
"Younger workers' lives are all integrated, not segregated," says Larry Rivard. "They have learned to work anywhere — at a kitchen table or wherever."
Could that be because their office space has become so worthless that anywhere else is preferable?
Re:Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how corporations will justify whatever they want.
Because people are not given a choice but to work in less space, they therefore say that they don't need it or want it.
Question: did they ask the workers (really ask them...anonymously)? .02
-JJS
Re:Causality (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, factory farm operators claim that today's livestock has, over time, come to crave the experience of being squeezed shoulder to shoulder.
(Just kidding.... I think....)
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Actually, animals with herd instincts do feel most calm and protected when they’re being squeezed shoulder to shoulder. So do some autistic people.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Informative)
I'm autistic, and yes, I occasionally need full-body pressure to calm down, but I also need quiet and space to think. I sure as hell don't want to work cheek-by-jowl with a bunch of people I know only by what went into them at lunch and is coming out of them in the afternoon.
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Going back and re-reading what I wrote, I didn’t mean to imply that autistic people would enjoy being crowded all the time. What works well for calming down obviously would not work well for efficiently getting office work done, in this case.
Re:Causality (Score:4, Insightful)
Shocker of shockers... no, not really.
Once upon a time, workers had to deal with crap working conditions in which getting killed was commonplace. In shitass countries like India, or Malaysia, or China where all the manufacturing has been "outsourced" to for slave-labor wages, this is still true.
Today, the US has laws and agencies that are supposed to prevent this. But companies run by the soulless, inhuman "I have an MBA and never did a fucking day of real honest work in my life" types will try to get around it however they can.
OSHA says you have to have an office where phone calls can be private? Fine, we'll give you one "private phone room" for 20 employees. OSHA says you have to have a 30 minute lunch break? Fine, but we'll stick the kitchen in another building 10 minutes walk away, good luck getting there and back and still managing to do anything but bolt your lunch at choking-hazard speeds, sucker, or you can take a bag lunch in and keep it in your desk and you might as well work while eating anyways.
What we need to do is bust up the megacorporations and get rid of the top-level leech class that don't produce anything. But good luck seeing that happen any time soon. Those tax-evading assholes have too much media control to get the word out about them.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Interesting)
shitass countries [ncbuy.com].
"The law does not provide workers with the right to remove themselves from work situations that endanger health and safety without jeopardizing their continued employment."
"State governments were responsible for enforcement of the Factories Act. However, the large number of industries covered by a small number of factory inspectors and the inspectors' limited training and susceptibility to bribery resulted in lax enforcement.
The enforcement of safety and health standards also was poor."
I'll say it again. Shitass countries.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're misunderstanding the OP's (admittedly colorful and not entirely well explained) point about what constitutes a "shitass" country. He isn't trying to say that the people in the country are bad, or that there aren't intelligent and successful people within them, but rather that these countries treat their workers, especially working class factory workers, like shit. Unsafe conditions, exceptionally poor pay, and long hours are the rule in most developing countries, and the ones he lists are particularly well known for them. His point (again, colorfully expressed) is that most companies will treat people as poorly as they can get away with. Here in the US (and even more so in Europe and some other countries) we have laws and some level of enforcement to ensure that there is a reasonable bottom limit to how badly you can be treated. In most "shitass" countries it's even worse.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Informative)
That is actually somewhat true - we got a dozen hens from a deep-litter farm. Now, in a deep-litter environment the hens are allowed to wander around a big shed with nesting boxes in aisles and a deep layer of straw on the floor. They're fed, they've got room to move and crucially - unlike true "free-range" - they're unlikely to be ripped in half by foxes. It's a pretty good environment for them, really. If you take them out of a deep-litter farm (like when they start to get old, they lay eggs less frequently and become less cost-effective but perfectly okay if you're not looking for an egg every day from each hen) and chuck them into a big field - after you've carefully shot all the foxes, otherwise they won't be there in the morning - then they will instinctively huddle together even closer than they were in the shed. They're really kind of agoraphobic. If you build a small shed for them they'll run inside and won't leave until they get *really* hungry.
Strange, but true. At least, I think it's strange and you'll have to take my word for it that it's true.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Funny)
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Either "rightsizing" or "termination with prejudice".
