WEBVTT - Cubicle Doom 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:15.280 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to bow your Mind. 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.160 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.720 let's let's let's set the stage here. Okay, let's go 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:26.480 to your cubicle. What does your cubicle look like? My cubicle, Julie. 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.880 I think it's got probably all of the trappings of 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.960 your typical office worker. It's got some personal photos, stacks 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:40.440 of books and papers. But um, it does have a 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:45.920 big sign that says cloaca av Yeah. Um, of course 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:47.640 we can thank Cooper for that, and that that I 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.840 think really telegraphed to people like, hey, this is my territory. Yeah, 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:53.760 you have some weird bits of art thrown in there. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:55.800 I have some fan art that's awesome. And then I 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.160 have a tiger bearing its jaws like a little figurine. 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.240 And again in I feel like the tiger and the 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.240 sign and all of these little things are ways of 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.800 saying this is my corner of the street, and uh, 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.560 you know this is this is my area and my dwelling. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.640 And I should point out that our cubicles are really 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.400 more like what half of a hexagon. Really, it's like 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.960 it's the three walls, but there's they're a little more spacious. Yeah, 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.680 they're not too bad. They're gray, um, but but they 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.720 don't look like the office space um TV movie cubicle 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.679 type of thing. It's it's a little better than that. 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.880 I think, Oh, you're saying this a little bit jazz here. 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.440 I think it's jazz here. It's a little bit more angles. Yeah, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.880 but it doesn't look it's not as nearly as soul crushing, 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:39.720 and it feels a little more open. We have a 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.240 fair amount of death space, um. And I have my 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.800 walls of my little area decorated with bits of art, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:48.880 you know. So I have like some you know, I 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.320 think a Tibetan calendar up and some fantasy arts and 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.560 various bits and pieces that that sort of allow my 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.160 imagination to run wild. And most of it is is 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.200 like a agreeable to the workplace. You've forgotten the best 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.520 part of your cubicle the oh the sand Worm avenue, 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.400 that was the one that the bookshelf that's next to 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.120 the bookshelf, which is your fortress against the world. But 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.560 in addition to that is the painting of Biscuit cat Yes, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.639 my sister Lucy, Lucy Lamb, she painted a picture of 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.160 my cat Biscuit, and that's up there with the one eye. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:25.040 That's she doesn't really have one red eye. She has 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.320 one bad eye, but in the in the painting it's 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.440 it's red and kind of magical looking. So yeah, that's 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.840 going to shoot. That's definitely one of the prize pieces 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.320 that I have with me at work, you know, along 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.600 with some other personal momentos. All right, Uh, I'm thinking 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.120 you guys have guessed that today's topic is all about 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.440 our workspaces are cubicles, how we dwell in them, what 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.200 is dwelling in them, and perhaps even the future of 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.400 office space. Yes, and I would I would have to 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.040 advise anyone listening to this at their cubicle, at their 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.560 their their workspace. UM, prepared to to feel a little 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:02.800 weird about your work environment. Prepare to um perhaps run 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.400 out to the store and buy some uh some sort 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.160 of clean up wipes to scrub everything down, because we're 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.359 gonna get into not only your human co workers here, 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.240 but your microbial will coworkers and all the creepy Crawley's 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:22.520 that invisibly make up your workspace. Yeah, because let's let's uh, 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:25.600 let's be honest about it, that we have this whole 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.360 microbial kingdom that is surrounding us, not just on our 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.560 bodies and inside our bodies, but every single space that 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.760 you touch, every single thing from that elevator button up 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.000 to the floor that you work on. And indeed, we've 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.960 talked before about just all the microbes that our body 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.960 is carrying. I mean just our mouth again, five hundred 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.480 with thousand different types of bacteria. Uh, only a hundred 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.760 to two hundred live in a mouth at any given time, 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.320 and we all have these different um bacterial, floral environments 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.880 going on inside us. And then we bring these environments 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.520 and a host of other things into these workspaces. Yeah, 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.880 there is a study called office space Bacterial Abundance and 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.360 Diversity in three metropolitan areas. It's a study by Christie m. 