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Cubicle Inventor Disowned Cubicles

There's an article this month in Fortune on the cubicle inventor and his disowning of the concept with a discussion of how we ended up with today's unpleasant work environment:

Economics was the one thing Propst had failed to take into account. But it was also what triggered the cubicle's runaway success.

Nobody suspected that the unintended consequence of asset depreciation schedules would be veal pens for office workers. Leading to my favorite quote in the article:

they became the dystopian world that three academics described as "bright satanic offices" in a 1998 book, Workplaces of the Future"

Let this be a lesson to you. "Tax relief" = more incentive to shove you into a smaller box.

To be fair, his original concept was good. In some ways the current setup is preferable to the bull-pen days. I've worked in those environments and most of the time I'd rather be stuck in a gray-lit fabric box. We IT workers are sometimes better kept isolated, often behind a red door.

Posted by Mark Tuesday, March 21, 2006 10:22:00 PM | permalink |