How have you decorated your cubicle/office?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My girlfriend’s birthday is approaching (read: tomorrow), and I’d like to get her a couple of little things to put in her new cubicle. She just started her job today, so her cube is currently bare.

I don’t really know what’s usually acceptable as office decor. What about posters? Small plants? Small, fake plants? A mounted and stuffed grizzly bear? A live grizzly bear?

She’s the new girl, so I imagine she’d wanna make a good impression on somebody entering her workspace for the first time. So what kind of things do you like to see in a co-worker’s cubicle? What kind of things do you hate?

2

My coffee pot. I’ve only been there a week. I’m thinking of some sort of incinerator for the files piling up…

3

I have a replica sailboat like the kind you might see in an oceanside decorating magazine

similar to these

I’ve gotten several compliments on it over the years.

4

I’ve printed out a few posters I made up at diy.despair.com .

Also, I work security, so I made a banner for on my locker that says “THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS JUST US”.

5

A framed pic of the two of you would be great. Or, if you’re a good photographer, a picture or pictures of something you did together.

6

Lucky bamboo seems to be a popular choice. Easy to take care of, and pretty cheap.

7

I mainly have photos of me and the missus taped around my computer. I have a few bits and pieces, articles and the like taped to the walls. Nowt too exciting.

8

I have a small replica of that statue with Romulus and Remus sucking on the teats of the mother wolf, under my monitor. It is grotesque, but a classical sculpture, so that’s all right.

9

I’ve got some postcards pinned up:

[ul]
[li]Dizzy Gillespie[/li][li]Gordon Parks’ “American Gothic”[/li][li]Andy Warhol[/li][li]A rat[/li][li]Fred “Sonic” Smith[/li][li]Miniature Shriner and Mason figurines[/li][/ul]

The right wall has a regular expressions cheat sheet, a vi cheat sheet, and a couple of flowcharts of the systems I maintain.

On the desk itself, I’ve got a small Ecosphere, a picture of my wife and I, and an Onion page-a-day calendar.

10

Pictures of my wife and daughter in my office, a framed drawing done by my daughter for my birthday.

Of course, the coolest thing about my office is the personal door that leads outside. :smiley:

11

Something like this, or maybe tell her to pick out some pictures that you’ll print out 8x10s of and frame. Or a bunch of 4x6s. And, obviously, I’ll second the Despair.com suggestion.

12

Well, I telecommute now, so my office looks like the standard home office.

When I was a cube-dweller, my space looked like this.

13

I need to get more stuff, especially some plants. Right now I have some pretty cards from various occasions lined up on my windowsill. I also have a couple of pictures of my kids that they decorated–my daughter painted a frame for hers and my son’s is a group of four identical black and white phots of him that are colored over lightly with crayons. The idea is that it’s supposed to look like an Andy Warhol series. Pretty cute.

14

A picture of my SO blowing bubbles. 2 painted masks that were a thank you for sponsering someone on the Dope, a map of the country I’m going to in a month and Darth Tater.

Cubicle decorating is about expressing yourself. I’d go for the picture of the 2 of you and something small that she likes.

15

Check out thinkgeek.com for their cubicle toys.

16

I have one of these. People love it.

17

I have one of these.
Of course, I also have the obligatory photos of my family, art work from my 7 YO daughter and a Far Side calender.

18

Picture frames are always good, especially if they can be mounted on a cubicle wall. I have a small cork board that has a couple places for photos inset into one side, so that side has photos of my dogs and the other side has a to-do-list tacked to it.

A nice calendar is also good.

19

I’d stay on the more professional side until your girl gets a better idea of the culture in the office. So I am speaking against too many toys/despair.com/anything like that. I second the framed pictures, nice plant, some pretty figurine, a funny or pretty (but not too Out There) calendar…

Then if she finds the culture is more open, you can get her the Cthulu doll, despair.com posters, etc. later.

20

Yeah, I decided to play it safe and go with a framed picture and just a few simple office supplies. And just so nobody here thinks I’m a terrible boyfriend, I had bought her a couple other gifts earlier than her actual birthday. I wanted to do something for her new job, but I wasn’t sure until Tuesday that she was going to have an actual cubicle with her own desk and all that.

Thanks for the responses, everyone. The little Cthulu is great, I might have to get myself one of those. Hal, what are those pieces from in that sixth picture? Is that mousetrap?