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.800 Hewitt and Charles Gerba at All and they found that 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:15.200 most of the bacteria in an office originates from the 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:17.719 workers themselves, right, which is I mean, of course we 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.440 track everything in it's spread by coughing, sneezing, and shedding 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.920 of the skin. And by the way, there are dust 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.760 mites that are there waiting for these little skin flakes 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.480 to fall so they can feast upon them. Yeah. One 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.440 of the things that kept coming back to in researching 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.520 this podcast and the other one that we're recording today, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.560 is that we really have this this false notion in 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.640 our heads that I mean, it's it's largely a false 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.880 notion that I feel like the more we learn about 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.520 and the more educated we each of us individually are, 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.120 the less we buy into this this false idea. But 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.040 it's the sense that there's the outside world with all 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:55.600 the things that live in it, all the things that 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.800 can kill us, all the things that are gross and yucky, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.560 and then we're going to create these pristine indoor environments 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.719 that are holy and uh. And in this space, I 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.880 am the only thing that is living. I'm cut off 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.200 from all this annoying nature and it's just me. I 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.279 don't have to worry about mosquitoes swarming me. I don't 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.280 have to worry about other parasites climbing up. I don't 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.080 have to worry about things um swooping down off of 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:21.320 dog poop. I don't know why they need to swoop down. 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.440 Maybe the dogs are climbing trees now, But but still 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.279 that the example still holds true that we think of 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.960 our indoor environments as something special and something clean, and 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:36.440 in reality we just created another equally occupied artificial environment. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:38.600 It's just that the things that get to live there 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.480 are the things that we bring in with us, so 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.440 they become this kind of zoo, this kind of mutated 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.240 we're not really mutated, but out of control zoo of 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:50.000 human flora. Well, it is a bit of a zoo, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:51.800 and it is a bit of a mutation because when 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.520 you are controlling your environment like that, then you have 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:58.240 certain microbes that are going to subsist rather than other ones. Yes, yeah, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.000 so yeah mutated. I did. I just didn't want to 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.080 make anybody think that these things were actually like a 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.440 genetic level, but in terms of an environmental mutation, I 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.560 think that would probably hold true. So of course this 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.520 would lead you to begin to wonder, like, where would 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.039 all of these germs in office building be hiding out? 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.880 Um researchers at Kimberly Clart Professional they used a molecular 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.000 detection method to gauge the germ count, and typical office 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.080 spaces in the areas that garnered the highest amount of 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.719 terms of them were dwelling in the brake room sink 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.000 faucet handles, which we all touch without thinking about it 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.000 and too much. No one will be surprised by this. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.800 Forty eight percent of those germs were hanging out on 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:49.080 the microwave door handles, uh, keyboards, in refrigerator door handles, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.240 and then of course you've got water fountains at about 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:56.000 the same rate in vending machine buttons, and so I 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:57.919 don't think any of that is a surprise because I 0:06:57.920 --> 0:06:59.640 don't know about you guys out there, but if you're 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.200 office has a microwave and people use it a lot, 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.720 perhaps there's lots of evidence of that, and it's extremely 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.240 dirty and corroded with food, you know the inside is 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:12.480 going to be gross. But you did not have to 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.120 think about the handle so much. I don't know, because 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.480 I just think that's evidence of like it's getting used 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.240 every day. It's probably gonna use twenty times a day, 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.640 and then you know, right then, all the muck that's 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.680 stuck up in there is is a good indication that 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.600 this thing is getting a lot of play. Petrified tomato 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.040 sauce and all that. Well, you know, I would have 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.640 easily guessed keyboard because obviously we're touching our keyboards all 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.640 the time, and used I don't really eat snack mix anymore, 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.640 but I used to be like really into snack mix, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.800 and U and I would have that horrifying time when 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.840 I realized like something had fallen through and I'm like, oh, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.720 I need to get that kernel of nut out of 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.000 my keyboard. And then I turned it upside down and 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.800 it's like just a rain of filth that comes out 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.200 of it, and then I then I have to clean everything. Um. 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.280 But yeah, any space that individuals throughout your office are 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.640 coming into contact with on a daily basis, it's going 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.280 to accumulate. Even though it looks clean. I mean it 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.760 looks super smooth and polished because all those fingers are 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.520 rubbing it with their oil. Well, the thing I was 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.360 surprised about is that in your own personal space, that 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.240 your chair is actually ripe with bacteria your phone That 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:22.080 makes sense, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was reading that. Um, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.920 if you make a telephone call, about one twenty seven 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.720 microbes per square inch are present, So that makes it 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.200 one of the grimeer things just in your desk environment. 