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I'd say it would be terminating (shooting) any aggressive subordinates (foxes) who may have hopes for senior management (raiding the hen house). It's easier to have passive employees (sheep) who can do what you hired them for (slaughter), and not ever hope to move up (continue grazing).
Many middle-managers see the corporate ladder as being broken below them. They don't want or need their subordinates climbing up to steal "their" promotion, or even their job. Despite that, th
Re:Causality (Score:4, Insightful)
Try that with programmers and watch your productivity go down the loo.
I was once working as the head of a team with a rather big company I'd rather not name. Let's say it was a German company, known for its big S and its bananaware. We took over a huge internal project. To explain: Internal projects are gold mines. You can charge what you want and the other departments have to pay it because there is simply no other place to get it from. You DO NOT WANT to lose an internal project. For no reason whatsoever. Why? Because even if your cost rises, you just add it to the price tag and they HAVE to pay it. You need money to cross-finance other projects? Jack up the price! It's the (internal) license for money printing.
So we snatched that project from another department that failed to deliver. That's the only threat there is: Not delivering.
So what would be the sensible thing to do? Stuff your best and brightest into that project, of course! You MUST NOT lose that project! You can basically hang your whole department onto it and it will hold! The rest of the company MUST pay you!
What was offered to me? Temp workers. Yes. You heard me. Temps. Not REALLY the most motivated people there are, right? Especially, have you ever hired programmers on a temp worker base?
Most of you will know, it takes a while 'til a programmer gets productive. Especially when you take over a HUGE project that consists of VERY crappy code that you yourself are still busy digging into. They're basically, at best, useless the first month. If, and only if, they're able to learn by themselves, which most temp proggers are. Because if they were any GOOD proggers, they wouldn't be forced to suffer a temp agency.
And while they're with you, they spend more time studying the classifieds than the code. Because who in their sane mind wants to work for a temp agency? It's not like programmers are bricklayers or plumbers. There are not THAT many. So even the mediocre ones get permanent jobs easily. In short, no programmer stayed longer than 3 months.
Eventually, after half a year and a pretty much stalled project I put my foot down and declared that either I get to hire programmers on a perm base or I quit.
I found a new job pretty soon. In the words I gave my superior back then: "More money, less you".
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Well, if you don't plan to stay with the company for more than a year or so, outsourcing to India is a good idea.
After a year you'll be asked why your productivity went down. Way down.
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That is only mostly rue. there are small companies out there that have actual good employee management relations. I have been lucky so far. however I have also seen your point.
There is a reason why employee's now a days don't expect to work for one company until retirement any more. It just isn't true. Which begs the question why do we let companies decide our future, and medical care, when on average we don't work for any one for more than 15 years.
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Be careful, I was where you are. I had built the company up from negative cashflow to a healthy net 8-figure company. I was very frugal with expenses. Literally the profit from two days of the year covered all th
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Might be because they are descended from Junglefowl:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Junglefowl [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Junglefowl [wikipedia.org]
So they'd probably feel happier in jungle-like environments - lots of cover to run into.
Anyway a small bird that's a weak flyer, not a very fast runner and generally not a very good fighter (there are exceptions of course :) ) is likely to be a bit nervous when there's no cover nearby. Especially if getting "ripped in half by foxes" is a significant possibility.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
Definitely agree.
And to me "they've learned to work at a kitchen table or wherever" is only a small step away from "they're all on call 24/7, because they can work wherever they happen to be."
Re:Causality (Score:4, Interesting)
I have (or had) a small cubicle which squeezed a computer, chair, and closet (for coat) in a space barely large enough to lay down.
BUT the company compensated for that small space by replacing the 4th wall with a window which gave the impression of more space, plus other benefits like being able to wear jeans everyday (nice jeans not wholey jeans), a free lunch, unlimited access to the internet to hear the radio/watch hulu, and so on. Making the cube small doesn't matter if the workers are treated with respect.
In contrast my new job has no cubes and open space, but you're free to do nothing (no radio, no eating lunch at your desk, no privacy). I don't hate it but I don't like it either. I'd rather have liberty even if it meant my cube was the size of my old dormroom's desk.
