Working in a cubicle farm (1 Viewer)

[Bill Catherall]

Anybody here work in a cubicle and have some cubicle farm stories to share?
Right now there is a song propagating through the cubicles. The guy behind me has been humming it and it has worked its way over a few cubicles and another guy is humming it now. I don't know the name of the song. It's some opera tune. I know it was in some Bugs Bunny cartoon (oh this is embarrassing) where Elmer Fudd is singing "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit..."

My next door neighbor is a real slob. A few days ago I spotted a brown object out of the corner of my eye moving across the floor. I looked over and it was a little brown mouse. When I went to go grab it or trap it (or something, I don't know what I was going to do, I just moved towards it) it ran back under the partition to the neighbor's cubicle. The funny thing is, he was actually cleaning up his cubicle that day. He thinks maybe his cleaning may have scared it off.

The best part is listening to another neighbor call up his friend or relative (I don't know) everyday chewing him out for not sending the money. (I have no idea what money, but this is a big guy that seems to have a hard time breathing and sounds like he's coughing up a lung every couple hours.

) Or when this guy's boss comes in and chews him out for doing something stupid. I just sit there and chuckle when he tries to defend himself and it just pisses the boss off even more.
Ah, cubicle life.
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Bill

 

[Chris Wittry]

I get a good laugh every time I see that commercial where the network goes down and everyone goes out for bagels. I used to work in a "cube farm," actually working for the systems administrators group. Whenever our WAN would go down, we'd play games on the groups LAN, most of the time never noticing if the WAN came back up or not. Ahhhhh.....good times!

 

[Jay H]

So do I, in fact I still do!
There's a guy who I'm listening to right now that I've labelled the company pig. He's loud and snorts all day long. Apparently, he has some kind of nasal problem and instead of using a tissue like any normal human being, he resorts to snorting.. sometimes really loud. It's really disgusting.
And then there's the person (manager type) catacorner to me who has no idea how to use a phone. He's got a speakerphone and refuses to use the handset so I can hear all the freakin whiners who call. Even when he's checking his voicemail and stuff.
There used to be a contacter across the hall who used to have all these nasty phonecalls with her credit card company. Man, everybody would be listening to her mouth off at them, it was actually quite entertaining

OHhhh sh*t, the pig snorter just snorted again... What a dufus, has he ever heard of a tissue? Pittttoooooeeeuuuuu.. Yeck!
Then of course, the company makes it 50 degrees below zero in here, I have to wear my lab coat (two of them) just to keep warm and gloves are an option.
And of course, the cubicle power strips aren't that great and I bet the company has about 500000 outlets on one breaker such that we are always having power outages and smoking computers and stuff because of it.
Makes me want to go watch "office space" again!!!

Jay

 

[Ryan Wright]

He's got a speakerphone and refuses to use the handset so I can hear all the freakin whiners who call. Even when he's checking his voicemail and stuff.

Man, I hate that. Speakerphones are evil devices that never should have been invented. I'll use mine sometimes to dial a number, but the second someone answers, I pickup my handset. I can't stand people who actually try to carry on conversations with these things...
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-Ryan (http://www.ryanwright.com )
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, when you do criticize them, you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

 

[Micah Cohen]

I have since graduated into my very own office (or, as we refer to them, "orifice").

But once we had this designer, a new hire who was right outa design school. And she was very timid and didn't really have any professional experience, altho she was in her late 30s (a victim of career change). She sat in the cube behind me, and we both faced opposite directions.
To think straight in my cube, and avoid marketing dept distractions, I'd wear headphones. And this designer would timidly tap me on the shoulder from behind about every thirty minutes with a question about SOME NONSENSE. Every time I was just getting going creatively, the music carrying me away... there would come a tiny soft TAP TAP TAP.
It made me CRAZY. And always succeeded in breaking my concentration and ruining my day.
Ultimately, I made her cry and she quit. The marketing department is no place for wimps.
MC
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"When your head says one thing and your whole life says another,
your head always loses." (Key Largo)

 

[RicP]

quote: I don't know the name of the song. It's some opera tune. I know it was in some Bugs Bunny cartoon (oh this is embarrassing) where Elmer Fudd is singing "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit[/quote]That would be "Ride Of The Valkyries" , an opera by Wagner.

Man, I hate that. Speakerphones are evil devices that never should have been invented. I'll use mine sometimes to dial a number, but the second someone answers, I pickup my handset. I can't stand people who actually try to carry on conversations with these things

You must not be in on many conference calls then. Speaker phones are indispensible for large meetings, off site calls, simultaneous presentations and calls..etc...
Just because 1 or 2 idiots need to be hands free all the itme, doesn't mean that speaker phones are somehow inherently wrong.
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Ric Perrott - My DVD's
[Edited last by RicP on November 02, 2001 at 02:27 PM]

 

[Kevin T]

bill:
i'm not 100% certain but i think the song they're humming is something like figaro from the barber of seville? i have no idea how to spell it so i'm just going by phonics.
kevin t

 

[Kevin T]

oh well...ric beat me to it...and i was wrong anyway...not an opera man myself.
kevin t

 

[Julie K]

I'd go insane without headphones for my radio and CD player in my cubicle.
BTW, has anyone heard the 'Ozzy Fudd' version of Kill the Wabbit on one of the Dr Demento CDs?

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My DVDs
"Some people think I'm over-prepared, paranoid...maybe even a little crazy. But they never met any pre-Cambrian life forms, did they?"

 

[Rob_J]

One afternoon, the department was pretty quiet. This is usually a sign that either everyone has left, or everyone is working hard on something important (usually the first one). Anyways, we're working away and all of a sudden the power goes out and all I could hear was "Ohhhh..... crap!" Everyone who did not back up their work had just lost an afternoon's worth of it. It was pretty funny to hear the whole office yell at their computer at the same time.
...but nothing beats elastic band wars

 

[Bill Catherall]

all I could hear was "Ohhhh..... crap!"

We used to have a power failure about 3 times a day for a while here because some piece of equipment was tripping the main power breaker. I was working in ProEngineer and keeping my work saved, so if I lost something it was only a few minutes of work. Well...one day I was uploading a file to the server to keep a history copy on file. Normally this would only take a second or two, but the power failed the instant I hit the save button. "Ohhhh..... crap!" When the power returned I couldn't open the file because the server had it locked because the save function started but never finished. It took me and the sys-admin another 6 hours the next day to recover that file so I could finish working on it. I bought a UPS that day. And it saved my butt just a couple days later. The next time the power went out all the other "cubes" where cussing out their computers while I just laughed, saved my work, and shut down. Heehee!
Now back to the cubicle farm stories. (Oh, by the way, I love Office Space too. Those bosses with their coffee mugs always in hand had me rolling on the floor.)
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Bill

 

[Shawn Shultzaberger]

Today we lost power and a cry of WooHoo's! was heard everywhere. Until we looked down and saw our phones still had power. A lot of curse words after that.
I hate being attached to my cubie but the money ain't half bad.
* - "My eyes...the goggles do nothing!"

 

[Mark Dubbelboer]

I'm a student working my way through university and I can tell you the day i got promoted to my very own cubicle was a big day indeed.
I find it most annoying when someone used the handsfree to dial because then it rings through the speakerphone...something about a phone ringing just drives me insane if no one is going to answer it.
also the ppl in my office are stupid and are used to using their cell phones to make all their calls, whenever they do use their office phones they often forget to get an outside line first and just start dialing. my extension is "32" and this is the first numbers of about 60% of the phones in my town so i get a lot of ppl calling me by accident.