Do you have your own office?

In My Humble Opinion
21

The firm where I work is small (down to only seven of us now). But if I didn’t have my own office, I’m sure my address would be the rubber room by now.

My office is fairly small too, but there’s room enough. I keep my door closed most all of the time. For one thing, I’m much more productive that way…for another, I don’t have to listen to all the right-wing racist bullshit that’s frequently spouted in the production room. (I’ve no interest in participating in this “banter.”) And finally, I can get away with doing what I’m doing right now when I’m able to!

The door is kept closed for yet another reason…this place is an utter and complete disaster area. It’s to the point where it’s such a mess that I don’t even know where to begin to clean it up. I know I’ll have to at some point…I’ve done periodic purges over the years, but getting started on this now seems more overwhelming than it’s ever been.

I’m lucky enough to have been able to make it “mine” via photos, calendars, etc. that reflect my cultural heroes. So lots of Beatles, along with Howlin’ Wolf, Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Three Stooges, and a print my son gave me with a pencil sketch of Mickey Mantle, surrounded by insets of Mick with Joe DiMaggio and Roger Maris.

Also, a couple of prints from our long-closed amusement park. And a corkboard with favorite comics (mostly The Far Side).

So to answer your question, I see no disadvantages to having one’s own office. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

22

I’m retired so I only have an “office” now in the sense that I have a room in my house where I have stuff like a desk, computer, printer, and file cabinet (and other related stuff like a VCR, board games, and models).

When I was working, I had my own office.

23

I love having my own office. A lot. To the point where I can’t imagine even asking the OP’s question.

I like that no one can see what’s up on my monitor. I like being able to close the door and have a private conversation. I like being able to hold small meetings on my own turf. I like it that the extreme extrovert who sits nearby has to actually get out of her chair and walk 10 feet in order to chat. I like to be able to spread my piles of documents out on the floor if I run out of desk space. I like that I can sit with my legs criss-cross even when I’m wearing a skirt, and no one’s the wiser. I like that I have room for a bookcase and a filing cabinet and a place to store my work shoes. I like that I can put up my own pictures. I like that I can close the door, listen to a conference call on mute, and multi-task. I like that I don’t have to listen to other people’s phone calls, crunchy lunches, sniffles, coughs, sighs, paper shuffling, and swearing at the computer.

We work very collaboratively on projects, so I spend a lot of time in meetings. I have several coworkers that I chat with most days, and we use gchat for the occasional idle conversation.

Bottom line - I’d be very reluctant to move to a job that didn’t come with a private office.

24

Currently have an office, but my company is moving in 2 months, and I’ll be losing my office as a result.

We are currently in a bigger space than we needs (lots of empty cubes and offices) and we are in an older building that is not very efficient with space planning. We are moving 4 blocks away three floors (9-11) of a much newer, nicer building.

The company is pushing a much more open, collaborative office environment, so pretty much only executives are getting walled offices. Everyone else in a cube-like setting. I say cube-like because they are very low walled. Basically, you can see everyone as you walk down the hallways.

I’m okay with it, but some members of my team are NOT HAPPY. None of them had offices before, but they had high-walled cubes that they could kind of hermit into. Now they feel exposed. They all bust their butt working, so I’m not sure what they feel exposed about, but one guy especially is practically in revolt.

My managers cube is about the same size as my current office, but just missing the walls.

25

Currently sharing the room with one colleague. That was officially so in my last job, but since she was travelling a lot, I was alone in the office for extended periods.

I’d say in the long run it’s better to have company.

26

I have my own office. Due to some unusual circumstances, it’s a very desirable office despite my being rather junior.

It’s nice when I have a task that requires a lot of focus. But most of the time I miss the sociability and idea sharing that happens in a more open office. I spend a lot of time looking for excuses to get out.

My last work was very open, and that had it’s ups and downs. I had obnoxious neighbors, so that sucked. But it was really easy to brainstorm and work closely with my team and that was fun and productive.

27

I have very rarely had my own office. In grad school I shared my office with another grad student (or two). Most of my jobs I shared an office with another person (in one case so tightly packed that I daren’t lean backwards in my chair). In another job I occupied one desk in an open-area “bullpen” of clustered desks. I eventually graduated to a cubicle. In another job I started out in a cubicle that faced no windows, and eventually graduated to a cubicle with a window nearby (yay!)

My first job out of school I shared an office with someone else, and with no outside windows. I eventually got the office all to myself, due to attrition. I was eventually re-hired after a hiatus, and got an office officially all to myself. But I never got a window there.

My best situation was one where I got an office, with a lockable door, a window with a river view, and office furniture, all to myself. They moved me after a couple of years, but it was to a NEW office all of my own, with a lockable door, a river view, and office furniture. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. It’s the closest I ever came to the way I thought I’d be working. I had lots of shared offices and cubicles after that.

28

I have been in every situation, from many people crammed into a small conference room, to one-person regular cubicles, to multiple-person larger cubicles, to a large corner office.

Once we moved from a cramped shared-space older ground floor building setting into a new high-rise building with separate windowed offices. I did find that the office dynamics did dramatically change. It was far more isolating and the usual collaborative camaraderie was missing. However, I did appreciate having a space of my own (I would not swear under oath shenanigans did not occur behind closed doors), and the ability to have my monitor positioned so others could not see was nice.

Of no importance - time passed, I moved up, and we moved into another new building. Due to accidents of layout, I was given a large corner office. My title did not normally qualify me for a large corner office, but I was a unit head and my unit was given that corner of the floor, so it was justifiable. Even though I was given the office, I did not get all of the other perks of those given large corner offices (TV, small refrigerator), but I did have a separate sitting area, and conference table area. I was living large. Once, someone in another department who I had not met face-to-face was giving me crap about something over the phone, I invited them to come over to my office to meet. I knew that once they saw my office they would quake in fear at my trappings of power, that’s exactly what happened! Funny how that worked.

