On-call is almost over! I just gotta make it through the
next 13 hours, hopefully without incident. Speaking of
which, I just got an alert...yay. Time to switch
gears...grr...
OK, that was quick. All clear, crisis averted! +10
I should keep my mouth shut now.
We just got moved into a new building for work and it's
driving me nuts! We used to have cubicles with full-sized
walls, but now we are in an open-plan office with half-height
cubicle walls, argh!!! I am not a fan of this setup at all
and it totally prevents me from working at my best. I have
people all around me, talking and doing stuff, and I can see
all of them and they can see me! And it is so distracting!
Not only that, but there is a fluorescent light fixture
beaming right down into my cube, messing up my eyes...the
floors shake whenever anybody close by moves in their seat.
Much worse when people walk by, and I am in a high foot
traffic area! Oh, and I also "share" a cube with another
colleague. There are no walls or anything between us. This
has only been our second week and it is the suck. Fo'reals.
On day one, the fluorescent glare was bothering me so much
that I had to open an umbrella for a makeshift shelter from
the beaming lights. I understand that some people think that
opening an umbrella inside is bad luck, but it had to be
done. While I was sitting in my shelter, trying to keep my
focus on my screens and having Stress Reduction dialed in on
Brainwave with my over the ears headset, a female colleague
put her hand on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my
chair! She was admiring my umbrella.
That evening, I decided I needed something other than an
umbrella for a roof. I sat with all of my stuff in the
garage and brainstormed. Yes, I keep a lot of junk in my
garage...broken stuff, repurposeables, recyclables, etc. Too
much for my wife's liking, but at least I try to keep it
organized and we have the space for it. So I sat with my
stuff, just looking at the shelves of stuff...old tent? Too
big and still in good shape to repurpose. Old kite? Too
small. Rain poncho? That could work, but what if it rains?
It is my only one. How about fabricating something? So I
ended up fabricating a roof with a stretch of chicken wire
wrapped in landscaping fabric. The fabric covered both sides
and was stapled together. The whole thing took me about 30
minutes to put together and the end result was good enough.
I rolled up the "roof" and took it into work with me the next
day. My seating has me facing a corner of my cube where the
wall is a higher 3/4 wall. I wasn't sure how I was going
mount the roof and tried a few things until I was able to get
it to work. I basically had to bend the roof in a way that
would shelter me from the evil beams of light and support
itself when mounted. I mounted the roof with these T pins
that you can stick to the fabric of the cube walls. The end
result wasn't much to look at...actually, it was ghetto
fabulous! Function over form! It has been up for a bit and
I haven't been told to take it down or anything. Actually,
some of the people in the office thought it was a sculpture
or something because it kinda looks like the tail of a whale
when it dives. So that solved the problem of the overhead
lights.
For people sneaking up behind me, I have two strategically
placed mirrors. One of them is this wide concave mirror that
I had in my old Honda before it got totalled. It's one of
those clipon mirrors that you find in those Japanese car
accessories stores. I call it my bus driver mirror. I have
it mounted with hook and loop fasteners The other is a
cheapy hand mirror from the dollar store that I
hung mounted upside-down that I had in my old cube.
The chi in my cube really needs some work so I think I will
plan out a feng shui map and bring some balance to the force
(of my work environment.) I have mapped out some of my
previous work areas, which seemed to work for me, but this
one has many more inauspicious challenges. It will be a good
exercise for my practice and should be fun implementing and
fine tuning the balance. And it might even help me get more
work done!
