How to Spice up your Cube

We all know that cubicles are a sad excuse for a work space, yet due to space constraints in New York City, many of us are doomed to this grey paneled existence.

I was reminded of my dread for the cube yesterday, when I entered a Park Avenue cosmetics corporation with dark narrow hallways and a sea of squares. It's not that I'm bashing cubes for their shape. In fact, I delight in lots of cube-shaped stuff, like the challenge of a Rubik's Cube, the creaminess of cubed extra-aged Gouda, or the refreshing taste of a margarita on the rocks.

But spending the majority of your day inside a tiny space with four walls, fake lighting and stale air is outrageous. It's so unpleasant that people are now resorting to bizarre behavior to combat the mental and physical effects. Take two of the marketing girls I met yesterday. They are cube neighbors and their computers face each other, but of course, the wall is in the way. So, they took a packing knife to the wall and removed a big chunk of it so that they could chat and compare notes without the nearby finance cube village getting annoyed.

And almost every cube in yesterday's office had a yoga ball instead of a desk chair. I guess those who had good annual review earned an even fancier desk prop...the yoga ball chair. Feast your eyes:

While I'm a big yoga advocate, I still don't think this chair does anything to brighten the bleak atmosphere created by cubes. My vote? Replace office chairs with the first-ever adult jumping ball! This corporate guy looks a lot happier than most office folk....why?

He's riding around on a 29'' spherical caricature of Elton John with a french chef's mustache. How could that not make you smile?

Imagine bouncing down to Starbucks for your 4pm latte on this ride! Functional, fun, and in my expert opinion, quite ergonomically sound.
Thank you, Elton, for making office life a bit more sane (and for writing Your Song, my graduation song from high school.)Check out some of the Winners of Wired's Saddest Cubicle Contest: