Xref: utzoo comp.cog-eng:417 comp.software-eng:133 comp.edu:829
Path: utzoo!lsuc!sickkids!mark
From: mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.software-eng,comp.edu
Subject: Re: Offices versus Cubicles (LONG)
Message-ID: <85@sickkids.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jan 88 19:32:57 GMT
References: <2058@pdn.UUCP> <82@sickkids.UUCP> <1988Jan27.092204.22702@lsuc.uucp>
Reply-To: mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt)
Organization: Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
Lines: 47
Summary: 

In article <1988Jan27.092204.22702@lsuc.uucp> dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman)
writes:

> In article <82@sickkids.UUCP>, mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) writes:
>> What has always mystified me, though, is why companies buy these things.
>> Most of the arguments made on their behalf are clearly spurious:  As an
>> example, it's often claimed that they're more space-efficient.  Nonsense.

> Well, offices the size of your stalls, with walls up to the ceiling,
> would be pretty claustrophobic.  Your other points are reasonable,
> though.

That statement is true, but irrelevant.  (Your *first* statement, regarding
claustrophobia; not the one about my other points being reasonable!:-)  There
was never any suggestion that there would ever BE cubicle-sized offices with
floor-to-ceiling walls.  In my original posting, I went on to describe how
nearly half the floor space is wasted on such things as access paths to the
stalls, a small meeting room that would not be needed if people had offices
of a decent size, and so forth.

In fact, if the area had been divided into seven real offices, all but one
would have a window (I hereby correct a misstatement in my previous posting,
in which I claimed that all seven would have windows), and each office would
be a bit over 12 square metres in size.  Not huge, certainly, but identical
in size, as it turns out, to the real offices that we had in our old building.
What's more, they'd actually "feel" a bit roomier, since the old offices lost
approximately one square metre to an essentially useless and inconveniently
placed closet.  Alternatively, we could have had six offices, each with its
own window, of more than 14 square metres -- a nice roomy office by anyone's
standards (well, maybe not management and marketing people:-).

It is true, as I said before, that with six or seven offices, about half of us
would have had a private office, while the others would have had to double up.
But a 12 square metre office can be shared quite comfortably by two people; we
did so in our old building, and nobody seemed particularly unhappy.  At least,
everyone preferred it to the situation we have now.

By the way, not that I'm going to point any fingers (how could I, after all,
having posted two long diatribes to this discussion?), but the "Newsgroups:"
line says ...

	Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.software-eng,comp.edu

Haven't we gotten a bit off the topics of "cognitive engineering", "software
engineering", and "computer science education"?  If people aren't already
bored to death with this discussion, maybe we should move it to someplace
else, such as misc.jobs.misc, eh?