Checklist for the New Guy: Moving Into Your New Cubicles.

So you’re the new guy, moving into a new job and new cubicles. Unless you’re the CEO’s son moving into the family business straight out of grad school, moving into new cubicles can be a frightening, intimidating process. With plenty of new faces, an unfamiliar hierarchy, and a completely different environment, easing into your new cubicles won’t be easy.

New cubicles don’t have to be a new challenge, though, if you follow the tips we lay out in the next few paragraphs.

Pay attention. Before you enter your new cubicles, you’ll probably undergo an orientation session with the HR department. Keep your ears open at this point: you want to reach your new cubicles with your head full of useful information. Find out how they do things in the office; this can give you a taste of the office politics and work environment in the space surrounding your new cubicles.

Ask questions. Wrack your brain for important, or less-than-important, questions that you may need to ask - in these few shining moments as the fresh guy in the new cubicles, you’re free to ask embarrassing questions without looking stupid. (This supervisor’s checklist might give you some ideas as to the questions you can pose.) You might ask questions about:

- decorating and personalization rules for your new cubicles
- employee benefits
- sexual harassment policy
- attendance policy
- dress policy - casual Fridays

Cubicle Etiquette Explained.

American Business Etiquette:
Office Cubicle Etiquette In American Business

The era of the cubicle worker puts you in close, sometimes uncomfortable contact with your fellow cubicle mates. Not all interactions with your fellows are bound to be pleasant; close cubicle contact is bound to bring out the worst in some people.

Phyllis Davis, the President of Executive Mentoring and Coaching, has heard all the cubicle horror stories - she lays them all out in the video above. “The most common complaints about cubicle-mates is if they use speaker phones instead of using headsets,” she explains. “And then if a cubicle mate in the office has music on while they are on hold – that's really annoying.”

“Shouldn’t you be doing that at home” issues are also a big bugbear for cubicle dwellers, in Davis’ experience - “People clipping their nails in the office cubicle, or having deep coughs in the office cubicle instead of going in the washroom, or people having fights with their spouses on the phone are also big annoyances.”

Before you nod in smug recognition, you should be aware that you’re just as visible to your cubicle mates as they are to you - for all you know, your own impression isn’t so hot to your fellow cubicle mates!

Whatever impressions you make on your fellow cubicle mates are based on how you interact with them. Your professionalism is judged depending on how effectively you can work while remaining considerate of their feelings. The cubicle ideas that follow should help you navigate this difficult, though ultimately rewarding, task.

Asking the Right Questions About Your Cubicle Furniture.

Style: Formal or Avant-Garde? When shopping for cubicle furniture, you want to make sure you have the right look. Office furniture comes in a wide assortment of colors and styles, so it’s easy to buy cubicle furniture that, upon further examination, is revealed to clash with the existing environment: walls, floors, ceiling work, lighting, etc. So when selecting your cubicle furniture, think of the overall look of your office. Is the dominant style traditional, or modern? This will influence your choice of cubicle furniture, whether it’s stylish and high tech, or traditional and earthy.

Give some thought to the impression your office furniture makes on clients. A firm of accountants needs different styles of cubicle furniture from an ad agency; a call center shouldn’t have the same kind of cubicle furniture as a law firm! The impression you make depends largely on what your clients need from you. A design firm wants its cubicle furniture to look adventurous and creative; an accounting firm needs cubicle furniture that helps it look solid and dependable.

You should also be mindful if the style of cubicle furniture you’re selecting is timeless, or is bound to go out of style in the next few years. Sure, your cubicle furniture looks great now - but in five years, will the new employees be as squeamish in their office furniture as they would be wearing 1970s-era leisure suits?

The Corner Office Cubicle as an Executive Perk.

The office cubicle is only a stepping stone to a bigger office, the thinking goes. Senior officers shouldn’t be put in an ordinary office cubicle, they should be put in an office of their own! One with real hardwood office furniture and not the usual particleboard crap of the hoi polloi!