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They needed to change the color of the water bottles... obviously.
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Also amazing how our executive's private offices are 30' by 40'. That's larger than many houses.
We have 10x8 cubes (12x8 for supervisors and managers).
On a big project, I'm in a war room at a desk with people right next to me now. I see my cube about three times a month.
I don't think I'd leave for a bigger cube tho. I might leave for a private office. But the way policies change, I could leave for one and then not have one less than a year later. So they are probably right that this isn't a big issue.
B
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It all depends on what you work with if the space needed is sufficient or not.
But when more and more people are stuffed together into a small space you may end up in a situation where the ventilation of the building is insufficient and people will start to be less efficient due to high CO2 levels in the blood.
And times turn good again? - I'm a bit pessimistic on that because employers will see that they can stuff people tighter and then they will continue to do so even in good times because the furniture th
Re:Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
Executive offices are fairly astonishing in size. Part of it is due to tabulatory gigantism -- the need to have the largest possible desk, despite the fact that many don't even "work at a desk". This latter aspect drives a lot of the large executive office syndrome; they "don't work at a desk" therefore they need the space for a living room setup, complete with a big leather couch, designer table, and a couple of chairs and a large flat screen TV & entertainment setup.
They also need a kitchenette setup (Keurig coffee machine, fridge for beer/pop, liquor, glasses, ice) and in many cases a private bathroom, because they want to be able to offer refreshments and a restroom for them and their guests.
One of the major ironies about all this space being devoted to them is that it stands empty much of the time due to their extensive travel requirements (cf. justification for Netjets/company airplane).
I sometimes wonder why they don't skip all the executive suites and instead build a small hotel on corporate campuses and hire a hotel company to manage it. The executives could be given a generic "large" office (of the type generally assigned to on-site senior working managers; large enough for a desk, conference table and four chairs, but not the big suites) and a group of suites in the hotel could be set aside for executives involved in meetings for which their "living room" setup would be required; the hotel's concierge and other staff could be used for food/beverage and other conveniences.
The side benefit would be a functional hotel that could be used for out of town employees, vendors and others needing accommodations and working on campus.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing how corporations will justify whatever they want.
Because people are not given a choice but to work in less space, they therefore say that they don't need it or want it.
Question: did they ask the workers (really ask them...anonymously)? .02
-JJS
This is strikingly similar to the attitude a previous CTO of mine expressed when we were remodeling workspaces (yes, the CTO got involved in cubicle design). His idea was "big open room, no walls, no cubicles...to foster a 'collaborative working environment'".
I tried til I was blue in the face to explain to him we don't have a business that benefits from collaboration...individuals work on individual projects mostly. He wouldn't listen.
After the remodel, and the office sounded like a bus station caffeteria from people talking, using the phone, typing, meetings (nope, no meeting rooms either), etc, most people you'd see would have headphones on to block out the noise. The CTO, he just went into his office and kept the door closed.
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See, this isn't terrible for people who don't normally work at the office, and spend most of their day in the field. However, it sounds like the parent poster's setup is like that for ALL employees, even those who are always in the office. It sounds awful.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Funny)
I think it's more accruate that we don't work anywhere. So why should the office be any different. :)
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That sorts out the driving around part, but what do you do to simulate picking up cheap hookers? I think your Sim Kerb Crawler needs more work. (but subscribe me to your newsletter)
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I'd love to work from home. However, I'd like to point out a second barrier to you: lazy employees who goof off and become almost completely unproductive when working from home ruining it for the rest of us.
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Re:Causality (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. I know for myself, I have a much harder time staying focused and getting work done at home than when I'm "on the job" somewhere. To give you an idea how drastic it is, when I'm trying to "work from home" I barely get anything worthwhile done. When I'm "on the job", I'm one of the best, most efficient guys on the team. I get twice as much done as some of the other guys.
I really wish that weren't the case, because I'd much prefer working from home.
Re:Causality (Score:5, Funny)
You're not alone, I'm the same way. It is so bad that I'm seriously considering building some timed interlock system where I would push a button and have the Internet down for X minutes, or a timed door lock that would keep me in a distraction-free room for enough time to get useful work done.
