I thought I would revisit my earlier post of July 2, and the references I made to almost feeling comfortable working in office cubicles. Speaking from the sanctuary of the disassociated studio, it is plain nothing could be further from the truth.

The only comfort I derived from working (late) in a little office cubicle was respite from the winter weather in Sydney. That is, it was warm and dry in the office, but that was about the limit of the comfort on offer.

I have been thinking recently about the pros and cons of working for a big company as opposed to working as a freelancer. Everything is laid on in a big company. All the equipment is relatively new and well maintained. You have the unenviable benefits a regular salary offers, which includes the listening ear of your bank manager.

Big companies offer you a certain degree of clout when dealing with people or entities outside the company, because you have the weight of the company behind you. You have the back up of company policy to enforce your “decisions”. You even have at your disposal the quagmire of in house bureaucracy, to ensure the hard decisions are kept out of your “domain”.

Reality check. In other words it all is just a little too safe. We sit in cubicles and thanks to company policy together with the associated red tape and formalities, we soon learn to stop thinking and, in acute cases, living.

The office cubicle eventually results in our vision becoming so narrow that we forget there is a real, living, natural world beyond the cubicle that doesn’t give a jack about rules and regulations.

Sometimes it seems companies are so choke full of internal polices and procedures that their operation is really little more than organised chaos. In trying to play by the rules everyone has lost sight of the bigger picture.

I am pent up tonight aren’t I? Why? I was chatting to a new manager about some procedures for a few processes, when another manager told me that it was incorrect to communicate in that fashion, and the correct protocol was to direct my comments to the new manager via another manager.

In other words, the suggestion was we should play games of Chinese whispers in order to communicate. In response to this proposal I offered a that is the most pathetic thing I have heard all day (which, in reality, is saying a lot), now why don’t you don’t get a life? glare.

It didn’t take long. The code of conduct manager muttered something about not liking office politics anyway, and scurried back to the warmth and safety of his cubicle.

Luckily for me, my self worth is not exclusively tied up in an office cubicle.