Cool Cubicles

Note: I wrote this post before the wide spread of coronavirus made it both anachronistic and…more accurate?

Open offices are terrible. My company has one, I helped choose it, and yet I admit the concept’s many flaws.

Everyone can overhear everyone. Privacy is impossible. People are afraid to talk for fear of distracting others, so everyone locks themselves into a headphone-induced cone of silence.

It’s perhaps no surprise that an office layout designed for Wall Street traders to yell at each other is suboptimal for…well, anything else.

But private offices are also odd! Every time we consider moving into a space with 6-10 private offices, they give off a distinctly monastic feel. Is it possible to have a lively culture without some noise, some buzz, some activity? (Not to mention the inevitable hierarchical struggles over who gets an office, who doesn’t, placement, etc.)

There’s only one solution I see—the cubicle. The privacy of an office, built into the space of an open office. Some noise, some activity, flexible placement, and privacy when need be.

But cubicles are ugly and oppressive. Do they have to be? I honestly believe there’s room for “the Apple of cubicles”, that can solve the problem as elegantly as cubicles, but without the feeling of working as a cog in a giant, soulless machine.