Robot Culture at Work
Just graduated this past December and began my first job in finance about 5 weeks ago. I feel like a robot with my daily routine/office culture and I'm not sure how normal this is. At my office, everyone sits at their cubicle 10 hours a day, including eating lunch there. There are no meetings or anything to cause anyone to have to move. Furthermore, all communication is done via email. I seriously have gone full work days without speaking to another human. Everyone keeps headphones in making it impossible to have conversation. Is this normal or am I in a bad situation? I feel like I am going to get sick, or lonely I guess, of the routine here.
Your situation sounds a bit more secluded than normal, but cubicle life is known for being a low, hellish hum. For years and years. Most people hate it and hate their lives, but they don't know what else to do or are too scared to and keep adding expenses and children to the roster, so they're stuck. So they just do their work and listen to some guys talk about football on youtube with their earbuds. And put on 1.7lbs a year eating Panda every day.
Only 1.7lbs a year? Aren't we talking about US of A here?
isn't the stat some shit like that?
Yeah, its also a bit of a Myers Briggs phenomenon. Introverts would generally prefer this, while extroverts would not.
Sounds like management is largely introverted as they are designing the schedule and environment.
Also, this bro hasn't experienced the pain of BS meetings that drag on forever with people griping about the most mundane items that don't even relate to the meeting at all. Week after week after week.
So it is death by cube or death by meeting (Patrick Lencioni).
Or fucking Liz who you were nice to ONCE and now she comes over all the time to tell you about her nephews
Definitely prefer getting my work done and dicking around on a phone over dicking around on my phone during those meetings and not getting my work done.
Hahaha this was great. They get shackled by the golden handcuffs.
You are not a robot, you are in the matrix.
They are sucking the life out of you daily, hourly, as you breathe. Even as you sleep, you dream about this cube. Cube is life. Life is cube. Be the cube. Become the cube. Live the cube. Cube.
Your gravestone will only read one thing. The cube root of your age at death.
Cubed.
You deserve all the SBs in the forest for this insightful response. Cube has been life for me for a year and it's absolutely soul-crashing. I'm basically in the same OP environment. Cubed.
Culture is King!
You can either work hard to seek out other people like you and bring them out of their holes, or leave. If you don't fit the culture at a company, you really have no future there. Since it's your first job though you should probably stick it out two years unless something awesome comes your way. Talk to upper mgmt, see how they feel about the situation- you might not be the only one championing for a change.
What kind of firm do you work for and what exactly are you doing there?
I wish I had a cubicle. That would be amazing
Open floor means zero privacy. I know intimate details of what’s going on with everyone and not because they told me. Good luck getting actual work done
Grass is always greener
I have experienced the same thing in two previous jobs and I agree that it’s awful. However, in my current job, it’s not like that at all. We all shoot the breeze for about a half hour each morning and then throughout the day here and there. And it’s very open to the point that almost nothing seems off limits from mostly movies, recent news to politics and religion... This wouldn’t fly in most offices but I’m sure glad it does here.
All about fit
I want to preface my response by acknowledging: "different strokes for different folks". It's all about fit for me though, and based on your post, probably for you too.
There are a couple things that you need in order to be happy and prosper in the office:
Without these things, even the best looking job will eventually fail to capture your enthusiasm. The minute that happens, your engagement in the job will decrease.
Business is a lot like sports in my experience - it's just no fun if you don't feel like you're part of the winning team.
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