Two weeks after surviving my 4th Cube farm experience I feel compelled to summarize my position on this travesty of modern life. In fact, it would be appropriate to do so  because I studied it at length before announcing my resignation.

Today's [open plan] office is a wasteland. It saps vitality, blocks talent, frustrates accomplishment. It is the daily scene of unfulfilled intentions and failed effort. (Robert Propst)

His statement might have been true then, but it is perhaps more true today than it should be. Cubes have become smaller and innovation in the realm of office management has become stagnant. Perhaps it's just that so many companies underestimate the losses due to confining spaces and management's lack of forethought.

My personal evaluation is that there is a profoundly stiffling effect of being so near so many varied people. It is said that people sitting in cubes sit unnaturally still, and I can vouch for this observation from walking around my former office. I think it has a lot to do with the number of profoundly stupid conversations you hear in relation to the number of conversations you can personally have in any given day. Let me explain:

In an open room full of people you generally have a good idea of who is paying attention to you and what they think of your point of view. There is a silent communication that occurs very naturally, as though visual perception of thought through facial and bodily expression predates language by some countless number of generations. We gain a certain amount of confidence from this and can very skillfully tailor the thoughts we verbalize to fit the audience. 

There's also the matter of ego. Generally, we as American's have a feeling that those around us are fairly stupid. Granted, this has a lot to do with the bullshit propaganda we are dosed with on a daily basis, thinking the entire time "If that dumbass is an anchorman on national TV and anchormen represent the best, then everyone around me must be really dumb." I digress, but this can actually be a healthy perspective when it comes to the spread of good ideas (and the rejection of dumb ones). We aren't so hurt when our idea is shot down because we know it's no where near the dumbest heard that day. In a cube farm however, since we have very little immediate feedback from our audience we second guess this. After prolonged exposure to cubes, my guess is that we actually lose some of that American ego, we become overly careful and the free expression of ideas suffers.