I feel like the aversion toward cubicles is more psychological and association-based than really makes sense. A cubicle is (as a sibling poster pointed out) just an office without a door. Sure, the walls don't always go all the way to the ceiling, and they're thinner than real walls, but they serve a similar purpose.
I think we just grew up through the Dilbert-esque "cubicle farm" revolt, and we have negative associations that aren't entirely deserved.
If cubicles are a way to cram more people into a space because offices take up too much room, and open office plan is a way to cram more people into a space because cubicles take up too much room. And yet there's still the sentiment among open-office-plan workers that they wouldn't want to go back to cubicles, when most of the reasons they don't like the open office plan would be solved by cubicles.
I pretty much agree. They also feel like shantytowns in a way since they are flimsy pieces of material. I'd imagine that a nicer looking quality framework of wood without the ghastly florescent lighting would go a long way to improve perception.
It's funny, since I see restaurants that generate only $70 per meal (around 2 hours or so?) build super elegant wooden partitions that accomplish the exact same thing that cubicles do in an office environment.
It seems like it shouldn't be too expensive to do that...
Compared to no walls at all? Fuck yeah. When I was at IBM, they had us (~60 people) in one big room, with no walls, no noise-dampening, right next-door to a server room (with the accompanying server hum coming through the walls). I used to go downstairs to the "cubicle hell" area and just walk around and dream about how nice it would be to work down there. There was a point I'd have paid money to move to the cube-farms, compared to the hell-hole we were in.
Cubicles were maligned as passé ("cubicle farms") and staid so that managers and facilities could present open office spaces as au courant, forward and entrepreneurial so that in turn they could save in area per employee expenses.
If they can call cubicles "farms" (echoing sharecropping, drudgery), then we could just as easily and aptly call open office layouts "sardine cans" with all the earned baggage that comes with.
I find even half walls to be as bad as open layouts.
I hated the cube for years until 2012 when I had my first open workspace job. It was a small shop and space was limited. The next two shops I worked at were also in open floor plan layouts. At least with the most recent one I could work from home 3 to 4 days out of the week.
I have to admit, I started to miss the cube. I don't want to see other people pick their noses. I don't want other people to see me pick my nose if I'm not thinking about it. I hate having another person in my peripheral.
In both cubes and open work spaces, I wear headphones for most of the day. Sometimes the music is paused but I keep them on anyway. Music is really the only thing that keeps me sane in IT jobs.
Agreed on all points. One thing that cubes protect against is visual distractions. In an open plan, even when I'm able to focus on my work, I'll always be catching something out of the corner of my eye.
I need a wall in front of me. It's really distracting to have things move in my peripheral vision while trying to focus on a screen. I just built a wall out of monitors and cabinets to block out the front of my desk and wear noise cancelling headphones.
I like cubicles because, frankly, my only experience actually working in them was when I was delegated to work for Genentech for a bit (I don't usually work in the US). The cubicles they had were large enough to have a second seat and a whiteboard — you could hold a face-to-face meeting with them, no problem. Oh, and they were designed in such a way that you had to get into one to look at someone's screen. As a bonus, mine actually had a window (I guess guest privilege?), but even the inner ones were fairly roomy.
On the other hand, I've seen places where I (I'm 6"2') just wouldn't fit so I'd have permanent leg pain. Oh, and the screens are easily visible to passers by. Just the pain itself would be enough to hate those.
Cubicles are better for all the reasons other people mentioned.
They seem to have been replaced by cheaper long tables in offices that are genuinely paperless, since all any employee needs is a computer, monitor and chair. In my experience, cubicles usually have a file cabinet and other paper storage, utensil drawer, desk phone, wall calendar and other stuff I seldom see in modern tech offices.
And when it doesn't matter which computer is used by which employee, or everyone carries a laptop and phone with them, enter hotdesking.
