Cube Mentality (Another Workplace Mystery)
I realized after writing the previous post that I had titled it 'Other Mysteries' without really giving you any other mysteries. Just those weird copier people. So, here, I'll give you another mystery.
I think that when you have worked in the corporate world all of your working life, things that would bother sane people tend to just roll off your back. It's only after taking my WAHM hiatus and coming back that I see - for me anyway - just how kooky cubicles can make people.
Take for example - the cube mentality that apparently follows people from their desk cube to the bathroom stall cube. I kid you not, as God as my witness, people will carry on meetings in the bathroom.
Why they do this is beyond me. They've lost all sense of privacy (and sanity) and seem to think that a bathroom stall is yet another cube. Are there desks in there??
When I worked for Blue Cross years back, one of my coworkers would see me in the hallway and begin a conversation -usually just asking for help or tips on some database or other that I'd built and she was having to learn how to use. I'm a busy gal at work (or try to convey that to my bosses anyway) so if I was in the hallway, it was generally on my way to accomplish a purpose. In this case (and many like it) my purpose was to pee.
But hey - that just didn't seem to phase this otherwise normal ladylike creature. 'While she had me...' she just had to bounce some info off me. No kidding. I'd go into the stall - close and lock the door - drop trou - and still be answering questions. While peeing. Apparently this wasn't at all weird to her. It was *really* weird to me.
After taking a break from work and coming back - I've come to realize that I'm the oddball on that point.
So today, I went to go do my little business, and while in the stall I hear two ladies come in in deep discussion. I could hear them go into the stalls, unzip, whiz away for a while (free coffee around here) and the whole time never once stop discussing the merits of business travel and their relative experiences. I sat in my little cube in awe. I also needed to pass gas and didnt want to interrupt their conversation.
How the heck do people do this? Has the cube mentality just taken over even the most private functions of our lives? Have we become so busy - so bogged down with things to get done and communicate to each other - that we even have to multi-task in the potty? Are we coming to a point where the ladies and gents bathrooms will either become one and the same (some have) or install speakerphones so that we can chat without gender bias?
I don't know why this is such a big thing to me - as the mother of three kids its not as though I get to have private or conversation free potty time at home. It's just that at home I'm still teaching my children boundaries - I would have thought we'd have learned them by the time we got here.
The cube mentality lacks walls and privacy. Icky.
I think that when you have worked in the corporate world all of your working life, things that would bother sane people tend to just roll off your back. It's only after taking my WAHM hiatus and coming back that I see - for me anyway - just how kooky cubicles can make people.
Take for example - the cube mentality that apparently follows people from their desk cube to the bathroom stall cube. I kid you not, as God as my witness, people will carry on meetings in the bathroom.
Why they do this is beyond me. They've lost all sense of privacy (and sanity) and seem to think that a bathroom stall is yet another cube. Are there desks in there??
When I worked for Blue Cross years back, one of my coworkers would see me in the hallway and begin a conversation -usually just asking for help or tips on some database or other that I'd built and she was having to learn how to use. I'm a busy gal at work (or try to convey that to my bosses anyway) so if I was in the hallway, it was generally on my way to accomplish a purpose. In this case (and many like it) my purpose was to pee.
But hey - that just didn't seem to phase this otherwise normal ladylike creature. 'While she had me...' she just had to bounce some info off me. No kidding. I'd go into the stall - close and lock the door - drop trou - and still be answering questions. While peeing. Apparently this wasn't at all weird to her. It was *really* weird to me.
After taking a break from work and coming back - I've come to realize that I'm the oddball on that point.
So today, I went to go do my little business, and while in the stall I hear two ladies come in in deep discussion. I could hear them go into the stalls, unzip, whiz away for a while (free coffee around here) and the whole time never once stop discussing the merits of business travel and their relative experiences. I sat in my little cube in awe. I also needed to pass gas and didnt want to interrupt their conversation.
How the heck do people do this? Has the cube mentality just taken over even the most private functions of our lives? Have we become so busy - so bogged down with things to get done and communicate to each other - that we even have to multi-task in the potty? Are we coming to a point where the ladies and gents bathrooms will either become one and the same (some have) or install speakerphones so that we can chat without gender bias?
I don't know why this is such a big thing to me - as the mother of three kids its not as though I get to have private or conversation free potty time at home. It's just that at home I'm still teaching my children boundaries - I would have thought we'd have learned them by the time we got here.
The cube mentality lacks walls and privacy. Icky.
posted by Danielle at 2:19 PM
1 Comments:
Heh, of course with the popularity of cell phones and all of those choices of handsfree accessories, it's not helping the situation.
I remember one day doing my thing in the bathroom stall and I hear someone a couple of stalls over (who I didn't know) say hello. Since I wasn't brought up to be rude I said hello back. A couple of minutes later she goes "how are you", so I answer. Of course then the whopper "what are you doing?" I'm thinking what else do people go to the bathroom to do? cook dinner. So I said "using the bathroom" only to hear next "there's some odd woman talking to me" I was aghast. So I said a little louder, "well I'm sorry, who goes to use the bathroom and chats on their cell phone".
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