BIO CUBICLES

BIO CUBICLES

This post is inspired by the idea of our little community that we live in at the office actually being a diverse ecosystem comprising separate habitats that all come together to form the office environment. Recently I have been noticing the range of different cubicles that are just in my particular office. I actually work in a very lax office environment so we can basically do whatever we want in our cubicles. When I first started working here I was given a book to borrow that was all about making your cubicle into your own little paradise. This was kind of a joke because the cubicles in the book ranged from a Tiki bar theme to a hip hop cubicle with a boom box and 20 inch rim. But, there was some truth behind this book. Inside each of us is a different personality and we usually express ourselves in the clothes we wear, cars we drive or don’t drive, and kinds of coffee we drink. So it’s natural to see your personality over the months and years seep into cubicle. Below are some cubicle types that I and Employee 835 have noted in our own environments.

RAT’S NEST

An explanation of what this cubicle represents almost needs no description. Imagine that really spooky house in your neighborhood that has Christmas and Halloween decorations up year round. It seems like nobody is ever home. And when you finally have that sleepover when everyone sneaks out of your parent’s basement you dare each other to go up and peak in the windows of the spooky house. When looking inside you and your coca cola classic strung out friends jaws drop as you see piles and piles and piles of junk. Almost completely covering the window it’s just a sea of maelstrom that you can barely make sense out of. It’s different than a dump because, a dump is supposed to be a dump. This is someone’s house and it has that eerie quality that you just can’t understand how so much paper, trinkets, nick knacks, newspapers, dishes, books, kitchen utensils, yard sale crap, clothes, shoes, and anything else that looks like it was stuck in the bottom of a dumpster found its way into this place. Also noted in this cubicle are live animals usually found and rescued such as a baby opossum from a roadside and a chameleon form a trip to Bolivia.

UBER COOL ART Q’B

A rare cube, Uber Cool Art Q’b primarily contains posters of key, obscure art events past and present, post cards and other invitations to similar events, and posters with foreign words. This is the most boring cube of all, primarily because you can’t really understand the text and images contained within it. You might recognize some aspects of Dwell Magazine, or if you’re lucky, you may have heard of one of the bands, but it’s ultimately way too fucking cool for your own good. It is designed to remind you that you are not in the know, that you may as well stop looking up flavorpill because you are too late to the party. Go back to your sad, unfocused cube.

CBGB BATHROOM

You might be asking yourself, “What did CBGB's bathroom look like?” Let me refresh your memory. Let’s start with the walls, covering almost every square inch are flyers, posters, stickers, phone numbers, post-its, random rants, bits of poetry torn from a book, graffiti, etc. What makes the CBGB BATHROOM so interesting is that while the walls are almost beyond recognition as being a surface that separates you from other rooms and the outdoors the floor is remarkably clean (at least upon first glance) and the space is rather neutral and clear of clutter. The bathroom stall with the door torn off, reminiscent of a cubicle entry way and almost the same size as a cubicle, fascinating, contains no toilet paper like a desk without a tissue box, just a commode and it screams, “You’re here to pee, so pee already, god dam it!” It’s a place to get the job done but, along the way you can take stock at all of the collective consciousness that gets stored on this privy’s walls.

MONK CELL

This cubicle invokes the medieval image of a solitary figure sitting in a dimly lit room hands clasped and staring at a crack in a wall and a beam of light is reaching through and touching their consciousness. But, did you notice the room they’re in? It’s empty. Totally idea for being more in your mind instead of this stupid materialistic world. The monk only needs basic elements when searching for and contemplating the incredible magnitude and infinity which is God. They have a small bed (office chair), a small wooden desk (same), the bible (computer), a window (phone). That’s it, all they need in order to perform their duties.

MY LITTLE PONY BIO-CUBICLE OF HORROR

This cubicle is hands down one of the scariest and perplexing of all cubicle styles. It’s treading on looking at the inside of an insane person’s world a lot like that scene in SE7EN when they find the killers apartment and it’s a creepy, crazy maze containing an unknown secret agenda and world view of the creator. So the MY LITTLE PONY BIO-CUBICLE OF HORROR contains a few elements that can be seen in offices around the world. The first is memos and company announcements all printed on the same colored paper. You might be wondering what this means. Well you know all that junk you have like, department phone lists, birthday lists, procedures for safety in the work place, holiday schedules, and pay schedules. Take all that stuff put it on the walls of your cubicle really nice and neat and every month reprint them on a different uniform color of paper. I’m getting excited because, October is coming up so they’re going to be all Orange! Fun! Speaking of holidays this cubicle is always decorated for all the major holidays: July 4th, Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. If you have the pleasure of gaining full access to the cubicle meaning your either a boss or a busy body you will now that one draw of the desk is always stocked with dove chocalate, twix, skittles, and other assorted snacks. Hhhmmm it’s like that fat kids locker in middle school and you just wonder how they can never have enough junk food. Another strange phenomenon with this person is keeping their cubicle always at 98.6 degrees. Why this occurs still puzzles me. The temperature in the office in the summer might be a little chiller because; the AC is kicking and its 107 degrees outside so it could be rather shocking at first. But, instead of putting a sweater on this cubicle comes with its very own personal heater that is placed at foot level and blasts heat all morning. The drone of the fan and the seeping warmness of the cubicle seem to permeate through all the other cubicles creating an almost global warming effect on the entire office environment.

