The Accidental Arrival of the Cubicle

[pram]

Honestly after being in cubicles, and then experiencing an 'open office' where it's just rows of desks crammed up against each other... I don't understand all the complaints about cubicles. I love them now. Open office is a horrible regression.

[jhbadger]

But do you at least have a desk of your own? I agree that open offices are worse than cubes, but there is even a worse system where even desks are unassigned -- supposedly to encourage interaction across groups.

[ArkyBeagle]

An anedcote: my boss was PM for building a new building and his claim was that offices with sheetrock and (steel) studs was cheaper than cubes.

We still had cubes. Because you have to have cubes.

And of course the Edifice Complex held - we were sold before everything on the building was done.

[erdojo]

private office > cubicles > open office layouts.

[amelius]

Where do VR offices fit in? [1,2]

[1] http://assets-jpcust.jwpsrv.com/thumbs/nqfIhMYO.jpg

[2] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/i-worked-in-a-vr-...

[noonespecial]

Yes sir, I never thought I'd miss my cubicle until I got rammed into a folding table in an "open office". I bailed within weeks.

[MegaButts]

What companies in the Bay Area don't embrace the open office structure today?

[jboggan]

Well Google is leading the charge, and everyone wants to be like Google so . . .

I feel lucky that at the LA Google office I only have a dozen people in my glass-walled pen and that I am not out in the general cubicle areas.

[mc32]

Probably places like Genentech and many others. Does anyone know the new Cupertino layout apple will employ in their doughnut building?

[gumby]

The article alludes to, but glosses over the fact that the original vision was a reaction to the terrible open office approach.

The article does chronicle the sad perversion into cubicle sterility.