Monday, January 12, 2009

Thinking inside the box

Back in late November, my work moved into a new building. Part of our relocation meant that now instead of being in my own office, I would now be in a 8'x8' cube in a "suite" with 5 other cubes. I know a lot of my fellow coworkers struggled with the reduction of office space, but having only been employed here a year and a half, I don't miss that extra space at all. The main adjustment for me has been the co-habitating. I knew it would be.

You see, not everyone thinks the same. While I would think twice about bringing leftover seafood, reheating it and eating it in my cube, others may not. So far, I've actually found office life with my five suitemates to be painfree. They are considerate people. They don't smell. They aren't incredibly loud.

However, there are just a couple of things that to me are no-brainers when you are sharing space with other people, that not everyone seems to get...

1. Every single person in this building has a cell phone. Please turn your ringer off. Place the phone on your desk if you're worried about missing a call. I guarantee you'll hear it vibrate. This goes for text messages too.

2. Turn your email sounds for incoming and outgoing mail off. Just look periodically at the icon in your dock to see if new mail has arrived.

3. Don't forget to turn your sound down before watching crap on youtube. I've been scared shitless on more then one occasion from random loud dialogue!

That's all for now. Like I said, my cubemates are actually very considerate and the most annoying part of daily cube life is actually other people coming in and looking for people that aren't in our suite. I've been pleasantly surprised.

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6 comments:

Dewi said...

Hmm, sounds tough! Hope they'll hear you.
Cheers,
Elra

Heather said...

haha. i liked that last one. i've never thought about how annoying it would be to share cube space with others. since all my conversations with clients are confidential, i have my own office. but nick shares a cube area and some of his neighbors drive him nuts. like the guy that loudly farts and burps all the time. groooooooossss.

Shelby said...

Our office isn't "cubed" but the chair and executive officer have offices that branch off of mine. The XO is always microwaving something stinky for lunch. lol. It drives me nuts!

teg said...

Good thing we're not in the same cube Jeni! I always forget to turn my cell phone ringer down, that is, until I get a call/text. Then it scares the crap out of me and I turn it down to either low or vibrate. Also, since I work in so many different programs every day, mostly in S1, which includes web-based e-mail, then throw in my ADD, and I NEED those incoming message alerts. Mine are quiet though. I always hear lots of noises from Steph's computer/cube (she's right in front of me), but they don't bother me.
I completely agree with #3, if for no other reason than I don't want the hammer coming down on ALL of us if one person gets caught spending too much time on "non-work." :)

Jeni said...

Thank goodness we have no loud farters and burpers!

My old office used to be right next to the breakroom and I was hating this two week period where someone was on a curry kick – EVERY DAY!

Yeah the ringing phones and email alerts when someone is writing back and forth with someone for like 5 minutes are annoy me. Every 20 seconds or so an alert sound...BAH!

Melanie Busbee said...

hahaha. yeah, my new "suitemate" has every sound that can possibly be made by a computer up on full volume. I LOVE IT!!!!

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