The irony is I'm supposed to be doing work, and here I am designing a timed lock...
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We all know how well that worked out...
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Could that be because their office space has become so worthless that anywhere else is preferable?
Exactly. Its not like executives are standing in line to give up their large, expansive, windowed offices.
What really needs to happen is more and more jobs need to done remotely. Employees can then have a room dedicated to work. Email, IM, phone/video conference, and periodic in office meetings are all that are required for professionals. Obviously, not everything can be addressed this way. Just the same, the foot print and utility savings can be considerable for a large workforce.
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More like "We can shrink these cubicles because today's dumb kids will put up with it!"
It seems to have gotten worse and worse since the end of the Great Depression. I put up with shit my dad would never have dreamed of putting up with, my daughter puts up with shit I would never have dreamed of putting up with.
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You haven't see some computing labs these days - it's really how many PC's and students can we cram into the room before they start complaining? With so many buy-to-rent landlords, a two bedroom apartment with living room/dining becomes a four-bedroom student flat.
I have no idea.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why people still like cubicles.
The place I worked had an open plane. My team members had connecting desks to each other. If I needed anything (since I worked in ICT - needing someone else is common) - all I had to do it talk, or move my chair a bit. I think cubicles aren't very good for morale anyway.
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Re:I have no idea.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, I have a cubicle somewhere in the building... I don't know where it is; I've never seen it. I assume it's like all the other cubicles in the building.. I work in a lab primarily because I need access to hardware and test equipment... The lab is somewhat open-plan but I have a private little corner that I've managed to arrange by moving benches around... It's noisy enough in the lab that I can keep from getting distracted by people milling about or make my phone calls without anyone listening in... I can focus for long periods when I need to and the restricted access to the lab prevents a lot of people from just wandering in for a visit...
When I need to communicate with my cow-orkers, we all use Jabber.. If you're focused, you can hide your jabber window and not be disturbed... I get to choose when distraction is permissible or unwanted.
Hear hear (Score:5, Insightful)
I currently work in an open-plan environment. My job requires some significant coding work (requiring total focus for long periods of time) while all of my colleagues are involved in much more piecemeal work. They have absolutely no comprehension of how frustrating and damaging it is to my productivity to be subjected to their distracted working pattern all day.
There are definite benefits to working open-plan, but for some tasks it is simply inappropriate and detrimental.
Re:Hear hear (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I have no idea.... (Score:4, Funny)
Why people still like cubicles.
The cubicle wall provides a place to hide when a button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho who is sick of working in a cubicle snaps, and then stalk the office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers.
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People like the illusion of privacy. They like that it is a minor nuisance to bother them and that they have a space that they can make a little bit more their own than is typically considered proper in a more open environment. I know that many people where I work were uncomfortable with open floor plans for this very reason. In some extreme cases, people have effectively constructed cube walls for themselves with books and other items just to let them work better.
The lack of visual distractions of other
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Re:I have no idea.... (Score:5, Informative)
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My opinion is that if you're using cubicles, you're doing it wrong.
Re:I have no idea.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The place I worked had an open plane. My team members had connecting desks to each other. If I needed anything (since I worked in ICT - needing someone else is common) - all I had to do it talk, or move my chair a bit.
I would love to go back to a cubicle.
I am the guy stuck sitting next to you. While you get your quick response by leaning over, I get my train of thought derailed.
And most of the time, you're bugging me for something you should be able to find for yourself in the documentation or something you should be doing yourself.
The rest of the office does not exist to do your bidding. Maybe having your own space is bad for your morale, because then you'd have to do your own work, but for me, having my own defined space where I can concentrate without interruption, increases my morale by about 1000%.
Re:I have no idea.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea how the whole country has become so oversocialized. Privacy is important to be an individual. How can you know who you are if you have never been alone? Without working alone, how can you realize that it is the individual that does the work, not the collective? How can you get any work done at all when you are constantly distracted (and spied on) by other people? Forcing "togetherness" was a great socialist tool back in the Soviet times, to ensure that you never imagine yourself as an individual, that you never have unapproved thoughts, and that if you do either of those things you can get ratted out and sent to Siberia.
