When the government decided to cut office costs, they went with cubicles. I don't know of any single move that caused me to want to get away from work more than having to spend the day in one of these noisy and non private decorative boxes. It was almost impossible to nap in one without getting caught right away especially if you snored. The real kicker to the whole insult was that our director was in cahoots with the manufacturer of these new and innovative work spaces. Government agents spend a lot of time in their work spaces because of the incredible amount of paper work required to do even the simplest task. Level upon level of copies must flow up the chain to the top where the most incompetent of the work force spend their days signing paper. It was the government's way of moving the embarrassments of quota hiring out of the public's eye and into positions far above their level of competency. I was defending my position on a case to one of these mental giants one day when he asked me why he didn't know any of the details I was relating to him. I told him it was probably because he didn't read the reports he was signing. My position on the career ladder stayed fairly close to the bottom rung because of my ability to communicate so clearly. As the years passed, I became more disillusioned by the chocking paper requirements and the claustrophobic feel of those little gray cubicles and wrote this little poem.The Cubicle
Gray metal and fabric.
Open to all who wish to
stroll by and see
what I do.
I am currently
moving paper.
It is what I
do best.
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep. - Joan Klempner
