Workers Say ‘We Owe Cubicles An Apology’

While at one point, the cubicle was an emblem of American middle-class drudgery, as people and the media made it out to be, it's now making a comeback into the post-pandemic world. 

A post online featured a picture of the office cubicle in its prime with the caption: "At some point we owe cubicles an apology." It appears that the collaborative workspace of an open office plan just isn't cutting it anymore, and the need for privacy is at an all-time high. Although modernized, today's cubicle might actually be what employees forced to work in the office need to focus on the task at hand and maintain their sanity in a post-pandemic world. 

Workers say 'we owe cubicles an apology' as they long for the days of having a little privacy.

Many people think of cubicles as the grey, fabric-lined walls creating little boxes for 9-to-5 office workers to spend all their days in. This was true at one point.

As David Franz, Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, wrote in an article published in 2008, "For many, this soullessness of office life is now most aptly represented by the cubicle — that open, wall-less, subdivision of office space."

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This is not to say that it was all completely bad. In fact, he went on to say that, "cubicles eliminated the hierarchical distinctions between managers and workers; every cubicle had an open door, everyone was equally a worker." 

In other words, these partitions allowed for less bureaucracy and more of a feeling that we're all in this together. Not to mention, there was at least a modicum of privacy, with the fourth-wall-open connection as they pleased.

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Cubicles better meet the needs of post-pandemic workers.

Eventually, the open office plan was introduced as a way to combat the drab, unenthused nature of the cubicle. Employers thought that the lack of walls would increase collaboration among employees. Really, it just increased noise and distractions, leading to poorer productivity and people longing for privacy.

When the pandemic hit, many office workers were relegated to their homes during quarantine and had to work remotely to keep the ball rolling. As a result, many of them got comfortable having their own space and saw the value of privacy.

Once lockdown measures were lifted, many office workers were content with remaining at home. Now more than ever, it's incredibly popular for office workers to work in a hybrid model where they go in person a few times a week and spend the rest of it at home. 

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However, because office workers are returning to the office in some capacity, they wish to have a space to call their own. Under the aforementioned Reddit post, a user commented that they had a cubicle at an internship and greatly enjoyed it because they had, "My own little office. And cube culture was fun, you had your little hallway of people and you'd just poke your heads out."

Looks like it's time to make sweeping changes to office floor plans. While it doesn't necessarily need to be exactly like the cubicles of decades past, having a space for workers to call their own is definitely worth exploring. Until then, it might just be best to stay hybrid. 

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