Filling Spaces

Last night at my partner's company party, I ended up talking to the guy who runs facilities for the outfit. Part of his job involves planning cubical space usage (who gets to sit where, why, etc). He had some of the more interesting insights about cube farms and how people spend more time in their cubes than they normally do in their own homes. We may be more peculiar about our workspaces than our homespaces. And the things people keep in their spaces, like a woman's dead dog ashes in a small urn.

The most striking story was about how at one company, an employee passed away and his cube evolved into what an outsider would view as a shrine. When the building plans involved adding a new wall, the wall had to literally be built 'around' the cube-shrine to satisify the social needs of the community in mourning.

Try it out..the facilities manager could tell you more about a place than you'd think.