Cubicle Privacy 203
DarthDilbert writes "The NYTimes has a story about a noise canceling box for nosy cubicle neighbors. " Still no protection from mind readers. They know stuff.
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro
Shame on you, editors (Score:5, Interesting)
On another note, can I get one that fits in my PC and shuts up the godawful fan noise?
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:3, Informative)
Fan noise (Score:3, Informative)
http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techrevie
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Noise has always been one of my largest problems with the x86 hardware arena.
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:3, Informative)
Yes fans - there is a variable speed fan that slowly spins up under heavy processor utilization and slowly spins down when processor utilization goes down. However, even at full speed the fan isn't too intrusive.
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:4, Funny)
Strange. In my experience, Mac fans have been loud, persistent, and only intermittently cool.
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:4, Informative)
-Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
-2x512 Corsair PC3200 2.5 CAS DDR
-Leadtek 6600GT Extreme
-Seasonic SS-380 power supply
-MSI RS480R2-IL mATX motherboard
-Pioneer DVR-109 Dual Layer DVD Burner
-Thermalright XP-90 w/Nexus 92mm fan (CPU)
Re:Shame on you, editors (Score:2)
Though your point about the drive is notable I am not much of a gamer so I wont go all out on a pimped video card and LED loaded RAM etc etc. My next system will probably be a dual opteron or a dual g5. I have yet to actually price out both systems but the one that is cheaper with my prefered config gets my business. I will be running linux on it either way so the OSX v. windows angle is of no concern to
Cubicle arms race (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
I have two noise cancelling boxes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have two noise cancelling boxes (Score:2)
Slippery slopes are the most fun... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, this is an excellent idea, and an important step forward in this technology. Imagine one that works for an entire property,but in reverse.... and all the children who will use it when the guardians aren't home to have loud parties the neighbors can't hear! The neighbors can't hear you, and minors are getting drunk! Everyone wins....
The moral ramifications of this technology in a more advanced form (being able to work in reverse of this device) should be most interesting.... this is just the first step.
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.
This is the last straw, I'm going to burn down the building!
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Own3d by the zeroth post.
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Office Space (Score:2)
Re:Office Space (Score:2)
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue May 31, 5:51
from the i-was-told-i-could-listen-to-my-radio-at-a-reason
this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Insightful)
Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.
Full disclosure; I got an office when I threatened my employer with working from home four days a week due to the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:2)
What???? And let you skinny down the tree that is outside of your office while your computer makes typing noises? I don't think so!
My noise reducer is my megaphone. When I shout "STFU!" everyone listens.
A bit of trivia you may not know:
Offices do not have windows that open for two reasons:
1. Sealed windows makes it
Temp control and suicide rates (Score:2)
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.
Major heat waves started to coincide, with almost magical precision, with major failures of
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Interesting)
So, any suggestions on how to reconcile the two? I'm opening an office in a couple of weeks and could use all the advice I can get. It is a big box with nice windows, but that's it.
The best we can do on our startup budget is partitions and white noise. I'd like better, but one buildout quote I got was twice our annual rent. For the first year, that just isn't an option.
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:2)
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Interesting)
Joel Spolsky has some insights on software development workspaces. Item 8 on the Joel Test: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
A seperate article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
Y'know, it's funny... (Score:3, Funny)
r "Same observation applies to MREs and K-rations" j
Definition of insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
I have 95-99% of what I need to be productive with my Thinkpad and my PKI token.
Yet I haul my ass out of bed every day, put on office togs and get in the car. I drive 60 miles (that's about 2.5 gallons of gasoline) and walk into a cubicle farm, sit down, and plug my laptop into a docking station.
60 miles away, in my home office (which has a door and a view, mind you) sits another docking station which can do exactly the same thing.
After 8 hours, I get up, pack up the laptop, and drive 60 miles back home.
Now THAT's insanity.
Telecommuting ! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Definition of insanity (Score:2)
Insight is the first step to improvement. But why did you even start such an idiocy?
A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. When the people who just failed to reach my cubicle neighbor on his mobile call his desktop phone (which has a really annoying ring tone) and fail to conclude that he is not in after the phone has been ringing for more than 10 seconds.