The corner office, though, is more and more becoming a thing of the past. Real power can reside from a corner office cubicle, not an oak-panelled corner office.

Hizzoner Works from an Office Cubicle

Consider the mayor of New York City. Michael Bloomberg got rid of private offices and settled on an open office cubicle design that mimicked a Wall Street trading floor. "Walls are barriers,” Bloomberg told Time Magazine, “and my job is to remove them.”

A 2007 renovation upgraded the bullpen, adding a sweet flatscreen TV to the mix:

Pimp My Cubicle II: More Cubicle Accessories to Die For.

Since the last time we published a list of cubicle accessories (titled “Pimp My Cubicle”), we’ve come across a bumper crop of more cubicle decorations that you can use to liven up your cube.

Personalize your cubicle with these cubicle accessories, and not only will you come across as a more interesting person, those fabric walls won’t feel like they’re closing in much.


Image courtesy of Jailbreak Toys. All rights reserved.

App Magnets. Can’t afford an iPad? Use these magnetic cubicle wall accessories from Jailbreak Toys to transform your magnetic whiteboard into the next best thing. No, you won’t be able to use these to surf the web, find your location, look up movie schedules, or improve your sex life... but can a real iPad secure those notes and bills to the wall? We didn’t think so.

Each App Magnets cubicle accessories set comes with 18 individual epoxy magnets, each measuring 7/8" x 7/8", and retailing for $12.99 (less $486.01 compared to the real thing).

What’s So Good About Refurbished Office Cubicles?

For many business owners, refurbished office cubicles represent the absolute last choice for furnishing their offices. These days, it doesn’t have to be.

Refurbished office cubicles are not just cheaper than brand-new, they’re often not much different from brand-new.

It’s not a small benefit, as office managers seek to balance cost, function, and appearance. These days, refurbished office cubicles are the best way to reach that balance.

As used cubicles cost almost half of its new counterparts, it wins hands-down in the price department. As function goes, refurbished office furniture performs as well as brand-new, so office managers suffer no sacrifice in that area.

And as far as appearance is concerned, only the most eagle-eyed of office workers will be able to spot the difference between refurbished and brand-new.

More good news after the jump.

Buying Cubicles for Sale? Here’s What to Look For.

Image © Tim Patterson / Creative Commons

If you’re a facility manager checking out cubicles for sale, count yourself lucky. At no other time in cubicle retail history, since Herman Miller’s Bob Propst invented the office cubicle in 1968, has stock been so high and price points so low. But how will you choose from the wide selection available in the market? Simple – consider the factors presented below.

Collaboration potential. According to a 2008 Steelcase Workplace Satisfaction Survey, making connections with coworkers represents a huge quality-of-work issue to a majority of respondents – 98% believe they require access to the right people, compared to 97% who believe they need access to the right technology and tools.

This affects your choices when checking out cubicles for sale – do your cubicles permit collaboration? Do individual cubicles have space for colleagues to come in and discuss? Do you have specialized cubicles specifically for group work, absent a readily available conference room? In a work environment where consultation is key to productivity, these may be make-or-break questions when considering cubicles for sale.

More criteria after the jump. (Read more)

Advantages of Armless Office Chairs.

Armless office chairs are usually the last choice for many office workers. No surprise there - why give up the comfort and great optics of an office chair with arms?

Still, armless office chairs have a role to play in the office. A supporting role, true, but an important one nonetheless.

Armless office chairs are ideal for offices with little space to spare and only a tiny budget to work with. Sometimes the two go together; tenants of small office spaces generally don't have much overhead to splurge on the latest Herman Miller office chairs for the whole crew. So armless office chairs can, and do, fill the slack.

Because of the lack of arms, armless office chairs can be slid under the desk with little trouble. And the lack of arms doesn't get in the way of most armless office chairs' appearance: they come in a wide variety of designs and colors, one of which is bound to suit your office needs.