LEARNING ANNEX CUBICLE

Learning Annex cubicle is marked by its own clock as well as a motivational poster of a man crawling and scratcing his way up a cliff, titled ACHIEVEMENT. Fuck you.

This cube is orderly, with charts, binders, and smart seeming bullshit. It is dedicated to personal and career growth as evidenced by the books titled, Managing Fear, Presenting You, Lean Manufacturing, etc. There are guns in this cube, this is clear.

MY WONDERFUL FIANCE CUBICLE

This does not require much explaining. It is the satellite office of BRIDES magazine. Lots of pictures of her with her fiancé in VEGAS, at the Grand Canyon, Scuba Diving, Girls night out, cut outs of roses and inspirational snippets from Oprah Magazine. She is really good at her job, you really like her, and you can count on her, but you avoid this cubicle because it will convert rapidly into Breeder Pride Cubicle.

BREEDER PRIDE CUBICLE

This cubicle is dedicated to the worker’s family and all of the cute shit the family is up to. You must watch your language when you are in this cubicle because all of the precious little children in the photos and drawings will simultaneously scream and cry blood when they hear you. I don’t care what you do in your bedroom, but don’t go around parading it in public, especially in the workplace. If you had it in mind to kidnap a kid for some small ransom, this is the place to start. In less than one minute, you can know how many kids this person has, their birth order, each of their names, as well as their schools, age, grade level, and extracurricular activities. You could easily swing by the school at the end of the day and say, “Carlie! Hey, your dad sent me here to take you and Jeremy to soccer practice because he’ll be working late tonight. He told me to give you this picture that he keeps in his cubicle so you’d trust me enough to jump in my car. Never mind the duct tape and Chloroform. Get in!”

This cubicle is also the source of a great deal of emails containing links to another great, interminable flickr.com photo stream of what happened with the kids over the weekend. Hey look at us! 180 shots later and we’re still picking pumpkins!

FANATI-CUBE

As with the inhabitant of My Wonderful Fiancé Cubicle, the Fanatic requires little explanation, and years of therapy. This cubicle is an altar to all things South Park, Smurfs, NASCAR, Stanley Kubric films, James Dean, Star Trek, Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Tweety Bird, Dolls of the Revolutionary War, ABBA, Snowboarding, Horses, Corelle, Hot Wheels, you name it. If you can google it, there is a Fanati-Cube for it. Its inhabitant may or may not live with the parental unit, and you regularly wonder what kind of partner they have. It’s fun, and depending on the subject, it reminds you of a time when you didn’t obsess about your future, your bills, or your gut. It can be a marvelous escape for about three minutes. Fanati-Cube does not bear any design focus, it’s just a big collection of one kind of crap, and it represents only a small fraction of the inhabitant’s total collection. It’s as impressive as it is retarded. On one hand, you feel impressed by the depth and extent of the person’s addiction, as well as the thousands of dollars of merchandise represented in the cube, including all the special edition crap, complete with signatures; and on the other, you just know that when Armageddon comes, they will have nothing useful to offer you in trade.

LOU GRANT CUBE – also known as Drinking Alone Cube

This cube is dedicated to my friend Anna Haase-Reed. There seems to be a lot of brown in this cube, for no reason. It feels like a rat’s nest, but it possesses a certain order and timelessness. If you look around, you may find a teletype machine or an old car phone. There’s booze in this cube, you just have to know where to look. There’s also a briefcase with locked latches that lives underneath the old mimeograph. It’s not dusty, but you’ve never seen anyone touch it. The old, dirty coffee mug that’s only been rinsed, never washed in its entire service life has a crust thick enough from which to make core samples. You might find data in that sample that goes back to the moon landing, perhaps to JFK’s assassination, or even the Korean War. Lou Grant Cube is the company history preserved, and this cube will definitely go down with the ship. CEOs will come and go, but Lou Grant Cube will always be there, in the same spot, soldiering on, year after year.

MYCUBE

What we have provided is a simplified framework for understanding the bio-cubicle. We know that you are not going to be “boxed-in” so to speak, so we now invite you, if you are so inclined, to send us your own reports of bio-cubicles you have made contact with, as well as your own.