Zen and the Art of Cubicle Living

The Atlantic:

One day recently I worked out of, quite possibly, the best office I have ever been in. Granted, this is not a high bar for a cubicle drone like me. Still, the design touches were lovely: It was a glass cube with an ergonomic green chair and mahogany desk. There was a frosted-glass door, so theoretically, I could have worked pants-less. (I was fully clothed.)

The lighting was straight out of an ABC primetime family drama: a bright reading lamp to my left, a copper light above me, and another, softer light that glowed behind my laptop screen. Behind that was a magnetic board, where, if this were my actual office, I would have affixed a photo of my friends and me jumping simultaneously into the air.

My little slice of Work Heaven was just for show, for indeed, it was situated in a showroom—in the New York offices of the Steelcase furniture company. The men’s shoes in the cubbies below my desk belonged to no man in particular. The little bronze tchotchkes on the shelves were suited to the tastes of your typical high-end office-solutions buyer.

Read the whole story: The Atlantic