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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

My friend works for a major manufacturer who switched a few years ago to a similar setup where desks are all unassigned and workers have a locker.

He travels between offices very often and apparently there are essentially unwritten “assigned” seats, and has had people end up really angry and go off on him for taking their seat unknowingly while traveling to unfamiliar offices.

It really seems like it serves to brew discontent with your people. I can’t imagine the benefits outweigh the downsides, particularly the non-obvious ones like above.

I couldn’t work for such a place. I work best when I nest, surrounded by comfort. Photos of my wife, plushies, etc. The general feeling that I have some control over my life however thin. I have thankfully always had a cube, even if my current cube is relatively tiny.

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>I couldn’t work for such a place. I work best when I nest, surrounded by comfort. Photos of my wife, plushies, etc. The general feeling that I have some control over my life however thin. I have thankfully always had a cube, even if my current cube is relatively tiny.

The ability to personalize your space makes work just a little bit easier. Otherwise I feel like a literal cog in a machine.

I need to bring in my own chair. It makes a significant difference.

I was having pretty significant back pain when I worked for a very small company and decided to buy a chair with fancy adjustable lumbar support. It's 15 years later and I have brought my own chair to every office I've ever worked in.

I had a coworker a couple years ago who brought in his own chair (a Herman Miller Aeron). When we came in after a weekend it had been removed and replaced with a cheap, office special that was the default in the cubicles. After a couple days he found it. The facilities manager had moved it into a VPs office because it was an “executive” chair. He had to go through a couple levels of approval, a meeting, and get the chair tagged in order to keep it. Dystopian.

Your employer should provide an adequate chair. Even the US federal government is capable of meeting that bar, albeit with more delays and paperwork than a private-sector employer.

My definition of adequate is different than my employers.

I wish cubicles weren't derided so much in popular culture

I'd actually consider going to work in an office again if I was guaranteed my own cubicle

Maybe if we rechristened them “radicles” they’d come back into vogue. “Cubicles” sounds sad.

People forget that cubicles were invented to mitigate the serious problems of the open office plans that were predominate before them. When they were introduced, workers really loved them because of that.

Since actual offices probably aren't ever coming back, I think that the return of open office plans will, in the long run, get people to really appreciate cubicles again.

I hadn't thought of that. I'd always thought it'd gone; offices > cubicles > open plan

Check out movies from the 40s and 50s that showed non-executive office environments -- they're depicted as large rooms full of people working at desks, because that was the norm.

Cubicles weren't just used as the inventor intended.[1]

[1] https://medium.com/robin-powered/the-accidental-arrival-of-t...

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