My Cubical

A couple of days back I was listening to the radio on my way to work and there was this very good topic the DJ's were talking about, 'Invasion of Space'. Which got me thinking la, how important in my office cubical?

Lets see now, in an organization where everything is all about money, how important is the human capital? How does an organization say; 'hey, good job, thank you...' just by throwing a lump of money into our bank accounts? giving us additional few words to add to our designation, such as 'Section' Manager, 'Senior' Engineer, 'Managing' Director, 'Head' of Department? Is that it, is that all? Years ago, I can't remember but I think it was Henry Fayol, one of the fathers of management said a simple pat on the back saying thanks, goes further than cash.

So back to my question how important is my Cubical? It is a form of recognition that the organization gives you. Hey, this is your space, you've earned it, and this 5 square feet is yours. your personal belongings, your pictures, your inspirations, your lunch time run-away spot, a place you can sit and call the wife or girlfriend and say 'I love you' without morons listening over, it is yours to do whatever (within the labor law, of course) you want. It is a place to call home away from home. We bring stuff from home just to make our cubicles some what homely and to have that taken away from us is unjust. Don’t you feel you wanna come back to your cubical from a crappy day in the production floor, and see your poster of your favorite football team on your cubical wall, or the pictures of your family and your dogs on it, don’t you think we deserve to indulge this simple human spirit during the spare time we have. Have I not performed enough to be entitled for this space, which we call My Cubical?

Then again there is the question of favoritism. Some employees get this space and some of us don’t, we just get a desk with 3 dumb drawers? I wanna know who is the guy sitting up there, who is saying, that the Planners, the Program Management, the Accounts people the IT department get to sit in a nice square cubical, a space for them to call their own. What farce is this? They get to come in to a nice beautiful office, but we have to sit in place which looks like a warehouse for where people store drywall?

So what is it? People in accounts have earned their 5 square feet space? Why? Just cause he manages the numbers? The Program Management people get the 5 square feet space because they are so good at taking our data and presenting to upper level management? Or the Planners, just because they’re planning when the shipment goes out, they get a space of their own? So what, we engineers who spend the whole damn day sometimes in the production floor, sweating and bleeding for the organization don’t deserve to come back to nice space we call our own? Wasn’t it us who spend our times doing Kaizen (Continuous Improvements, for those of you who don’t know) trying to save space and money and process improvements for the company to achieve its goals? Aren’t we the ones trying to reduce to reduce headcount which the company is paying for? Aren’t we the ones sitting down all day at times analyzing our process just to fool prove it. You walk down to the production floor, you can see us sitting on the floor trying to hook up stuff for production to run, testing and simulating our lines. Spend hours trying to re-layout the floor so the company can save money in space, and there they go by taking OUR SPACE AWAY!!! I don’t call this a farce anymore; this is an outrageous act of selfishness! If they guy sitting in Finance deserves a 5 square feet space, so do we, by all mean we deserve it more, because we are Direct Departments of this organization.

You don’t just give an engineer a chair and a desk with drawers and say, this is your cubical, now bring my yield down, improve my process, increase capacity and reduce cost. Ingenuity at its best, sits on a desk, a data entry clerk in Finance gets a cubical?!

Ohhh…the hits just keep ooooon coming;

If I gave the organization cavemen methods to solve their engineering problems, they’d probably fire me but here we are, in the age where technology has surpassed mankind, they give us squatting toilet bowls?! Have we Engineers really under performed for the organization to deprive us the simple comfort of sitting our asses down EVEN WHEN WE TAKE A DUMP??!!! I don’t get this and you know why I love Central Europe? Cause over there people with the hand skill, the Engineers in particular are the most highly respected people, we are the ones with the skill and talent to solve your problems, and yes in Europe if you are an engineer, you are not only highly paid, you are also kept well. I can guaran’damn’tee that there is not going to be a fridge or a microwave in this so call new sitting office for the Engineers? What we now don’t even deserve a cool drink? Then again there probably is a fridge or microwave somewhere in a corner, I wouldn’t know, haven’t really gone through this god forsaken place.

You know, just by giving us a free lunch, doesn’t make it all better!

Michael Schumacher - End of An Era

well it had to end some time or rather.

Michael Schumacher. hate him or love him, undoubtedly the most successful driver in the history Formula One. i hope he ends his last season in style.

cheers mate, for 16 years of my life's greatest moments, i shared with him.