Cubicle Courtesies

"I would suggest the following for possible future columns: working in a cubicle environment (courtesy with respect to conference calls, review of voicemail via speakerphone, loud and detailed hallway conversations, etc.)" A DC Web Woman

The marketing brochures call them sexy names like Open Systems. Management calls them functional names like Workstation Clusters. The people who work in them call them simple names like Cubicles, or worse.

The physical clustering of staff has become a business necessity. The rising cost of office space, that dizzying dollars per square foot nemesis, has spawned a workplace of cubicles. Many new business issues surround cubicle workstations; among them are status, ego, productivity, and interactivity. I think that interactivity is the most interesting challenge of this complex mix.

When you work in a cubicle you essentially work in a small community. Like any other community you should expect to subjugate some of your own wants and needs to those of the larger community. Getting ahead has to coexist with getting along. This can be counter-intuitive in business, so it is not unreasonable for workers to struggle to balance these two converging forces.

Most cubicle dwellers suffer in silence when their mates foist irritations and annoyances on them in a stream of oblivious abuse. The perpetrators of the abuse typically have no idea they are offending others because no one tells them. Peace is needlessly bought with grating acceptance.

But there is a better, simpler, and more effective way to be happier, and thus more productive, in a cubicle community. Go back to basics. Use courtesy, kindness, consideration, and tact in liberal amounts every day. The results can be astonishing.

Begin to identify key problems and major stresses against harmony in a cubicle community with this blunt checklist. Measure you own personal actions against these unexpected and often unintended consequences.

1. Loud

Do not be loud about anything, ever. Cubicles, despite their marketing brochures, are not soundproof. Loud is disruptive, distracting and to be avoided in all things.

2. Radio

If you cannot work without listening to music, use earphones. And do not play the music so loud that you annoy others even while using earphones. Not everyone finds music soothing at work and not everyone likes the same type of music.

3. Telephone

It is possible to speak on the phone in a voice that can both be heard and not heard. You can speak softly without loss of effectiveness. Keep personal conversations particularly quiet and discreet.

4. Speaker phone

If you have one, do not use it. In a cubicle cluster a speakerphone just cannot be used in a manner that does not annoy others.

5. Visitors

Take responsibility for the actions of visitors to your cubicle. Set the decibel level with your own quiet voice. Chitchat with friends anywhere but your shared workspace -- try the kitchen, a break room, or outside.

6. Food

If you eat at in your cubicle, keep in mind that what smells delicious to you may well be literally sickening to the person next to you. Odors travel. Make sure your food is innocuous and definitely not malodorous. If it is, eat somewhere else.

7. Personal information

Discussing intimate or personal details of your life is an absolute taboo in a cubicle. People do not appreciate having that kind of information forced on them against their will. If you must talk about intimate, personal subjects, in person or on the phone, do it somewhere else.

8. Political discussions

Just do not do it. It is never appropriate.

9. Public Displays

Be very careful about what you display in your cubicle. Something you find amusing may be offensive or hurtful to someone else.

10. The Environment

Tidy up! Working in open and close proximity to others confers a solemn obligation to overcome any natural instinct to create a pigsty.

It is absolutely amazing, with all the distractions and dynamics present in a cubicle community, that any real work gets done at all. But it does! Wonderful, imaginative, creative, and vital work is performed every day in cubicles, and not always under the best possible conditions. Imagine the results if the surroundings were made better.

Do not look to management to enforce etiquette in a cubicle community. Management cannot do it. That is the responsibility of the workers in the cubicles. Courtesy is the only effective solution and it cannot be mandated, it must be embraced.

Go down the checklist of the top offenses against harmony and examine your own behavior at work. Do this whether you actually work in a cubicle or interact with those who do. You can be equally offensive as a thoughtless visitor

If you have been a checklist offender, and most people honestly do not realize that they are, please be more considerate. Think before you act. A small change can go a long way toward creating a more pleasant and productive work environment.

If you are a silent checklist sufferer, speak up with grace and good will. Give a fellow worker the benefit of the doubt and a chance to do the right thing. Suppressed resentment does nothing but harm. Work together to solve problems.

The task is very simple and very hard. It is a challenge to be met not just once, but many times each day. But the results are worth the effort. Courtesy, kindness, consideration, and tact are a solid foundation for any real, virtual or cubical community.

Small things can yield great results.

Copyright © 1998, 1999 by D.E. Summerville. All rights reserved.

The advice and suggestions in the Women in Business column are solely those of the author. DC Web Women assumes no responsibility for its content.

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