How The Cubicle Became Universally Hated -The Lightbulb Moment

[Music] it was the 1950s robert probst an eccentric inventor and art professor sat working in his denver office his product development firm had just one employee him unrestricted by rigid corporate rules about how and when to work props began to tinker with his workspace he fashioned multiple workstations for himself like a standing desk decades before its time and a display case desk to keep important files front of mind as he effortlessly moved between these workstations throughout his days he started to feel healthier more alert and much more productive that's when it dawned on him something was wrong with offices of the time so probst decided he would fix it in that moment he set out to liberate the modern worker by redesigning the office but while his utopian vision began with this a colorful elegant workspace deemed the action office it soon turned into this the dreaded cubicle so how did it all go so wrong this is the light bulb moment a cheddar and curiosity stream original series the cubicle we know today is an iconic symbol of dreary corporate life everything's a copy of a copy of a copy it has appeared in movie after movie as the backdrop for everything people hate about work uh we have sort of a problem here but now open offices are having a reckoning of their own employees complain about noise trouble concentrating and a lack of personal space and a global pandemic has suddenly made these soft fabric-covered walls feel more like a much-needed virus buffer than a drab corporate prison so is the cubicle on its way out or poised for a surprising comeback at the outset of the industrial revolution most conducted business out of their homes or very small commercial spaces but throughout the 1800s these small merchant-style offices suddenly found themselves transforming into ever-larger corporations with factories complex supply chains and a far-flung customer base scattered across the country and around the world as companies tried to figure out how to house all of these white-collar workers they naturally looked towards the ruthlessly efficient organization of the factory floor and by the 1920s the office was born in terms of efficiency and disconnection of tasks from end product it was almost like a factory just it was a factory of pushing paper they were big open rooms often in the flashy new skyscrapers of the day with rows and rows of heavy metal desks it was the institutional impersonal feel at the core of this design that robert probst was pushing back against when he flung himself into his obsession with rethinking the workspace probe soon found the perfect place to take on such a bold redesign of the office it was a furniture company called herman miller herman miller already had a reputation for creating iconic mold breaking pieces like the eames chair and marshmallow sofa probes sought out a partnership with herman miller and the company eventually brought him on to lead their experimental research division in 1960 probes partnered with veteran designer george nelson to create his new workspace while probes struck many as a brash and wildly creative person nelson brought elegance and a classically trained eye to the equation together they created the action office instead of one stark metal desk on the open floor with no privacy the action office offered an ecosystem of beautifully designed pieces that could be easily rearranged to carve out a little sanctuary of personal space for each employee a tall bookshelf and low screens attached to the desktop would help break up that open floor sight lines it would also help buffer the distracting cacophony of typing and conversations it was probe's office utopia a refuge from the unappreciative paper pushing offices of the past and an incubator for the dynamic knowledge worker of the future [Music] but when herman miller released the action office in 1964 it bond it didn't do very well most likely because it was a little too nice and too expensive and i think that while the designers were very keen to make this something that was pushing boundaries something new and innovative sometimes companies aren't as quick to adopt those types of things so probes went back to the drawing board probes packaged all of his ideas into a modular set of fabric-wrapped faux walls these walls about as tall as a person would be arranged in oblique angles creating hexagon-esque workspaces this time probes hit the nail on the head herman miller released his action office 2 in 1968 and it was met with glowing reviews the cheaper materials put it at the perfect price point for big companies looking to house that ever-growing number of white-collar workers and soon corporate america's hunt for cheaper office furniture began to subsume the noble ideals at the heart of probe's design in the 1970s and 1980s businesses continued looking for ways to house people more economically so they started gravitating towards action office workstations but ones with right angles and less space partitioned off to each worker in the interest of capitalism and and making things quicker easier faster you end up with components that facilitate less customization it's easier to just get one kit of parts and replicate it over and over again then corporate culture began to change amidst the rise of corporate raiders employees suddenly became more expendable gone were the days of working for a lifetime at one major company that offered great benefits and a comfortable retirement package instead layoffs outsourcing and cost cutting meant employment could suddenly end at any time the cubicle enabled this more fluid workspace on a logistical level allowing companies to quickly add or dissolve workspaces according to their latest staffing needs and those four gray nondescript walls soon became a symbol of something wrong with the workplace so it's no surprise people eventually turned on the cubicle and the revolution largely began in silicon valley in the late 1970s and early 1980s the tech sector convinced itself it would reinvent work for the better soon the idea of taking down the cubicle walls started to entice these self-proclaimed office revolutionaries by the late 2000s open offices have become the physical embodiment of all the supposedly great things about working in tech these offices were flatter and more egalitarian they allowed for more face-to-face interaction collaboration and spontaneous creativity and they claim to view the happiness of the employee as a core value in 2017 it became clear the open office had won with an estimated 70 of offices embracing the aesthetic but the dark secret to all of this is that open offices are often attractive to employers because they are also much cheaper than even the original cost-saving cubicle why because the amount of average floor space per worker is much smaller in an open office but outside the valley's top firms the open office's lack of personal space has created some residual problems productivity is actually lower in open offices people tend to take more sick days and while counter-intuitive open offices can decrease face-to-face interaction as employees gravitate to email and slack in other words the cubicle did have some design advantages it does provide privacy right like if you need to do concentrated heads down work it was a good place to do that you know i remember we had a client one time who did a lot of writing a lot of tasks that required individual work and they wanted cubicles with high partitions and i can't blame them it made sense in that situation of course in 2020 kobit 19 changed the whole open office game suddenly all the things people loved about open offices like the collaboration and the connection have become health risks this coupled with the rapid onset of remote work during the pandemic has spurred an unexpected re-imagining of what the modern office should look like either way one thing is for sure more than half a century after robert probst first streamed up the action office we are still grappling with the complicated questions of how we should formulate our workspaces probe's action office has simultaneously offered encouraging solutions and stifling barriers to solving these questions he expressed regret about what the cubicle had become in 1998 reminding metropolis magazine that design is only one part of the equation he said the dark side of this is that not all organizations are intelligent and progressive lots are run by crass people who can take the same kind of equipment and create hell holes so as kovat19 has prompted a re-imagining of our workspaces it's valuable to remember that it's us the people working in the offices who are a key part of carrying out the original intentions of even the most well thought out designs thanks for watching if you enjoyed the video please like subscribe and don't forget to hit the bell for notifications you can watch full 22 minute episodes every wednesday at 8pm eastern 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Channel: Cheddar

Views: 277,240

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Keywords: Cheddar, cheddar explains, cheddar explores, explainer, the lightbulb moment, lightbulb, cubicle, office, the office, workspace, work place, wfh, work from home, desk, white collar, office space, furniture, design, herman miller, the eames chair, open floor plan, floor plan, work, working, the cubicle, standing desk, technology, interior design, corporate, ibm, corporate culture, layoff, layoffs, job, jobs, history, cube, computer, secretary, meetings, utopian workplace, action office, desk job

Id: 7Tt4n8SaxEY

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021