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From: msellers@mntgfx.mentor.com (Mike Sellers)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng,comp.software-eng,comp.edu
Subject: Re: Offices versus Cubicles
Summary: No hard data, just my 2c: offices *much* better than cubes
Message-ID: <1988Jan25.184608.810@mntgfx.mentor.com>
Date: 26 Jan 88 02:46:06 GMT
References: <2058@pdn.UUCP> <82@sickkids.UUCP> <1330@looking.UUCP> <3038@zeus.TEK.COM>
Organization: Mentor Graphics Corporation, Beaverton Oregon
Lines: 36

In article <3038@zeus.TEK.COM>, rob@amadeus.TEK.COM (Dan Tilque) writes:
> Brad Templeton writes:
>>I hate the cubicles too, but I know why people put them up:
>>
>>a) You get natural light to everybody.  Sunlight is often at a premium in most
>>   spaces, and it's nice to have.  Everybody would rather have a private office
>>   with window, but many people would rather a cubicle over a private office
>>   with no window.
>
> You have obviously never worked in a LARGE building.
> Dan Tilque  [on an account borrowed from Rob]

  No kidding!  I worked for about two years in a biiig warehouse-like building 
that had been converted into "office space" (Tektronix Wilsonville, for those 
of you who know it).  This building was nearly one big open space with a drop 
ceiling.  If you stood on your chair, you could see across the building, with 
a maze-like floor plan made up of these little cubicles.  My first week there 
I must have gotten lost half-a-dozen times (talk about feeling like a rat in 
a maze :-) ).  Then there was the added noise from conversations in neighboring
cubes, smoke from people smoking nearby, etc.  I was near a bank of windows, 
and rarely got any "natural light" -- I can only imagine what it must be like 
for people five minutes walk from the edge of the building.
  At my present job I have a private office (without a window, though that may
change), and I consider it to be one of the better benefits of the job.  I
would *much* rather have a door to shut, room to pace more than two steps in 
any direction, space for two desks, bookshelves and a whiteboard, and still 
not have a window than have a "window seat" in the land of cubes again.

I think the cubes approach must save the company money in terms of the 
facilities, but at least from my experience, it probably costs them dearly 
(and perhaps invisibly) in terms of engineering productivity.
-- 
Mike Sellers                           ...!tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!msellers
Mentor Graphics Corp., EPAD            msellers@mntgfx.MENTOR.COM
"The goal of AI is to take the meaningful and make it meaningless."
                                  -- An AI prof, referring to LISP