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.160 Eavesdropping on your phone call. Well yeah maybe, and let's 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.600 say bacteria. But back to chairs. UM studies pointed out 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.760 that we're looking at that individuals do um fart in 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.719 the chipping in their chairs apparently. I mean, I think 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.120 it's a little rude, especially if you're you're seated next 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.079 to people. But um, I mean that's that's where the 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.520 business happens. So there's gonna be a certain amount of 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.880 bacteria or at least that way. UM and uh. One 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.439 of the studies that were looking at actually UM brought 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.040 gender into this, which flows naturally from the farting discussion 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:12.200 because we've talked before about possible gender biases regarding flatulens 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.640 or flatus if you will, UM that that men are 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:18.880 going to be more apt to just let it rip, 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.240 and then females are gonna be more conservative and perhaps 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.280 uh go somewhere else and do it in with some 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:28.960 sense of decorum. But according to researchers at San Diego 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.679 State University in the University of Arizona UM, the services 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.280 in men's offices had ten to more germs than their 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:39.600 female counterparts. So and the idea here is that maybe 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.240 just men are a little more gross than women. Well, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.120 there was another idea that arting and also just clutter 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.080 and eating gross things over the keyboard and everything. Well, 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.120 it was a hygiene question where they're washing their hands 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.760 as much. But the other question was could it be 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:56.319 that on average, men have more surface area of skin 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.240 and therefore more micro That's that's the other side of this. 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.240 Maybe they're just eager they have more skin. And again, 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:02.840 most of the stuff is coming in on our skin, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.920 and our skin is constantly, let's face it, falling apart 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.080 and shedding to tiny little pieces of dead skin and 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:15.240 just leaving these flakes everywhere. So more skin, more awful 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.760 stuff that you're bringing in and dropping all over the office. 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.480 I just wanted to throw that in there because I 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:21.680 feel like sometimes the guys that I were listening to 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.600 this podcast, they're like, man, so not only am I'm 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.040 more likely to get struck by lightning, but I have 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:33.199 more germs on me and possibly my uh y chromosome 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.080 is just gonna go EXTINCTOI. Yeah, and you're just a 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.160 mutation necessary to the species as opposed to the female, 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.720 which is the true um version of the Homo sapien, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:48.680 the cleaner version, or perhaps not. Alright, uh so let's 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.200 take a quick break and when we get back, we're 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.640 gonna talk a little bit about stick building syndrome, and 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.640 then we are going to talk about the utopian vision 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:12.720 of the cubicle. All right, we're back and uh yeah, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.840 we're gonna jump in a little more here. But first 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:16.520 I want to just run through a couple of quick factoids. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.280 Some of these come from our our article about cube 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.520 death and how stuffworks dot com. You check that out. 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.640 Molly Edmonds, I believe wrote that one, yes, death by cubicle, 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.439 death by cubicle, but restaurants with surfaces that contain more 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.760 than seven hundred bacteria for square intra considered unsanitary. But 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.520 the typical office workers hands come in contact with ten 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.559 million bacteria a day. That also flows in nicely with 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.400 the fact that the average kitchen table, uh it tends 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:43.520 to be more clean than a desk because it's getting 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.160 wiped down all the time. We're just you're supposed to 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.800 after you eat their um, their crumbs, so you wipe 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.080 it down. But the same thing is happening with your desk. 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:52.680 People are eating at their desk. I eat at my 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.199 desk and I don't wipe it down each time, so 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.959 it's really horrible. From that same article, it turns out 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.000 that toilets are actually cleaner the toilets in the offices 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.839 because at least they're getting some level of cleaning. Well, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.080 and if it's like ours, they're probably getting clean twice 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.240 a day, right, as opposed to your desk, which gets 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.600 cleaned maybe once a year. Another study found that teachers 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:15.840 or of course the grimiest profession because they have to 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:20.400 come into contact with with the human but but a 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:25.120 cubicalle dwelling accountants came in second because their desk racked 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.240 up six thousand and thirty bacteria or square inch. So 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.840 that's pretty pretty impressive. I saw on another list that 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.440 lawyers were the lowest on the list. Uh why is 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.920 that they just kicking back? They're not touching anything. I 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.280 don't know. This is the create your own lawyer joke 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.480 portion of the of the podcast. Have that guys right here? 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:46.720 Okay they inserted in that that space. Um, you know, 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:48.400 another thing to keep in mind too, about the all 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.319 the junke that we bring into the office place. Uh 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.360 the bottom of the feet And I think about this 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.000 sometimes it really makes me pine for like a shoeless 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.720 office place, kind of like Cooper's office on a Madman 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.040 Eastern style approach when they enter his his office, because 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.880 you know, obviously we're walking all over the place and 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.160 these things stepping on horrible, horrible substances and and uh 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.360 and bacteria and urine and bubble gum and food and 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.360 your name it. Yeah, chemicals, horrible pathogens. And it's also 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.560 worth pointing out that every time you step down, you 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.360 pressurize the air that's in your shoes, So you can 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:29.800 think of this as kind of like a shoe fart. 