This week, a colleague and I each got so fed up with the situation at work that we hatched a scheme to cut down on some of the socializing in our office by having me switch desks with a different colleague.  It’s too complicated to fully explain, but my desk is in a large room within our office.  I share that space with two other people and an empty cubicle. (The empty cubicle is actually not an asset.  Its chair seems very inviting to every bored extrovert who wants to come in, sit down, and talk my ear off, without concern for my time.) This large room, because it’s out of management’s direct sight, I guess, has become a sort of unofficial “break room” for any bored coworker who wants to just hang out and talk. (As you can imagine, I hate this.) The person with whom I was going to switch (Y) gets a lot of  legitimate work related traffic to his cubicle, which is near my co-conspirator’s (let’s call him X) cube, and the noise drives X nuts when he’s trying to concentrate.  So, X and decided that if I switched cubes with Y, most of the office traffic would funnel into the “Country Club” as we call it, from which I would escape.  It would benefit X and me both.  I talked to Y and he was agreeable, so I approached my boss.

And was met with resistance.  He has a long term plan for the “Country Club.”  He did not understand how it would benefit the office for me and Y to switch cubes.  He was clearly very uncomfortable with my request and turned it into a really big deal.  He would have to talk to Y’s cube neighbors as well as mine to make sure this would be OK with everyone.  I was stunned and felt terrible after talking to him. He didn’t say “No,” but he made it clear he wasn’t in my corner.  So this morning I told him to forget it. X was not pleased but I didn’t want to push the issue with my boss, who has always been good to me.

So, this morning, there I was, sitting at my cube in the “Country Club,” wondering what I could do to make things better.  And I realized that the empty cube had a wall panel a foot higher and a foot wider than the side panel of my own cube.  Eureka.  Let’s swap those panels.  I wasn’t about to ask permission for THAT.  I had a couple of guys help me and soon I had a taller, wider side on my cube. It makes a world of difference.  Not only that, my immediate cube neighbor took the shorter panel from my cube to create a wall where she hadn’t had one.  So now, we are more “closed off” from the rest of the room.  My new wall is tall enough that people won’t be able to hang over the top of it to talk at me, which they DID do with the shorter one.  It will no longer be so easy for people to come in and park in the empty cube and talk to me – they can’t see me now from there, because I have an extra foot of wall between me and that cube.

My cubicle looks much less “inviting” now. I moved my monitors around to put my back squarely toward the small opening that I now have.  Hopefully the whole setup says “Move on, please don’t come here and hang around.”

Ironically, X is one of the worst “park and talk” offenders.  He isn’t too happy about the new arrangement, but that’s too bad.  X doesn’t like to be distracted but fails to realize how often he distracts ME.  And he gives me a hard time if I say anything.  Late this afternoon, after most people had left, he and another guy came to bother me.  I tried to get them to leave and they wouldn’t.  So I discovered a wonderful weapon and I’m going to keep it “locked and loaded” at all times, from now on.  I pointed my web browser at http://www.simplynoise.com/ and cranked it.  They left in a hurry!!

Small victories, but I left work happy for the first time in a LONG time.