karenc@amadeus.TEK.COM (Karen Cate;1502;92-734;LP=A;60dC) (01/29/88)
Now that this discussion is winding down, I'd like to put my $.02 in.
I know you've heard this before, it's trite, and tends to annoy
people, but I'm going to say (type?) it anyway...
The world is what you make of it!
If you don't like something, it is up to you to change it. Yeah,
I know, it's not that easy, but you can try. I work in an old style
cubicle: three sided, and the partitions are basically wooden and a
little too short, so there is a lot of noise. If a conversation is
loud or annoying, the participants are asked to go to a conference
room. We have put up sound absorbing panels where ever we could.
Soon we'll be graduating to real "soft-walls"- 5.5-6.0' tall sound
absorbing panels. To us it is a drastic improvement...
I didn't like the boring expanse of wood and formica that I was
given to work in. So I brought in a bunch of pictures, nick-nacks,
and stuffed animals. (I'm female, I can get away with that sort of
stuff... Ok, so I'm a little sexist, but it's true...) Maybe it's
a little cluttered, but it doesn't feel like a hospital room anymore.
I, too, got tired of all the background noise, so I brought in my
"mini ghetto blaster". I have one of those sound-absorbing panels
that separates me from a main aisleway. I face the box in that
direction (with me in the middle), so no-one else can really hear
it. Some others in the area have a similar arrangement with a clock
radio. Those that use walkmans usually try to orient themselves
so that they can see the "entrance" to their space so that they
will know when someone wants to talk to them.
The key to open work environments is to be considerate. No-one here
has too much of a problem working in a slightly noisy environment.
I haven't had any trouble asking a conversation to be moved to a
conference room if it is annoying. And I don't mind being moved.
In fact, a little noise actually helps me keep awake when I'm
reading or doing something that I find boring.
Also, around here, if we had offices, we would never be able to catch
anyone to ask a question, etc. It would be worse than phone tag!
The rumour mill would also suffer drastically.
We, for the most part, sit with the people we work closest with. It's
nice to be able to just say, "Oh, look what I just found..." without
having to leave you're train of thought to go seek your co-worker out,
or try to remember it for later. Most people can ingest something like
that without losing their train of thought.
For the person that was complaing about people borrowing things from
his cubicle. I don't think an office would help the situation much.
Most people won't go searching your drawers for a pencil, so you
could try just putting them out of sight. A few of my pencils have
walked away (and I've accently taken some, too), but they're easy
to get (we have a supply of office equipment...), most of us just
keep a few in a drawer or a pencil cup for that purpose.
If you're situation is truly interfering with your work, it is
likely bugging your co-workers, too. Get together and request some
changes. If you make a case that a better environment will
increase your productivity, you can probably get at least some
improvement... It worked for us.
Look around at all you have, and remember that you could be working
at McDonalds and not even have that... Cubicles are better than
an open room... You could work where I used to, we didn't even get
our own terminals, we had to share one between 4-7 people. Talk
about interfering with work!
Karen A. Cate
Tektronix Inc, Beaverton OR
tektronix!amadeus!karenc