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.480 You stopped down, you scored a little warm air, carrying 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.160 a foot microbiology out. So just in the course of 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.360 walking around the office, we're tracking in crud that we've 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.640 been walking through, you know, on on the train, in 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.920 the street, up while walking the dog, and then when 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:48.960 we get in, we're shoe farting all this, uh, this 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:53.760 microbiology all over the place. So think about that, well, 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.520 I mean, this is what creates a nice, uh thick 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.480 ecosystem of microbes to work in. I also wanted to 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.040 mention that, in addition to to all these microbes, sometimes 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:09.000 you will see references to sick building syndrome or occupational asthma. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.400 And this is experiencing asthmatic symptoms like t eyes or 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.880 coughing while at work. And it makes up about ten 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.760 percent of asthma cases in the US, and it is 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.720 estimated to be responsible for twenty four point five millions 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.040 sick days annually. Uh. This is according to Lisa Balcon, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.760 who's running for the New York Times. So there's this 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.080 idea that when you create this microbialist in the office, uh, 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.520 that you're creating conditions that can certainly weaken your health. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.920 Um cause asthmatic reactions. And there's also sick building syndrome, 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.920 in which a moldy or a poorly ventilated office causes headaches, fatigue, 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.480 and nausea, just to name a couple of symptoms. Yeah, 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.880 because you have this shut off environment, and to what 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.840 degree you're actually ventilating it, bringing in clean air or 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:58.560 are you just sort of cycling the whole sickness around. Well, 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:01.680 as you say, we've shut out the outdoors, so we 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.480 have limited our environment. We've really skewed it because at 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.320 least when you're outdoors and maybe you live in a 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.760 city that's fairly polluted, Um, you're still getting some movement 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.840 there in those that cloud of microbes is dissipating. Yeah, 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.600 and we're bringing in these uh, these toxic substances, often 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:25.000 from carpet, furniture, paint, um, other items such as the 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.360 You remember the war of the lavender um um air 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.400 freshener here at work. Yes, it seemed the last months, 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.000 but it was. It was a synthetic lavender air freshener 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:40.280 and it was permeating the office. Yeah, because lavender, natural 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:42.800 lavender is a beautiful smell. I love lavender, but this 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.200 is that artificial chemical lavendar that you can just you 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.040 feel killing your brain cells every every whiff you take. 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.400 And it was there. There was there was a war 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.680 just to keep it short between the air freshener and 0:15:57.720 --> 0:15:59.560 those of us who didn't. And that is a good 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.080 example of some of the aggression that we see in 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.360 these more open office concepts. And we'll talk about that 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.240 in a moment, but yes, that's that's certainly something that 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.480 you are introducing into the environment. Or why was why 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.080 was the lavender airfrashner there? Because that particular office was 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:21.760 haunted by Funk It had not Well, what I think 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.640 is fascinating about all of this, because it's sort of 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.120 sprouts from this whole cubicle culture, is that the cubicle 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:34.840 was introduced as this sort of utopian idea of an office, uh, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.680 space that someone could really like cling to and spread 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.000 out and and be as creative and productive as possible. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.200 And when I'm talking about this utopian office vision, I'm 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.680 talking about Robert Props. He was a director of research 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.520 for Herman Miller, the furniture company, and he created something 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.920 called the Action office. So think about think about cubicles now, right, 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.240 just these squares essentially or our fancy like right angle ones, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.720 and uh, think about this vision that he had that 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.200 he created, which was really more of like these half walls, 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:10.679 but that was there so that you could pin up 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.840 projects and then all these different and have a little 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.239 privacy when you needed privacy. Yeah, and then um a 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.960 lot of desk space with different components you could add 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.280 on to it, like bookshelves and so on and so forth, 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.560 so that the person who was working there could spread out, um, 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.600 could have all the things that they needed at hand. Yeah, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:30.199 make it their own. You don't have to. You're not 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.720 ruled by that in and out box. And you would 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.720 have varying levels of workspace so that you can you 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.400 can sit down and you can and you can also 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.399 stand up and work. And of course that's growing more 