A Tale of Two Cities - II

As mentioned in the post titled “A Tale of Two Cities” the executives recently moved into a brand new building. Part of that move was the renovation of unused space to turn it into cubical farms (see Time To Brag).

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the outcome. The executive building is actually pretty nice with granite and marble everywhere. It even comes with a gated parking lot of the executives. The executive floor is full of mahogany, cherry wood, big screen televisions, and leather conference chairs. It even comes staffed with it’s own security guard to make sure people have their badges and a receptionist to welcome people to the building. It truly is fitting for the flunky executives who lead the company into a sea of red.

On the other hand the cubical farm leaves much to be desired. In a move to be the “greenest building” at the Shitshow very few overhead lights were installed, instead they installed a couple of skylights. This idea was so well executed about 1 in every 10 cubes falls in a dark void because the skylights are too small and too far apart. To continue with the greenness, air conditioning and heater ducts were placed in the floor. In theory this makes sense, place the cool/warm air near the people instead of having to try to blow it 20 feet down to the people (the new City Center in Vegas uses this strategy brilliantly) but as you can guess the Shitshow did it Bob style. There was no thought on where the cubicles would be placed in relation to the floor plan and the embedded air ducts. Needless to say some people have constant cold air blowing directly on the feet while others don’t have any air at all. The last brilliantly executed green strategy was to allow more natural light in through 10 foot tall windows on one side of the building. What the Shitshow didn’t account for was the reflection off the neighboring building. Any cubical on the wall of windows in unusable in the afternoon from the the glare and heat being reflected into the cubicles. Lastly, in an effort to save money by not having to staff high school drop outs and grandmas as security guards (see Shitshow Insecurity) the building is fitted with a badge-reading motorized turnstile door. Of course the door rejects half the people who start walking through it. This causes a huge backup of people trying to get in and out of the building. In fact, one person had to walk half a city block to another door because he kept getting rejected by the door. Despite all these flaws, the building is highly celebrated amongst the Shitshow managers as a cost saving and green success.

Because the executives are lavished to no end while the minions are forced to work in a building (assuming we can get through the door) that the Shitshow could only be proud of, I throw rocks.