Occupy Movement

[Griffin NoName]

Yes, the civil service here was rumoured on the windows - employees could get half a window where the room was walled up to divide it. Similar stuff with crapets/rugs. I myself have experienced this - had an office with a door to shut, where other employees were just in the general pool. I think this is commonplace. How would an office environment avoid it? Seems to me it is always going to be subject to executive privelege.

[pieces o nine]

A less extreme version is the hierarchy of office furniture that can be seen as a bastardized version of the system under absolutism (King=chair with back and armrests, high nobility = chair with back but without armrests, lower nobility = stool without back, anyone else = no seat at all). I hear some companies have a specific seat and desk for each level of hierarchy leading to the absurd situation that in case of damage the storage department may tell you that at the moment they have only office chairs for people above and below you and that they cannot give you any of either because it would undermine the hierarchy.
On top of that comes the cubicle/office hierarchy. I read of cases where due to space problems a cubicle-grade employee got an actual office but the windows got walled up, the office door removed and a cubicle installed in the center of the room, so this lower lifeform (or the coworkers) would not get any ideas about his status.

I worked for a corporation with this *exact* mentality! A co-worker received a chair with arms while a suitable peasant seat was on speed-order. A steady parade of overlings marched past, muttering with darkness upon their faces, until maintenance showed up with tools to wrench the arms from the chair.

I will always remember the spiral-shaped cube walls raised to reduce a remaining corner(!!!) spot to my lowly status, after our normal area was annexed for an executive's new, upsized office suite -- for what they did not yet know was the short time I was waiting to start a better job I had accepted elsewhere. I was next to the Time & Motion Experts, who brokered this deal, and I giggled -- loudly -- every day as I spiralled into my cubette with a 'moat'.

It was an interesting work environment, to say the least. Also, to the surprise of no-one beneath the thin-aired executive level, a third-generation company was eventually purchased by a competitor not quite so attached to such shenanigans. Although anecdotal, a ream of similar experiences (my own, and those close to me) fuels my disdain for Big Business As Usual (and its addiction to what amounts to executive welfare), and the completely unnecessary disruption, waste, and devastation it causes/continues.