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If it was open how did you keep the snakes out?
Re:I have no idea.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies like cubicles because they are a vastly cheaper way to convert warehouse type space to office like space, and while they don't completely block out noise, they divert it enough so that while one worker is on the phone with a customer, that customer hears you, not the person sitting next to you talking about her cat.
Having worked in call centers with cubicles and without, I vastly prefer cubicles, though I'd prefer never to work in a call center again (both of those were college temp jobs).
I do some telecommuting, but having moved to an Agile team at work makes that a bit more difficult (we don't follow Agile exactly because employees are strewn across about 6 sites, but we do use a lot of collaboration tech to work around that, like virtual teleconferencing and netmeeting-like desktop sharing).
If anybody needs me... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be in the basement, clutching my red stapler.
Worldwide translation (Score:5, Funny)
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Alternative worldwide translation (Score:2)
LOL! Thanks, that really cracked me up. Now, here's an alternative translation for us wacky metric system users:
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Briefer version: In USA, shoebox holds you.
Brazil (Score:3, Informative)
Next they'll expect us to share a desk too:
http://movieclips.com/Mkivg-brazil-movie-the-moving-desk/ [movieclips.com]
I'm sitting in about 64 ft^2. It sucks but I like making money too.
Co-workers who use speaker phone (Score:3)
That alone should be reason enough to not support cubicles.
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Then there's the guy faintly humming weird music in the adjacent cube on the other side, along with the chick nearby whose phone rings some awful song whenever she leaves it on her desk.
Should I appreciate the sight barriers, even if I don't get a noise barrier? It's hard to say.
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Welcome to my world (Score:3)
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I had a large office at my last job. In fact, it was an office designed for three people, but with layoffs it became my office solely. Now I sit in a fairly small 36 square foot cubicle as well, but I don't feel cramped. I don't need to store file folders or anything like that. My desk is large enough for three monitors, my phone, a digital photo frame, and I still have plenty of room.
Our cubicles really only have one tall wall, so we have an open space down a row where I can talk with my coworkers. We all
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I haven't had but once a window for my shared office/cube in 15 years of IT.
I think that EU building architects are way ahead of US building architects for sunshine and Natural Ventilation.
Wireless really helped when it was permitted to work that way. To many coworkers abused that flexibility. We had garden quads within walking distance that helped as well. If upwind of the smokers you could actually feel naturally human at some point during the work day.
Bunk desks! (Score:2)
I've had this idea for a while - why not exploit the third dimension. Bunk desks - they're the answer!
Seriously, here in the UK open plan offices are the norm. We've recently escaped plans to reduce the size of our desks to little more than the width of keyboard + mousemat.
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Maybe it's not the cubicles getting smaller (Score:5, Funny)
42 (Score:3)
I just checked mine and it's 6' x 7'.
OMG, 42!
it all makes sense now!
new (Score:2)
Re:new (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not driven by real estate prices (Score:5, Insightful)
In most areas, commercial real estate is going empty.
This is being driven by a desire to control employees. They want to huddle them close together so they are easier to watch and they tend to police each other.
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Also, as with ladybugs, it's an effective strategy for overwintering.
Re:It's not driven by real estate prices (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know how it works in the US, but if the UK is anything to go by your view is probably wrong.
Commercial landlords - indeed, the entire commercial letting industry - is a law unto itself. My own employer moved offices when our previous landlord would not reduce the rent (even though the going rate was dropping as offices were becoming empty). They were told clearly, in simple terms: rent goes down or we go out. Rent did not go down. We left a couple of months after a number of other tenants in that building did. I wouldn't be surprised if that building is 70 or 80% empty today.
There's all sorts of other things you can get in commercial leases which anyone who didn't know the industry would think absurd. "Repairing leases" (where you have to carry out any repairs to the fabric of the building - all the responsibilities of ownership, none of the benefits!) aren't that uncommon, and if you happen to take on a building which requires a lot of repair work - tough. You can actually be forced to return the building to the landlord in a better state to how you took it on.
