Hell in the Dilbert Cubicle - survival tips?

Make sure you have a headset for your phone - you'll be able to whisper, and no one will be able to hear you in Dilbert-world. Really. Unless you forget that you need to speak quietly on the headset. Practice by calling friends, and keep getting quieter and quieter - people could understand me when I whispered when I had laryngitis earlier this year.

The headset is a great tool in the land of the cube. Insist on it - you have neck problems and don't want to end up on compensation, doncha know.

Do you have if there have been previous parachuted-in souls? What happened to them? Butter up the senior admin person - the true power usually lies there - and all the info about where the bodies are.

Re: Hell in the Dilbert Cubicle - survival tips?


Get out as soon as possible!

I don't know if I could ever adjust to going back to that world.

Headset? LOL! They don't have the resources to assess most of the kids being abused in the state!!!!!

Hmmm - parachuted in souls.....

how do you measure success in your case loads, and how can you measure how people are doing their jobs?

Some idea about that would help

Do you have a "Wally" in the adjoining cubicle?

Perhaps he could offer some assistance.

Buy your own headset. They're not nearly as expensive as they used to be. Most HR departments are happy to order them (and the money comes from a different budget pocket than client services), as they're a lot less expensive than a worker's comp claim - but still, get your own. Contact IT and ask what would be compatible with their phone system. It's worth it.

Re: Hell in the Dilbert Cubicle - survival tips?


Aaaah - 'tis only for six months - well, 5 months and one week, now - minus holidays....

Oh, I have a number of projects to work on Farmerman - none of which includes that - but hopefully might AFFECT that...

No Wallies (a "wally" is an idiot in Oz, by the way - is Wally in Dilbert smart?) - but some helpful folk. THAT is what is unnerving - when people pop their heads over the cubicle to be helpful when you are speaking to someone!!!

Actually, it is kind of nice being close to folk when I am so new - and they ARE helpful. The cubicle hierarchy amuses me - the important folk having offices around the perimeter of cubicle hell, but being all glass! I actually have more physical privacy than they do. Well, more of a sense of it, anyway. Actually, I am at the level of the important folk - but I will be cubicle hopping cos of being temporary...

A woman over the way and down a bit is, I am sure, the victim of some sort of personality disorder. She has the hunted look of such traumatised folk - and an over-gushing manner - AND - here is the clincher - her computer wears a pink, feathery, rhinestone tiara - she has a huge bunch of blue and red cloth roses - WITH fake dew-drops on them (!!!!!!!!) - her cubicle is terrifyingly clean and ordered - the photos of her dear ones have pink, fluffy, frames - and are posed in unnaturally cute poses - she has wee china cutetities all over the place.

Frankly, she scares me to death!!!!!

OK - I investigate - but frankly, I canna see how they would work. The phone has no place to put such things - and the phone line disappers into the cubicling.

Also - I am up and down constantly - and will be out a lot.

How come you can speak more softly into them? That seems weird. I CAN speak very softly into my phone - and do when I need to...

Create a desktop/deskside Altar/Souvenir Stand to remind you that Sanity Exists--or used to exist.

What Brave New World situation have you found yourself in, poor dlowan? This sounds truly ghastly. The only thing I can suggest is to approach the scene with tongue firmly in cheek! They need to be impressed? I'm sure you can manage many highly original ways to do that!

hmm , from your earliest post, I assumed you were puit here to re-organize and make more efficient.
Ive reacted to the substance of the issue , rather than the format of "the cubisttic " world.

On the issue as I see it, create teams withh at least three members and promote some competition to keep quality high and make a little amt of uncomfort. I know its a bit manipulative but , with educated competitive , smart employees, sometimes games keep interest level higher than one big pool.
I worked for a govt agency years ago and Im amazed that anything got done. We would take all sorts of technical seminars and never had any idea about management. They always promoted people from a pool of seniority blessed folks.
If youre expected to make changes, its because something isnt working. I think you should look at systemics rather than the the personal space allotment

Rent the video Office Space, it is full of helpful hints.

Farmerman - stop! You are putting work into a question I am not asking - and I hate to see you waste your time on it, though it is very kind of you.

I have a number of discrete, but in reality very fuzzy, determined projects to do. I am a wee cog in a huge bureaucracy - though a cog much higher up than I normally am. I have no power to organize teams and such - though in a way I am hoping to do so, but in quite a different sense, since I have been asked to to various projects in relation to nurturing the therapeutic abilities of the organization, developing some training (which entails some careful tip-toeing amongst competing "ownerships" of certain things), helping develop a model for a foster care system etc. The people and teams are already there - it is a matter of working with them - but also contributing my ideas and expertise, which I have a lot of in the areas I am concerned with - but so do they. I am hoping to be a bit like a connection builder (the organization is too run down and overwhelmed by daily demands and crises to look outside itself - but I am aware of lots of good resources to draw on "out there") and a bit like yeast. So far it is woring - I am not asking for help re the projects - I am full of ideas.

I am NOT looking at the personal space allotment in any serious way!!! This thread was meant to be a joke, really - and a little wail of amused frustration at being in such a weird - to me - situation!

Linkat - you are not the first to tell me that - I must have a look at the video!

Milk duds! The answer to cubie-hell. *nods*

They are small, light and semi-soft. Perfect for bouncing off of the heads of your cubie-hell partners.

My office will be relocated next month to a huge cube farm. Fortunately, my cubie will be right at the corner of a major intersection in the farm and I have a double cube with a small meeting table in it. I'm thinking of ditching the meeting table and buying one of those hotdog vendor carts and a popcorn machine and going into business.

I SHALL BE RICH!

LOL!!!!

I had a nice chair for visitors in mine - but it was replaced with a miserable little desk chair in the great carpet replacement shambles!

I have a plant - carefully maintained by plant people.

Up several floors, where the bigger people are, and the air-conditioning is not so stultifying, they have a veritable jungle of plants and a sort of lunch clearing, in the middle of the cubicles - where the animals go to feed quietly - alarmed only by the shrill hunting calls of the fierce telephones, which provoke wild scrambles...

I have a Dilbert cartoon here on my desk you will appreciate - Alice walks into Dilbert's cubicle - Alice says, " The Corner cubicle opened up. I plan to make it mine." She continues "That's Right: I'll be sitting in the most prestigious cubicle in the entire row! Fear Me! " Alice with a sinister smile, "Buwaha!! From there I will control the window shades and harness the sun!" Dilbert finally responds, "Please…No screen Glare."

Go to Dilbert.com for lots of fun and games…I particularly like the mission statement generator.