All Boxed Up

I've been blessed in my work life at the alma mater to have been in real faculty offices, though always shared (once, when I was a teaching associate, I shared an office with five other people. It was in the same recessed entryway as the women's bathroom--one witty person called our office "the fourth stall"). That office was actually a lot of fun--we had a couch, covered with a purple-and-black throw with a pattern of Aztec warriors, a little coffeemaker, a plant or two, and files with years and years of essay prompts and writing ideas, stretching back for at least a decade. The conversations in that office were some of the liveliest and most fun I've ever had. My offices have tended to be very spacious and with nice views, so there's much to be grateful for in that regard.

Still, not everyone is blessed with real office space. Wired magazine has had a contest for the saddest office cubicles--here they are, in all their cramped and utilitarian glory. Amazing how people make the best with whatever they have. The winner (?) of the Sad Cubicle Contest got the robot whose picture precedes this entry. Perhaps they will use it to jazz up their Sad Cubicle, if they can shoehorn it in somewhere between those filing cabinets!