Another one I've heard of is where the landlord charges you £X/square foot then includes things like staircases and toilets in their calculation of how large the office is. (You don't normally include these things when you do this arithmetic - £X/square foot usually means £x/useful square foot, not including staircases, kitchen areas etc). Next thing you know you've accidentally signed yourself to a contract paying double the going rate, you can't get out of it and you can't sub-let it without losing money unless you can find someone equally stupid. For bonus points, the landlord has demanded that the director of the business acts as a personal guarantor - only way out of the contract then is to declare yourself bankrupt.
Faced with an industry full of sharks like that, anyone with any sense will do everything in their power to minimise their exposure.
i'm rooting for 0 square feet (Score:3)
cubes suck hind tit (Score:2)
hate it. Had an office and when I really needed to concentrate I could close the door. Then they said they needed the office space so moved me into my lab. Fine, I spent a lot of time there anyway and I could ignore the sound of the equipment running. Now there are three (3) cubes in my lab space, I'm in one. The space in each is only 44 sq ft. But at least the partitions are 6 foot tall; so, I can pretend to concentrate. In 4 month we're moving into a new building, with cubes. And the partition wal
Sq F (Score:5, Funny)
Who's running these corporations? Millipedes?
Extrapolation games (Score:2)
In the 1970s, American corporations typically thought they needed 500 to 700 square feet per employee to build an effective office, but the LA Times reports that today's average is a little more than 200 square feet per person, and the space allocation could hit a mere 50 square feet by 2015.
Then in 2025, everyone's cubicles will be two square feet! In 2035, it'll be negative 10 square feet! Zager and Evans will have NOTHING on this!
Sorry, I'm just enjoying the silly extrapolation.
In other news... (Score:3)
Misguided Rationalization (Score:3, Insightful)
Y'know when I was younger I would have worked on a shelf if it meant I had a job and I was doing something I loved, I don't see this as anything new.
I really can't think of any cube environment I've worked in that was conducive to work, the best environments always seem to have been open, yet not too big. An open room with 6 to 8 people seems to be the magic zone.
The biggest cube I worked in was at the Provincial Gov't, they had this massive 1960s job that had two chairs, a proper desk, a fully adjustable "computer" desk and a coat rack. I kinda liked that cube because there was enough room for small meetings, pair programming and it gave you some space for thinking (without having three other noisy people two meters away from you all the time). In fact it wasn't until I got into a modern cube farm that I had to go out and buy noise cancelling headphones (though very nearly a noise cancelling shotgun).
It's weird, with walls people are loud and obnoxious, with no walls they have respect for each other.
Why even bother with cubes? (Score:2)
Issue everyone a laptop and phone with a camera and a Jabra. Let them work where they want. Measure by task and project completion and quality. How much physical interaction is necessary for most information jobs?
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Tell that to those who have the job of escorting the field engineer onto the computer room floor, preparing the backup media for removal to secure storage, inserting new blank media into the backup silos when they run low, etc. They are also the ones I call when the monitoring tools are borked because the LOM card is on the fritz and I need someone to physically touch the system or look at it.
Smaller, smaller, smallest... (Score:2)
For some reason I am reminded of that ISS living quarters tour [slashdot.org].
Maybe becaseu that kitchen table is the only thing (Score:2)
Desk Space has become irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Desk Space has become irrelevant (Score:4, Interesting)
That was my first though when I read the summary too... "duh, how obvious" - as we move closer and closer to being truly paperless, officer workers need less and less space to spread out papers or to store files.
I hate to invoke 'kids these days' - but it really does apply here. Anyone under thirty or so has almost certainly never experienced an 'old style' office - when PC's became ubiquitous in the 90's, things changed radically.
My wife is an accountant and CFO for a local business and keeps a set of the ledgers from the 1980's in her office - they fill a shelf three feet long. (She says when she's frustrated because the server is slow or down, looking at that shelf reminds her of how good she actually has it.) She also points out all she has is the ledgers, the ancillary material like invoices, timesheets, sales tickets, etc... would take up even more space. If she wasn't required to keep a physical paper trail of some things for legal and tax reasons, she wouldn't even have a filing cabinet in her office. The old storage room for such stuff is now an employee break room. The refrigerator in the break room is bigger than the annual amount of paper she has to store nowadays.