But that was many lifetimes ago. My last assignment had me using a cubicle that was about as wide as an airplane seat.

29

I’ve had every kind of workspace imaginable, from a card table in the hallway with a computer on it to my own office. Gimme the office every single time.

30

Me too. I have my own large office. Well, I do have a much more junior employee that shares it with me some of the time but I have trained him not to speak unless absolutely necessary and he is very good at that. I have had my own offices off and on throughout the years. There is no downside to having one. It is to the point now where it is worth at least $20,000 of salary to have one if there were any future, competing job offers. The very least I have ever had was a large cubicle and I hated that to the point that it was making me physically ill (literally). An open plan is out of the question. I work in industrial software that has concentration intensive problems, secure phone calls and no one is allowed to see my screen. Every time some dumbshit speaks during a hard problem, it sets me back at least 10 minutes.

You aren’t isolated in an office. It isn’t a prison cell. You can always take a walk around to see what other people are doing and talk even if it isn’t work related. However, you can also close the door and get that secure space if you need it. People in cubes or god-forbid, an open office plan, do not have that option. Not everyone works on things that require constant collaboration and it is completely detrimental to many tasks that require intense focus. For many of us, quiet and secure personal spaces are essential for getting your job done effectively.

My boss works in a different facility 15 miles away from me. When he comes over, he always comments that he wishes he had my accommodations because he is stuck in a maze of large cubes and hates it. He is right. I listen and then try to get him out of my space as quickly as possible.

31

I have my own office, and surrounding it is my house. Everything’s a plus.

But I’ve paid my dues. I’ve worked 100+ hours per week, with no overtime pay. I’ve worked in the top floor of a dilapidated office with no heat, and a roof that leaked (try setting type with gloves on). I’ve worked in a literal sweat shop, trying to keep the sweat from ruining the work. I’ve been fired for knowing too much. I’ve gotten into trouble for defending a coworker . . . the same person who ratted on me. And I’ve worked graveyard shift, while the 9-5 employee didn’t clean up her toe nails.

32

I guess I haven’t ever had my own office. Right now I’m sharing the nice corner office with all the windows with the other ‘code monkey’, and that’s working out pretty well. :slight_smile:

33

I work in my basement, but at least it’s not my mom’s.

34

All of these are pros :slight_smile:

I’ve never been in a corporate environment, so my experience is all offices and office sharing in an academic environment.

I’ve always had an office, sometimes to myself, but frequently due to issues with space, sharing with one other person. I absolutely hated sharing an open plan office with ‘hot desks’ (which I had as a graduate TA and then in a couple of places where I was part-time faculty) for a number of reasons

  • No privacy if you have a student with awkward issues (as well as nosy nancies who pipe up to interrupt a student-teacher conference either to add their two cents’ worth or to undermine something I’m saying – that never happened often, but it is absolutely infuriating when it does).

*Colleagues who cannot seem to grasp the idea of locking the goddamned door when they go home for the day/weekend. Twice I had to share a multi-instructor, hot-desk arrangement with the same person who did this consistently. No one ever left anything of value in this office because stuff did get nicked. This is a pain in the ass as it means you’ve got to haul sensitive documents and files back and forth every day because you don’t feel safe leaving them in the office

*Colleagues who think ‘open plan’ means they can help themselves to your books and reference materials

*hotdesking that means that even if you claim a desk, chances are good that you’ll come in to discover someone has swept all of you research/marking/set up for the next day’s lectures to one side so that they could ‘use your computer for a minute.’

*Colleagues who think open plan is licence to sit on the other side of the room and carry on a conversation with you when you’re trying to write a lecture, mark a paper, or just sneak in a few minutes on your own project. Or walk up behind you and scare the shit out of you because they’re silently waiting for you to notice them, so you can come fix their computer. Or who whistle, play the radio, talk loudly on the phone about stuff you really really didn’t want to know (I know way too much about a current colleague’s troublesome lady waterworks thanks to an open plan experiement from a couple of semesters ago).

*The Odd Couple syndrome: I myself like a tidy, organised office; I’ve shared with someone who was literally declared a fire hazard by health and safety because of the state of his office. I’ve also hated being housed in temporary offices (owner on sabbatical), and their office is an absolute rat’s nest. Having to pick my way from the door to the desk via a narrow goat trail aggravates the fuck out of me.

*Thermostat/open window wars.

I shared an office at my last adjunct gig with a FT full professor who was awesome, but I really prefer my own space. We’ve had issues at my current university in that we’ve been hiring staff faster than offices have been available, so people have been shuffled around into temporary offices based off who’s on sabbatical. Due to a series of retirements and transfers, though, I’m moving into my own, permanent solo office at the end of this month when they finished redecorating (renovating) them. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, my own giant desk, my own filing cabinet, and my own key.

Solo offices for the win; the admin wanted to put us in open plan offices and the entire social sciences faculty threw a collective shitfit. Nope, nope, nope. I keep my door open in the corridor if I’m at home to colleagues who need to converse or for students (and thank FUCK in this culture, students will come into your office ONLY if they have made an appointment; general office hours in the US sucked), or if it’s late in the afternoon and people are just faffing about.

But during the semester, colleagues will pretty much respectfully leave each other alone (checking first via email if one can come consult about an admin issue, etc); I don’t think any of us socialise outside of school hours except very very rarely because we’ve got long days and just want to go home to families or be alone at the end of it – semesters are pretty hectic and draining.