The New Jungle

I was in an office building with a brand new cubicle jungle for office workers. The cubicles were quite nice with desks that move up and down with the push of a button.

One big problem: these new cubes are only four feet high. The old cubes for a generation were six feet tall, much more private and insular.

It is a paradox that, on the verge of the rise of mass individualism and individual-living, the corporate culture puts hundreds of workers in a beehive with absolutely no privacy left.

A suspicious supervisor would laud this change as all being in sight, so all can be monitored and kept productive or be disciplined.

I counter-argue that some may abuse their cube privacy by goofing off, but most would work more productively and creatively because their free will, their privacy, their individualism, their separation from group-think allows them to be unique employees, and that has huge implications for the well-being of the business.

I hope the new office workers enjoy their four foot high cubes, that are here to stay. Beehive work life is alive and well.