She also points out that in the 1980's the business required an accountant, two full time bookkeepers, and a full time filing clerk. Today, despite the business being ten times larger, there's just her and a full time data entry clerk. The phone girl files in her spare time.
For another example: In my book collection, I have a book on office organization intended for professional engineers, draftsmen, and architects from the 1950's - it dedicates three entire chapters (almost half the book) to the theory and practice of laying out work spaces for engineers and draftsmen. You lay it out one way for buildings, another for ships, a different way for airplanes... All trying to solve the problem of mapping a 3D physical object onto/into a 2D drafting room such that guys (and it was all guys back then) working on adjacent parts/rooms/spaces/systems were close enough to each other to collaborate. (When something like the working drawings for the engine room of a ship could stretch thirty feet or an entire deck could stretch a hundred or more if laid end-to-end this was a real problem.) The offices were open plan because they had to be, because there was no other way to collaborate but to physically transport yourself or the drawing to the individual(s) you needed to communicate with.
context (Score:2)
paper or plastic? (Score:2)
To a certain degree, I guess this probably makes sense.
A few years back you'd be working with physical paper. You needed room for filing cabinets. You needed a big enough desk to get work done. You needed paper, pencils, pens, a typewriter, whatever.
These days you've got a computer. You just need room for a monitor and keyboard, and you can cram the box itself under the desk somewhere.
But I think the bigger picture is that employers are genuinely squeezing as much out of their employees as they can.
We'r
Meh (Score:2)
I need to concentrate. My requests at work for a small pocket universe have gone unanswered, sadly.
size doesn't matter much (Score:2)
I'd be fine with space even half of what I have. Just give me full-height walls and a door. Thanks.
That sounds pretty big. (Score:3)
Effective office? Prove it! (Score:5, Informative)
"effective office" cubicle is an oxymoron. There have been many studies over the years that show that open office spaces are counter-productive. The book, Peopleware, by DeMarco and Lister covers this and other topics, related to the management of knowledge workers. At the time Peopleware was written, DeMarco and Lister couldn't find a single productivity study that supported the installation of cubicles.
People not found at their desks are often practicing the productivity enhancement called, "hiding from the boss". It is often the only way to get work done around a micro-manager.
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My math said those feet were cubic, not square.
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There wouldn't have been a computer on every desk in the 1970s. I think it's more down to the fact that there's a lot less paper being shuffled in your average 2010 office than there was back then, which would take up a lot of desk space.
Personally, I would manage perfectly well with a desk half the size of what I have. I don't manage the extra space well; it just tends to accumulate clutter.
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ya I remember 15 or so years ago (maybe a bit more than that) when employees all had both computers AND archives of paper and books everywhere. They had more cubicle space, and less elbow room. Today they have less cubicle space, and more elbow room. Document management systems, laptops, google, and desks that are actually designed for computers and not just whatever table they could find that was the right height make a big difference.
I used to be a ninja computer installer. We'd go in to a company bet
Re:Working from Home? (Score:5, Insightful)
I work from home and have done so for over ten years now. I've made it work successfully. I will very openly state that many of my coworkers cannot effectively work from home.
The reasons that work from home isn't always a good idea vary. Some people require the human face to face contact. Others require the firmer separation, the act of actually going to another building to put them in the work mindset. Some do not have a home situation amenable to working from home. Some are just in jobs that require too much interaction with the rest of the team or just cannot be done remotely. (People who's job requires physical access to specific hardware without waiting an hour for the person to get there.)
Even many of my coworkers who do work from home make excuses to go into the office periodically to meet with peers for lunch. This helps smooth over issues so that work is done more smoothly.
Re:Working from Home? (Score:5, Interesting)
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The problem with telecommuting is that managers don't get that "face time" that they do desperately love. It's a control thing.
I'm lucky in that regard. Right now I spend two days in the office, and the other three working at home. It's a deal I negotiated with my current employer when I was offered work elsewhere. It works well - the management gets that warm fuzzy feeling that I'm a real person, and the other three days of the week I can actually get work done.
I have suggested multiple times that my compa
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That figure for the entire office floor space, not the individual offices/cubes. That is, 500-700 square feet including offices, hallways, break rooms, bathrooms, etc.