Getting Ahead: Climbing the Walls

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STRANGE, FLIMSY WALLS Strange, flimsy walls covered in carpet you'd never let touch your feet. Odd smells — is that Lean Cuisine or sweaty socks? — wafting through the air. Your co-worker Esmerelda's nasally voice droning on and on about her cat's skin rash — again. It's estimated some 40 million Americans work in Cubiclelands and put up with annoyances like these.
Arlington-based writer James F. Thompson does time in his own human cattle pen at his day job for a TV network. His experiences working on top of colleagues inspired him to write "The Cubicle Survival Guide" ($13, Villard). Express' Jess Milcetich caught up with Thompson, chatting with him about how to rid yourself of the office lamprey and how to ethically take "sick-of-work" days.

» EXPRESS: Why did you write this book?
» THOMPSON: I used to be a teacher, so I wasn't used to the cubicle environment at all. When I first came here, it was really kind of an awkward transition. It was almost like culture shock. I just needed to know the rules and the dos and the don'ts, and I had no way of finding them out except through experiences. One day this guy next to me sneezes. I was like, "Do I have to say 'bless you' because I heard you sneeze but I can't see you?" He said, "You can always e-mail me." I started working on a book about cubicle etiquette a couple of minutes later.

» EXPRESS: Crying office mates, spying bosses — you make it sound like Cubicleland can be horrible. Have you exaggerated?
» THOMPSON: A lot of it depends on what you make of it. There's nothing you can do about the reality of working in a cubicle community, and that's why I give a lot of recommendations about putting up decorations and socially what you can do to make your life a little better.

» EXPRESS: If working in cubicles stinks so much, why did we get stuck toiling in them?
» THOMPSON: It comes down to the bottom line: companies are trying to maximize profits and minimize expenditures. Cubicles allow them to do that. If they need to expand or downsize, cubicles allow you to do that very easily. But it does give you that sense that everything is temporary and you could be on the street any minute.

» EXPRESS: You claim, "Cubicles are some of the least hospitable environments on earth." Can you elaborate?
» THOMPSON: The trick is trying to balance your personal life with your professional life when working in a cubicle. Naturally, most of us want to be ourselves, have our own identities, our own cultures and our own quirks. And when you get into a corporate environment, particularly cubicles, you have to start curtailing some of that. That's what kind of makes it hell, because you're constantly self-editing your words and everything you do — how you decorate your space, how you dress, how you act.

Also, a lot of it depends on your neighbors — if you work with people who are difficult to be around, that's a living hell every day. Fortunately, the people I work with are great. And I'm sure they're listening to this conversation.

» EXPRESS: You advocate decorating your space to improve morale. But what is off-limits?
» THOMPSON: There are three categories: anything too religious, too sexy or too political. So, leave your bumper stickers at home, don't put them up on your walls. Leave the Nativity scene at home — put it in your front yard. And the sexy pictures of your girlfriend or cheerleaders — don't bring them to work, either. But people cross that line a lot.

» EXPRESS: What should you do if people are crossing that line?
» THOMPSON: It sounds cliche, but communication is so important. You have to have dialogue with people you work with, and a certain amount of openness to create a culture where people don't take things so personally.

We're all in it together. Whether people are complaining about your smelly food or your inappropriate decorations, you have to be willing to discuss things and not get offended. And if that doesn't work, then you have to escalate it to human resources. But you'd like to think you could figure everything out and work things out on a one-to-one basis.

» EXPRESS: These days, workers tend to make their personal calls on cell phones, not office ones. Are there rules about using them?
» THOMPSON: Cell phones are a blessing and a curse. Lots of people mix the two up. They're great, because if you're going to have a personal conversation — fighting with your wife or talking to your doctor about some sort of embarrassing ailment — obviously, you can get on your cell phone and go out to the parking deck or whatever.

However, what people do a lot is leave the [phone] ringer on and leave. If a cell phone is sitting out in a cubicle and someone calls 10 times in a row, that gets really distracting. So, [leave it on] vibrate. In such close quarters, it's very easy to hear what the person next to you is saying.

» EXPRESS: How do you deal with a co-worker who won't shut up and constantly talks on the phone about her sex life/new car/favorite bar?
» THOMPSON: You have to tell people straight up what's going on. It's weird, because people do so much work and put so much effort into getting the job and going through the interview process. Then they show up at work and act like they don't have these very basic social skills. With people like that, you just have approach them and tell them, "Take it outside and do it on your cell phone." You don't want to sit there and put up with that. They'll sit there and talk to their friends and not even censor themselves or lower their voices at all. That's just unprofessional, because they're obviously not working.

» EXPRESS: You advocate taking "sick-of-work days," aka using sick days when you aren't ill. Isn't that wrong?
» THOMPSON: I have done it, and I know lots of other people have done it. It's something that all people do, so why not just come out and say it? Everyone needs to take one once in a while. I do, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I really don't. Because companies don't give you any mental health days, and that's essentially what a "sick-of-work" day is.

» EXPRESS: What exactly is the office lamprey?
» THOMPSON: Well it would almost be like Kramer on "Seinfeld," except instead of apartments it's cubicles. The office lamprey (OL) is basically a parasite, like on Discovery Channel Shark Week, where sharks have these fish attached to them that basically live off the shark. OLs suck the life out of things. They stop by, thinking, "I love to be social. I love to talk to people." But OLs have no sense of when people are actually really busy and trying to be productive and don't want to talk. OLs engage others in really pointless but long-winded conversations.

So, how do you avoid them? You can use body positioning, like keeping your face toward your monitor, as close as you can get it, and keeping your back to the person. Talk to them like that, then say really dismissive things, and, hopefully, they'll go away.

» EXPRESS: This book is funny, with its maze-like maps of "the cubicle farm" and guide to translating swear words your foreign co-workers might be using. Why did you make it humorous, not just practical?
» THOMPSON: When I started out in cubicle life, I found one of the things people hate about it is it's so monotonous. So, the book is taking a dry idea and showing really how much comedy is involved. I knew that if I was going to get people to read it, I'd have to entertain them as well.

» EXPRESS: You recommend exercises to do at your desk. Do people do them?
» THOMPSON: My guess is not really. But you do have a lot of people that have health problems. When you're sitting down eight to 10 hours a day, five days a week for that amount of time, it's going to take a toll on you. So there's a very kind of serious and practical side to it. But when I started researching, I encountered all these exercises that different books or Web sites recommend, and they were just hilarious. If anyone did some of these things at their desk when someone walks by, they'd be, like, "Call an ambulance." But the best thing to do is get up and walk around.

» EXPRESS: The book goes into sometimes gruesome detail about food smells in Cubicleand. What's the foulest, most neighbor-frustrating thing you can brown-bag?
» THOMPSON: You don't want things that are really smelly or really loud. Potato chips are loud and annoying, but just as bad are smelly things like fish and curry. The big offender around here is microwave popcorn, because it just seems to get everywhere. And it's more social, because when people make it, they'll walk around offering it to people and crop-dusting the place with a popcorn smell.