Workstations

  DSCN5031 
  Originally uploaded by yomamali.

This happy looking fella is one of many people who have posted pictures of their office spaces on to Flickr. Check out these groups for more:

Where I work
Cubicle
On the Job
What's in your office

I'm fascinated by how we came to work in such numb office environments. Apparently we have a guy called Robert Probst of US office furniture manufacturer Herman Miller (makers of the iconic Aeron office chair) to blame for the cubicle.

Many of us, particularly in the US but also in many UK finance companies I have visited, now inhabit a much reduced version of his 1968 vision of the "Action Office" ...

Just look how low the ceilings are in that building! Many of the office buildings I have visited in Manhattan suffer from such low ceilings. But even when the ceilings are higher cubicle farms still seem inhuman ...

This company, Douglas Ball, has a different approach, they have decided that the ergonomic seating position of a formula one car would be an ideal workstation template. Their Clipper design can be seen at the London Design Museum (it's part of the permanent collection):

On the subject of cubicles and Herman Miller, have you seen this wonderful gadget, the Sonare Babble?

You record some of your own random chit chat into it and it then plays it back whilst you are on the phone to stop you being overheard by your colleagues! It also has a light which comes on when you are talking too loud. A propduct you might give to others but which you would never buy yourself methinks.  Sonare are a Herman Miller company. Perhaps they are trying to atone for some of their wrongdoings?