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.480 and more popular these days with the individuals who want 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.919 to stand and work all day. Right. I mean it 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.240 was very forward thinking, but now this is what used 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.280 to exist before cubicles, and we're talking about those open 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.760 bullpens where there were really small dusks like think about 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.000 school desks that were just lined up one after that 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.840 there with no privacy. So in a sense, this this 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.960 utopian vision was a vast improvement. Sounds great, right, So 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:10.119 what happened? Where did it all go wrong? Well, with 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.280 the problem. The main problem here is that you're taking 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.280 an ideal and you're you're going to work that into 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.119 a business environment and into a business plan. You're going 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.280 to deal with space constraints, you're gonna deal with budget constraints, 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.200 and you're gonna end up with a product that looks 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.720 significantly different. Right, because we're talking about the late sixties here, 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:32.440 we're an increased workforce. We're talking about Uh, the real 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.560 estate costs just skyrocketing too. So they had to solve 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.480 that and they looked at this company, Herman Miller, a 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.440 lot of corporations, and said, can I cherry pick that 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.840 configuration to just choose what I want? Because if you do, 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.280 you you run into not not an excellent means of 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:51.000 creating an open workspace for your employee, but a way 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.680 of cramming more people into a given space and while 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:58.359 still providing them basically the workspace they needed to work. 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.360 And that's where this lovely idea of this action office 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:07.320 just was cherry picked to death and then eventually reconfigured 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.200 so that it just got smaller and smaller and smaller 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.640 until it became this corporate sardine can plan, these little 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.200 gray cells that you you slide yourself into. I was 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.760 looking at pictures of them because I sometimes forget what 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.199 they look like because I don't I've never worked in 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.359 a in a space that really had them. Um, because 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.879 I was in news newsrooms before this. I was working 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.359 for newspapers, and newspapers generally go with the open office. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.439 So environment, because you're all working together, you're yelling at 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.520 each other, you're breaking into tears, um, you're collaborating on 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.000 this project on a deadline, and there's you know, there's 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.280 a lot of there's a certain amount of time wasting, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.400 but a lot of just let's get this done. It's 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.000 so it's it's a cool environment, but it's not definitely 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.080 not a cubical environment. And then here, of course we 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.040 have this altered cubical environment we've described already. So uh 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.520 but but looking at these images, it really is soul 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.800 crushing some of these. I mean, it's just looks like 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.720 a cell and it has dominated the office landscape for 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:07.280 thirty years. That being said, now employers are going back 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:13.480 to this more um open bullpen configuration. So that's where 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.479 we begin to introduce a bunch of different problems, right 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.360 because here we're talking about the open office open office. 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.960 We've actually seen it parodied in recent TV shows like 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.919 Arrested Development the most recent season they have like this 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.120 basically a warehouse with this with like death spread out 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.960 across these spaces. Um parks and wreck had had that 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:38.680 business that John Ralphaeo and uh and disease open. That's 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:42.800 a huge space with all you know, like a desk 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:47.000 here and yeah, and it's become sort of a cliche 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:51.760 of startups. It has, and you know, various companies handle 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:54.800 things differently. There are some that will actually not have 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.639 any assigned seatings, so when you show up, you just 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:00.240 check out your laptop and then you go you go 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.120 to a desk check out a laptop for the day, 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:04.640 and then go find a place to sit. Yes, let's 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:07.040 let's make the workspace as much like a middle school 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.280 cafeteria as possible, because we all have fond memories of that. 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.120 Right now, I think the reason why employers are going 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:15.640 to this is one. It's really cheap. Right. You have 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:17.600 no walls, you have no partitions, you don't have to 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.240 worry about a ton of office furniture. Do the managers 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.600 still have closed off offices? I assume they do because 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.760 they have to have. Yeah, well not all, but there 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.600 are some companies where managers are out there with everybody 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.600 and there are no It just depends on So I 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.680 can feel better about about it if if the managers 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.960 rolling this out, Um, we're partaking of this new environment, 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:38.439 because a lot of times it feels like I have 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.119 this great idea for you guys. You're not gonna have 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.639 offices or cubicles. You're just gonna sort of exists in 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:46.320 a comfy space. If you need me, I'll be in 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.399 my office. Yeah, but offices are necessary because you have 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.640