Coping with Cubicles

DO

Keep a neat cube. Unless restricted by company policy, install pictures of your family, pets, and hobbies to make your cube homey.

Use a conference room or pay phone to place sensitive calls.

Dress conservatively for job interviews or when meeting customers.

Let your neighbors know in a polite, nonthreatening way if they are consistently noisy.

Enter another cubicle only after asking permission.

Use body language to let doorway hangers-on know that it's time to get back to work.

Walk over to or call on the telephone to someone in a nearby cubicle–rather than shouting over the walls.

DO NOT

Communicate by standing up like a Prairie dog or by hanging over cubicle walls.

Yell requests or responses over the tops of cubicle walls.

Eat smelly food in your cube, and avoid wearing strong fragrances.

Say anything you don't want everyone to hear.

Pin on your cubicle walls anticompany articles from magazines or newspapers.

Chime in on conversations overheard from adjacent cubicles.