3. When those same people react to 2) by calling me to ask me if my cubicle neignbor is in or not.
4. When those same people ask me to take messages for him (usually about something he is selling or buying on ebay) after being told in no uncertain terms than "No, he is not in his cubicle".
5. When the guy in the next cubicle returns from his mysterious expedition, picks up his mobile to check his missed calls and starts to (really noisily) consume his food.
6. The people who come to visit my cubicle neighbor and throw half full coffee cups or leftovers into my trash can as they leave.
So you felt like advertising your terrible communication skills to the entire world instead of actually talking to the guy.
This is what I hate more than anything about IT: The unusually high number of catty, angry, little men who never say what's bothering them. That is, until they come into the office having a breakdown someday because they weren't man enough to deal with their problems when they were minor annoyances.
My advice: grow some balls and quit crying about such tiny little things in life.
Re:A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:2)
Man, you must have a troublesome life! For me having to work next to such an asshole without the least knowledge of courtesy would be a major annoyance.
What would you call a major annoyance?
Re:A few things I hate about cubicle life. (Score:2)
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:2)
And just in case you're not sure what we mean by that, we mean ones JUST LIKE YOURS, you bloody hypocrites.
That's nothing (Score:2)
Consider yourself lucky. We have several of the clueless fuckwits who think it's okay to dial their phone with the speaker phone.
I don't think office courtesy is an educated skill, but by odd coincidence the people most likely to do that are not college grads. They're also the same ones who think it's okay to listen to their messages on speaker phone.
Re:That's nothing (Score:2)
No cube farm is better (Score:2)
Cube farms are productivity and soul killers. The only way is with an "open" office without huge CRT's but flatscreens and hidden comput
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:5, Funny)
Dear #896501-c,
Thank you for your recent suggestion as to office environment and layout.
Offices take up square footage in a manner that is not well suited to the tiling problem -- requiring more office space and cost. We also find that everyone else expects to have mahogany doors and desks once they have an office. In an attempt to be more accountable for our shareholders, we have decided to restrict mahogany and drinkable coffee to the executives as they are the heart and soul of the company.
As to your suggestion that we have windows which can be opened, historical data suggests that employee suicide/mishap/high-jinks rates climbs to a level that our insurance company finds unacceptable. Also, the three faulty temperature sensors in the environmental controls would be further confused and we would have to call the maintenance guy once again to twiddle knowbs aimlessly.
As to the cell phone issue, we would like to remind you that "every time a salesman's phone rings, an angel gets it's wings" as explained on p34 section A of your employee handbook. For they are the liver and colon of the company.
Thanks you for your interest,
Your HR Team.
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:2)
I moved from the US to EU and now I have an office with a door and 4 windows which completely open (1x1.5 meters). I share it with one co-worker and our assistant.
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge (Score:2)
We had decent foot traffic through the office - not enough to be annoying, but not so little that it felt like you were isolated. It was actually a nice setup.
If they're anything like bose headphones... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If they're anything like bose headphones... (Score:3, Informative)
For the older geeks... (Score:5, Insightful)
"What did you say?"
"Chief, do you hear me?!"
"What are you saying, Smart?!"
There. I feel better gettin that out of my system.
My cubicle is my own little world and I feel free to do whatever in it. If someone asks me to be a little less loud, I judge their request on how often they are similarly noisy. The more noisy and more often, the less attention I pay to their complaints. If I have to hear them screaming at technicians in the field, they have to hear me every so often getting a call on my cellphone.
Re:For the whippersnappers who missed the point (Score:2)
Everybody had the hots for her, but it's Barbara Feldon
. She played Agent 99, Maxwell Smart was Agent 86.People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:5, Funny)
So i start up our internal IM client, and start chatting with a friend of mine. I start describing in great detail how this guy is peeing over my shoulder, how rude it is, and then I start going into how much this man weighs, how his beard looks like a birds nest, how ugly he is, whatnot.
The guy starts giving me REALLY mean looks.
To which I type out "Hi Mr Nosey, don't like what I am typing? Don't READ MY SCREEN!"
He turned around in a huff, and would not say a civil word to me that day.
Re:People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.3m.com/us/office/myworkspace/mon_filte rs_privacy.jhtml [3m.com]
They're kind of pricey, but unless someone is standing directly behind you, they can't make out what is on the screen.
Re:People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, I would have done a lot more than IM a friend about it if someone did that to me.
