(WARNING: This isn’t really an ode. Odes rhyme and poetry is not my strong suit.)
When I first started my career in writing, I had an office.
Four walls. A desk. A phone. And a door that closed.
I needed no duct tape on the floor to indicate where walls would one day be (hellooooo, Les Nesman).
And when I moved to a new city and a new job, I got my first cubicle.
Well, it still wasn’t a cubicle. It was a desk in a common area of desks. We sat next to each other at our desks in our corner of a building that was once a warehouse and never should have been a newspaper office.
We jawed over story ideas, had little quiet time to write, and saw entirely too much of each other.
Fast forward to another city, another job, another industry.
And cubicles.
Cubicle City
We were all connected – and yet disconnected – by a maze of half walls, carpeted with a strange, felt-like material and bordered with metal.
We sat back to back with our cubicle mates and popped our heads up to ask the guy next to us a question.
Others yelled across the room to catch someone’s attention.
Still others alleviated the monotony of cubicle life by shooting Nerf guns around the free space.
And it was hell.
Now as I write for OnConference.com, my cubicle is my dining room table.
My break room is my couch.
My lunch time is spent at the park with my dog.
Lunch Break
With telecommuting, I have broken free from Cubicle Hell.
I have broken the shackles of office drudgery and embraced a life of freedom.
And with conference calls and web conferences, I am no less connected to my work mates than I was when were separated by the awfulness of cubicles.
In truth, I’d say we’re better connected.
We use our technologies to communicate and have put a system of checks and balances in place to ensure the work is being done.
We have deadlines and performance reports to file.
And the results are evident.
Happy employee, happy employer.
Let’s chat! Have your broken free from your cubicle and embraced telecommuting?
