Excitement, Cubed

I'm constantly looking for ways to make my job more exciting. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that spending hours wrapping a piece of string around a small to medium sized rock would be, depending on the color of the string and the strength of the Euro, more exciting than my current job (tm They Might Be Giants). But I don't get paid to wrap rocks with string. And no, now that you mention it, I don't get paid to write this during work hours, either, but I- hey. Mind your own business.

So the other day while I was in my cube-shaped employee freshness container, subjecting my poor, unsuspecting brain cells to Microsoft Excel-induced torture, I started thinking about the cubicle. Mostly about how the potential for this extremely variable medium has been overlooked in the petty interest of corporate productivity. Normal cubicle setup has got to be the most unimaginative layout possible. Squares. There's a reason all the hepcats called the boring people 'squares' during the fifties. (And if it wasn't the fifties, it was some other era I wasn't alive for and about which I know only what the Back to the Future movies have taught me). They called 'em squares because the square is the most contemptible of all the geometric figures, the only possible exception being the line segment (source: This Century's Most Influential Geometric Configurations, by Edward Q. Schnellar). There's so many more exciting shapes out there! Give me a parallelogram any day of the week. Or an acute triangle.

Adhering to the standard cubicle structure may be practical, but it sure is boring. I think a strong case can be made for secret cut-throughs, specialized cubicle areas, and a general labyrinth-esque layout. I intend to make that case, so that at the very least my daydreams can be realized on paper. I'm pretty sure no one will help me reconfigure an entire office based on my whim. Spoilsports.

Now, I'm a reasonably tall person. Abnormally tall, according to some. You know who you are. Jerks. Short jerks. The cubicle wall hits me at approximately my nose. And by 'hits' I mean 'is about as tall as.' I don't mean to imply that I have to deal with abusive, anthropomorphic walls that lash out at my face regularly. Nor do I mean that I am clumsy and run into them. Look, I should have just said that the walls are about five and a half feet tall. But I digress. My height allows me to look out over the realm of Cubicleland to see the stuffed chicken someone keeps on their top shelf and the ten other people whose heads extend into the stratosphere of Cubicleland. Handy when I'm looking for someone, kind of awkward to hunch if I'm avoiding someone. Not that I've created enemies at work, or anything like that, but these secretaries will talk your ear off if they catch you. I'm just sayin'.

Secret cut-throughs are a simple way of improving everything, with no exceptions, and don't try to tell me otherwise. My current location leaves my secret cut-through options limited. Option One: I can have covert access to the copy and fax cubicle. Any possible benefit is offset by the fact that the door to this area is only about two feet away from my own door. And also by the fact that it's a copier. I was over being excited about Xerox machines after I copied my face in third grade. Moving on. Option Two is to have a door to the secretary's cube. This idea earns a coveted spot in the 'thanks but no thanks' category. Doing anything to facilitate the passage of sound from her airspace to mine could result in violence by way of me lobbing items of increasing mass over what little wall does separate us. But even if the secret cut-through option isn't an option for me now, that doesn't mean it won't be utilized in my overall imaginary cubicle design. Secret cut-throughs could increase employee cooperation, decrease travel time and would really come in handy should an impromptu game of Capture the Flag break out.

On to layout. Although a loose basis for this idea, the movie Labyrinth used to scare the crap out of me. Muppets are supposed to be cuddly and funny creatures, not baby-stealing evil myrmidons. Oh, and if there's any thing creepier than David Bowie singing while strutting through an op-art come to life while wearing those, uh, "pants," then please don't tell me what it is, lest my mind break into a thousand shining pieces and I careen into madness. The idea of the labyrinth itself has inspired my own maze, which I have dubbed Cubarynth, from the Latin for 'friggin' awesome.' Forget about clear-cut perpendicular hallways. I'm talking about twisted corridors, countless dead ends and a mythical creature or two that I'll have the folks in the lab whip up. I'm hoping for a unicorn and a gryphon, but I'd settle for a couple of centuars.

There’ll be prizes for the first one through, and to confuse matters, the walls could move, guided by my patented random-Cubarynth generating software. Complete with people-sensing lasers so no one gets smooshed. Come on, I'm a weirdo with an overactive imagination, not a sadist. The secret tunnels we went over earlier would factor in greatly here, as would specialized cubicle areas.

Now, when I say 'specialized cubicle areas,' I don't mean copiers and fax machines and mailboxes. How boring. I was actually thinking of 'specialized' referring to something more along the lines of ice-skating and various kinds of ethnic foodstuffs. Also, I'd like to request a lofted cube with a roof so I can run a space heater to thaw my fingers out a little bit. And maybe a fourth wall, if it’s not too much trouble. As a temp, I only warrant three and one-fifth walls. It's not like I'm doing anything illicit (most of the time) or am even in there for more than an hour a day. Half a wall, people. That's all I ask for. Or I'm gonna put up a sign that reads "Lisa - captured from unemployment Jan '04. Enjoys butterscotch pudding, hooded sweatshirts and shiny objects. Please do not tap on the glass.”

But back to specialized cubicles. Once my labyrinth superstructure is complete, they will form both a rewards system and places to take a break when participants get tired of the rat race. So to speak. Other possibilities include a smoothie bar, a petting zoo and libraries. I'd like to work in one cubicle where the entire floor is an old-school Nintendo Power Pad, if at all possible. A ball pit would be nice, as would a salt-water fish tank. As long as I don't have to clean it.

Yeah, I'd take Cubicleland to a whole new level. Where once there was mind-numbing spreadsheets and echoing empty keyboard tapping, there shall spring forth a new era of clandestine tunnels and confusing mazes. But more on the 'Wow, this place doesn't suck' end of the spectrum than the 'Looks like Chuck E. Cheese had a going-out-of-business sale' end.

Perhaps you're beginning to get the impression that I am not cut out for a life of cubes, what with my constant attempts to imagine a world where my job doesn't suck as much as it does now. That I would perhaps be better off choosing a different path. The path of, say, an eccentric billionaire, who came into her money under mysterious circumstances, but everyone’s cool with that, and they indulge any weird tendencies she may or may not have. And they all want to be her friend, but not because of the money, it's be because of her winning personality. And also she's married to Orlando Bloom. And she never has to do laundry and her cats don't throw up quite as much as they do now. And dibs on the Orlando Bloom part.

Until then, I’m working on it. For all you know, this job could be step one of my billion dollar mysterious circumstances. Shh.