Re:People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:5, Funny)
Didn't that mess with your keyboard and make your monitor kinda yellow?
ObBash.org (Score:2, Funny)
Re:People who peer over my shoulder bug me (Score:3, Insightful)
Upon reading the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Upon reading the article (Score:2)
That would be "eaves-droppers." As in lurking around under the eaves of a house near a window so as to overhear a conversation surreptiously.
Re:Upon reading the article (Score:2)
mind readers (Score:3, Informative)
In Philip K. Dick's _Ubik_ there's a company that sells the talents- or rather antitalents- of people who can block telepaths. The idea is that if a telepath or precog has been hired to monitor you or interfere with you, you hire the company to bring in an "inertial" who will negate the psi, and so eventually that person leaves.
A good introduction to Philip K. Dick in my opinion. It's well written and plotted (unlike a lot of his stuff) and a mind-fuck, but not the complete and total mindfuck of _The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch_- which is great, but starting with that one would be really starting at the deep end of the pool.
mind readers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:mind readers (Score:2)
Cubicle doors for privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cubicle doors for privacy (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.steelcase.com/na/products.aspx?f=12247
low-tech solution (Score:2)
Not Noise Canceling! (Score:5, Informative)
The "Babble" technology that is discussed in this article is not noise canceling technology! Noise canceling technology uses soundwaves that are 180 degrees out of phase with the original waveform to cancel out the original soundwave.
From the article description, Babble simply 'scrambles' sound waves so that speech is unintelligible, but it doesn't actually make anything quieter (in fact, based on the description it probably increases the ambient noise, just like masking systems [officebuzz.com]). This device is used for speech privacy (which can be useful for meeting HIPAA regs for example), not sound cancellation.
If you want to make things quieter, you'll have to resort to earplugs, sound-canceling headphones, or floor-ceiling partitions (ie walls).
Sound cancelling headphones (Score:2)
Re:Sound cancelling headphones (Score:2)
You certainly shouldn't feel any additional pressure on your ears - soundwaves are pressure waves, so when you cancel out the soundwave, you're canceling out the pressure wave (well technically the pressure difference above/below ambient pressure).
I've certainly never noticed this with the noise canceling headsets I've used (including the Bose professional and consumer headsets). What headset(s) did you try?
Re:Sound cancelling headphones (Score:3, Interesting)
Although I know it's not literal pressure, I feel the same thing.
I've always assumed that these devices, that are intended to be noice cancellation devices, are only designed to cancel out frequencies in the so-called audible range, but that they
Re:Sound cancelling headphones (Score:2)
Actually I'll bet what is happening is that the noise-canceling headsets are working too well - they're canceling out most of the external noise, leaving only the "internal" self-noise of your ears (and possibly various bodily functions like blood rushing through your
Re:Sound cancelling headphones (Score:2)
While I haven't been in an anechoic chamber, I have been other very-quiet places, (such as a microwave-shielded room with special panels on the walls, floor, and ceiling that happened to also deaden all outside sound amazingly effectively.) I know the feeling you're talking about and this isn't it.
In any event, when you turn these heasets on, they don't muffle all the sound by any means. You can
Re:Sound cancelling headphones (Score:2)
If it's anything like the EM-shielded/EM 'anechoic' rooms I've been in (like ASU's facility [asu.edu]) it's not the same thing. It's quiet, but not really quiet.
It's just in addition to it suddenly being a little bit quieter, there's this additional annoying pressure feeling that's similar, but milder than, the pain menti
Silence or more noise? (Score:3, Informative)
"sound processor and several speakers that multiply and scramble voices that come within its range"
Horrible article. No details on how the product works or what it does.
And for the map thingy... It's been done some time ago (2002).
Here's a movie (25 MB) from Sony research (Jun Rekimoto, SmartSkin: An Infrastructure for Freehand Manipulation on Interactive Surfaces):
http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/movies/
Use VLC to view the movie.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ [videolan.org]
Movie taken from
http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto/smartsk
Re:Silence or more noise? (Score:4, Insightful)
What most of us want is a noise-canceling box for noisy neighbors.
What this is is a noise-creating box for nosy neighbors.
You might manage to get your company to pay to put the former in your cubicle. Since the only point of the latter seems to be for allowing personal calls, somehow it seems more likely to get outright forbidden.
