The Little Big Move

I love my new cubicle!

You know, I must confess, when I was first informed that I was being booted out of my comfortable, smoky office and into a cubicle, I thought it was a bad joke. After being with the paper for all these years, after putting up with the draining insanity of the receptionist's desk for three and a half of those years, then being promoted into a bullpen full of loudmouthed smarty-pants youngsters, food-smackers and ass-grabbers for another four, I'd finally been granted my own office (only after, to be honest, there was no one else around to fill it-but that's beside the point). And now I was being crammed into a cubicle like some sort of button-down herd beast? Ha ha ha, I said. Surely this is nothing but a cruel jest! Ha ha ha.

But no, it wasn't a joke, and last Tuesday I gathered up my meager belongings and my dusty computer, carried them down a hall and through a door, and took up residence in my new cubicle. And believe you me, when I say what a glorious move that was, I mean it with all my heart. Why, just for starters, I'll now be able to fully understand and appreciate the subtle brilliance of Dilbert cartoons.

Who needs a big office with carpeting, a nice view and a wall full of bookshelves, anyway? It was all so much wasted space, especially on someone who can't see. I couldn't appreciate the view, the carpeting around my chair was full of cigarette burns and forgotten, moldering bits of dropped sandwiches, and the bookshelves just ended up being cluttered with books. Plus I never had many guests, so those extra chairs mostly went unused.

And the door? Why, I kept it closed all the time out of simple courtesy, but looking back on it, I'm afraid I may have given my coworkers the impression that I didn't want to see or talk to anyone, and simply wanted to be left the fuck alone.

Well, no more of that!

This new cubicle of mine has so many advantages over that stinky old office. Instead of shelves, for instance, now I have a big rectangle of corkboard upon which I can tack Post-Its. Cluttered shelves will become a thing of the past. No carpeting means my chair will roll that much more easily across the floor (even if I don't want it to). Best of all, no door and these half-walls will not only help build interoffice camaraderie-it'll really force me to cut down on the private phone calls. I'll have no choice but to concentrate more on the work at hand. (Also helping me with that was the lack of telephone, internet and email service for the first few days. All those silly distractions.)

Having to learn a different path to everything in the office, from the bathroom, to the front door, to the water cooler (where I'm sure I'll spend more time discussing the previous evening's television programming with my co-workers) will also be good for me. It'll help me learn to be more flexible about things, and make every trip a little adventure.

Being able to hear every single noise that everyone else in the area makes-the crumpling of paper, the chewing of bagels, each footstep, even their breathing-will help me come to understand my coworkers better. Even when it comes to little things like how much they enjoy coffee or hand-held video games.

("Alex sure is sighing a lot today-he might be depressed about something. Perhaps I should give him a pep talk.")

Plus, being so acutely and painfully aware of even the tiniest fucking noise also helps me be more personally conscious of any sounds I might be making that could interfere with the work of others. For starters, I'll need to try and keep all that free-range farting in check.

Some people in similar situations might call being moved from an pleasant private office to a windowless cubicle "demoralizing," "humiliating" or perhaps even "a big fucking rotten kick in the teeth"-but not me! To be honest, I don't see how I ever lived without a cubicle before this. Those millions upon millions of office workers across America and throughout the world who've spent their entire working lives in cubicles have had it all over on the rest of us for years and never even let us know.

The question of course may arise (or it may not) as to why I was removed from an office and placed in a cubicle in the first place.

Well, part of me would like to think that the powers that be here were just looking out for my own best interests in a way I likely never would have myself. They knew long before I ever could have that working in a cubicle would vastly improve my productivity and general outlook.

And while that's certainly the case, another part of it has more to do with the fact that someone simply needed that old office more than I did. I can certainly understand and appreciate that. Couldn't all that wasted space I'd been hogging, after all, be put to much better use by someone from another publication who was working on groundbreaking journalistic bombshells like "Room Service: Getting to Know Your Bellboy" and "Bigger Biceps Means Bigger"? Of course it could. And there's certainly no denying that the old office will look a heck of a lot nicer with the new wallpaper job, the new carpeting and the nice drapes.

Why am I starting to feel like Howard Beale two nights before he was assassinated?

I should perhaps make it clear right now how sincerely grateful I am that I have a job at all. I am-but these past few weeks, see, have been kind of a mess.

After 10 years of being bugged by my landlord about getting my apartment painted and 10 years of putting her off, I finally relented. (Well, actually, she let me know I no longer had any choice in the matter.) The old paint never bothered me, but what the hell do I know? We agreed they could paint the kitchen now, then move on to the other room later. So for the past two and a half weeks, everything from the kitchen has been stacked up in that other room, while the painters show up occasionally, and sometimes don't.

I've never had trouble meeting book deadlines before, but now having to give my weekends over to occasional painters, I've got one creeping up on me but fast.

There was a health scare with my dad, and a few other things weighing heavy on my mind, too, when the whole cubicle business was foisted upon me. But you know, they'll all pass. Each one of them. The kitchen and the other room will (eventually) be painted, and even though I won't notice any difference, I'm sure it'll be very nice. The book'll get done. The health scare seems to have passed. All those other concerns will fade eventually as well, and the bad dreams will stop waking me up at 2 a.m. every goddamn morning.

This cubicle, though-this cubicle is forever.