|
|
Can I get a moment alone?
Cubicle privacy is
an endangered concept when some co-workers are around
By
Lisa Bertagnoli
Special to the Tribune
Published
April 16, 2003
Bill McDowell has four words for cubicle workers seeking privacy among the
partitions: "Ha, ha, good luck."
McDowell spent his early working years ensconced in a cubicle, where he
constantly experimented with ways to keep nosy co-workers at bay when he
had to conduct personal business on the phone.
"I would
lower my voice, but the minute you go into `privacy speak' everybody's
ears perk up," said McDowell, vice president of editorial for Marketing &
Technology Group, a trade magazine publisher with offices in Old Town.
Now that he's a manager, McDowell has a proper office with walls and
windows and a door that he can shut when he wants privacy. And it's up to
the workers toiling in the cubes outside his door, indeed in
cubicle-ridden offices everywhere, to devise their own methods for
preserving at least a modicum of privacy at work.
Lack of privacy in the workspace creates at least two problems, says
Elizabeth Gibson, senior consultant at RHR International, a management
consulting firm in Wood Dale. First, try as employees might, sometimes
they do have to conduct personal business at work. In a cube setting, it's
difficult to keep that business from becoming everyone else's business,
Gibson says.
"We're naturally curious and interested in the people who are part of our
community, and work is a community," explained Gibson, who is a management
psychologist.
As for a "don't ask, don't tell" code of ethics among cubicle workers,
well, it depends on who overhears what. "Some people absolutely honor a
code of silence and others can't wait to pass it on," Gibson said.
Not only personal business suffers from lack of privacy; official business
can take a hit, too. Just as cube partitions don't muffle private phone
conversations, they don't dampen loud hallway conversations or foul
outbursts, all of which create an ambience unfriendly to working or
concentrating.
"Dilbert" creator Scott Adams, who made a fortune spoofing the cubicle
life, hit on one privacy solution when he devised an inflatable cube door.
Puffed-up plastic is one way to ensure privacy, but cube workers have
devised ways to maintain both computer and phone privacy without
attracting so much attention.
Northbrook-based technology consultant Joel Pekay did the trick with a
little mirror he received as a handout at a trade show. Pekay's office was
set up so his back and computer screen were visible from his cube's
doorway. The mirror, which he stuck on his computer, let him know when
someone was standing in the doorway, thus giving him time to minimize his
computer display or turn on the screen saver.
"It was the greatest concept ever and one I highly recommend," Pekay said.
For additional security, Pekay loaded encryption software onto his
computer to protect confidential files and password-protected it as well.
"That way nobody could come in, hit a button and see what was going on,"
he said.
Marta Hafezi, the office manager at Renaissance Travel Services in
Naperville, doesn't even have a partition to separate her from her three
colleagues. Nor is her work e-mail private: Each travel agent sees every
single e-mail sent to the office.
"If it comes into this office, it belongs to Renaissance Travel and
everyone should have the opportunity to view it," explained Judy Reisdorf,
owner of the agency.
Nonetheless, Hafezi claims that maintaining computer privacy isn't that
difficult. She uses msn.com, not the office system, for her personal
e-mail. If she has to read a private message, Hafezi checks to make sure
nobody's watching, or minimizes her screen so the type is small enough
that only she can read it.
Usually, though, her fellow travel agents are too busy to snoop, Hafezi
said. "Right now Andi and Judy are working. They don't even know what I'm
doing," Hafezi said on the phone. "They're too busy."
Keeping phone conversations private usually requires a bit more foresight.
McDowell once kept a small radio on low volume in his office. The hum of
noise blended his voice into the overall office ambience, he says.
Such tactics, alas, work only for people who can concentrate with
background noise, Gibson says. "You have to find a way to aurally isolate
yourself, and that's difficult," she noted.
Cell phones and conference rooms also provide a place for private
conversations, as do managers' offices. McDowell says he's offered his
phone and office to employees who need to make a personal call during the
business day.
As a manager, though, he cautions against the conference-room tactic.
"When somebody uses the conference room everyone automatically assumes
it's a job interview, so the office paranoia level goes up," McDowell
says.
Ernie Perez, an art director at Agency.com, a Chicago-based Web developer,
has hit on the perfect way to keep his personal conversations private,
even though he works in an open office. When Perez calls his wife from
work, he speaks in Spanish.
Being conversant in a second language has made Perez the envy of his
co-workers, but the skill has backfired on him as well. Once in a while,
Perez finds he has to throw an English word in with the Spanish, and the
sudden switch makes his co-workers' ears perk up even faster, especially
if the word is "Internet," "Web," or something else even mildly
work-related.
"It makes them even more curious," Perez said.
Copyright ©
2003, Chicago Tribune |
|