Mr Ferren (Score:2)
It would figure that he would pick a business partner that looks like Spock's brother [foederationsdatenbank.de]
Concalls... (Score:4, Interesting)
I normally just send them an IM (if they even use the corporate IM) and ask them to pick up the phone. One woman once told me she uses speakerphone b/c
a) Handsets are unsanitary (it's her F-ing germs on it).
b) She often needs to type while on the phone.
c) Headsets would mess up her hair.
Re:Concalls... (Score:2)
c) Headsets would mess up her hair.
is a pretty common complaint in call centers, and its a reality that call center administrators have to deal with, especially call centers that hire a lot of middle-aged women. As a result, a lot of call centers make available several varieties of headset, one of which goes around your ear and has no "over the head" portion.
Re:Concalls... (Score:3, Interesting)
Aarrrggg! I HATE this. A few times, I've had on person on one side, and the other a couple cubes away....call each other, on speakerphone.
Both sides of the conversation, in stereo.
Death by phonecord strangulation was seriously contemplated.
Re:Concalls... (Score:3, Funny)
Get off their FAT A$$ and walk the 20ft over to my cube.
Re:Concalls... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cones of Silence (Score:2)
Smell blocking? (Score:3, Interesting)
cubicle? wish I had one of those.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus it means I have to put up with shitty overhead fluorescent lighting which makes my screen hard to see.
I hate open-plan offices.
Re:cubicle? wish I had one of those.. (Score:2)
The worst is that I have a small table right outside my cube. The first time we had
I have an idea: (Score:2)
Once upon a time I was told that there was some study that demonstrated that office workers were more productive in cubicles. I was also told that it was actually cheaper to build offices out of dry-wall but that thanks to all this research people were opting to spend more for cubicles.
Since then I've seen the debate go back and forth, and about half that time I've been in an office, the other half in a cubicle. I;ve still yet to see any
Re:I have an idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was under the impression that cubicles became popular because they allowed businesses to cram more people into the same amount of space.
Re:I have an idea: (Score:3, Funny)
An excellent collection of data: (Score:2, Insightful)
Authors of Peopleware [amazon.com] gathered excellent information about disruptive work environments. It is a good book to make circulate when workers begin to complain about bad office space. I believe the book was written in 1987.
I don't think there is more to say in 2005, except the following question: Why is the debate not over? Are the crazy managers that powerful?
Managers often become totally illogical when discussing the possibility that people work from home, because they try to hide their fear of losing
Re:An excellent collection of data: (Score:2)
Well, that IS the manager's job... to keep control over the team. They are responsible for the screw ups of the team. The biggest issue with the cutting everyone free is when you want to get a group of people together and really go over something in detail. Speaking as someone who has had to work with people across the country, it
Re:I have an idea: (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, cubicles seem to be the worst of both worlds: the noise transmission of an open plan with the visual isolation of an office.
As someone who works entirely from home - my only communication with co-workers is IRC, email
I want one! (Score:2)
Nail clipping bastards (Score:2)
I fail to understand why people insist on clipping their nails at work.
Of course the same guy hates it when I leave winamp on and the noise from my earbud headphones bothers him.
Subvocalization is the way the to go (Score:3, Interesting)
In a similar vein (Score:3, Interesting)
That was years ago when experimenting with hardware more basic than a premade circuitboard was still cool and surface mount devices were still ultra high tech, I know, but I've often wished it could be done with other things. Such as make objects emit waves out of phase to those coming in to make it hard to hear anyone or anything precisely and clearly past a certain distance.
Of course, enough Jack Daniels will do the same thing...
Work Place Privacy? (Score:2)
You work for them, period. Its their place, their rules.
You want privacy? Go home.. ( well at least until the fucking government starts putting cameras and microphones in our homes to 'protect us'. )
Another technology already exists (Score:2)
Cube decoration ideas? (Score:2)
cubicles... nightmare (Score:2)
Ha! You people are spoiled! (Score:2)
Re:Unscrambler (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, I was wondering if I could get one those unscramble thingies so that I could figure out what my PHB was saying. Or do I really want to know?
Re:this is very cool, too bad (Score:3, Funny)
At my place of work, we call those "managers".
Re:Hiliis (Score:2)
Because he's a regular Thinking Machine? :-)