My Pod Is Choking Me To Death

The funny thing about the above cartoon, is not management's ineptitude, but the fact that the cube dwellers depicted have nothing on my dreaded pod at work.

Let me start by saying, I love my job. I work for a company that allows a lot of crap from our team as long as the mission is accomplished. I'm in a line of work that stimulates my brain, and my co-workers are usually really cool.

However, management had the bright idea about 4 months ago to take down our high walled cubes and put us in pods. Of course this idea was to "build team spirit" and "improve efficiency." Translate that to mean "stop the workforce from looking at porn and be able to track their every move."

We went from having cubes that had walls tall enough that you had to stand up to talk to a coworker to a literal pod of desks that have no walls at all.

I'm in a square of desks that has one entrance/exit. If me and my three podmates all rolled our chairs back 3 feet at the same time, we'd all hit each other. I'm what people typically classify as a big and tall man, except I'm not tall. I need room for God's sake!

The other cool thing is that since we have no walls or sound barriers, if more than one person is on the phone, it sounds like an Indian call center. Really efficient way to run a sales floor!

Thankfully, our new ceo is going to install dividers along the pod perimeters to give us some semblance of noise control. Now I'm just worried that the pod will take on the look and feel of a zoo enclosure.

Remember, whatever you do, DON'T feed the monkeys!