Even with armless office chairs, you still need to do your due diligence with regard to comfort and adjustability. Your armless office chair should be adjustable, and work well with your body frame.

If you're in the market for armless office chairs, you should test more than one before settling on your final choice. (In our opinion, Cubicles.com's seating department is a great place to begin choosing.)

This is crucial - there's a high correlation between comfort and productivity, and you don't want your armless office chair to get in the way of working effectively!

How to Choose the Right Office Dividers for Your Workplace.

Office dividers are a necessary evil in today's workplace - unnoticed and even uncomplimented when they're working as promised, and utterly confining at their worst. Nobody calls office dividers their "favorite bit of office furniture". And that won't change anytime soon!

So when you're looking for office dividers for your company, don't imagine a process similar to picking out a rug or a lamp; nobody's going to want partitions that set off their blue eyes, they'll just want something that doesn't get in the way!

Choosing the right office divider is still important, though - employee morale can still be affected by bad dividers, even if good dividers don't seem to have any effect.

Know your dividers. The dividers used for cubicles are called half-height office dividers, smaller compared to the full-height office dividers that stretch from floor to ceiling. The difference between the two is crucial - half-height dividers offer a greater sense of openness, while full-height dividers have a feeling of permanence and solidity.

For a divider that falls half-way in between the two, you might want accordion wall dividers, which reach from floor to wall but are easily set aside when you want to remove a barrier between two office spaces.

Mobile partition walls are the lightest type of divider - they can be moved from area to area, and are light enough to be assembled or disassembled when needed.

Choose the right supplier. Once you've decided what kind of divider you want to use in your office, it's time to look at the supplier who can get you what you want. Your facilities manager should be able to tell you what suppliers in the area can provide the kind of office dividers you've set your mind on. Google can also help turn up the right suppliers. (Or if you want good value and quality too, might we recommend you check out Cubicles.com's line of cubicles?)

Choosing the right office dividers is easier than it looks. With the advice listed above, choosing and using can be a breeze, with your colleagues enjoying their office and you smiling at the thought of money well spent.

The Numbers Behind Successful Green Offices.

Non-green offices and green offices alike share the same water mains, electric lines, phone cables, and roads - living off the grid is no alternative for most businesses, that's for sure!

But the line between green offices and their wasteful counterparts is a thin one - and it has to do with how much energy your office expends in any given day, and how much your office has done to conserve the energy it uses, or to minimize its use.

According to the US Department of Energy, total energy consumption in an average office breaks down by the numbers:

Thermostat/Air conditioner, 39% of energy consumption. Keeping cool (or warm) is a positive energy monster - but you can't freeze your employees to death, can you? Green offices do their part for their employees and the environment by changing roof coatings and insulation to protect against heat and cold, or by setting the thermostat a little closer to outside ambient temperatures - to a cooler setting in winter, or a warmer setting in summer.

Lighting, 30% of energy consumption. By opening the office windows to let natural light in, or by switching light bulbs to the compact fluorescent type, offices can save up to eighty percent of the lighting energy they use.

Office equipment, 16% of energy consumption. Real green offices make sure that office equipment use is conserved and minimized. This includes switching idle computers off and converting monitors to power-friendly LCD or LED monitors.

Water heating, 9% of energy consumption. Like thermostats, water heating can be conserved, too - reducing water temperature to 120 degrees, for example, saves up to 18% of total energy use. Low-flush toilets can help reduce energy consumption even more, as they save up to 50% over more old-fashioned commodes.

Going Green with Eco Friendly Office Furniture.

An eco friendly office is easy enough to commit to, if one just sticks to superficial environmental advice (save water! Print on both sides of the paper! Unplug that PC after use!). But it takes a real green warrior to meet environmental targets using eco friendly office furniture.

The government has been helpful enough, providing green furniture standards that provide a standard to live up to. The EPA in particular offers procurement guidelines to help you select eco friendly office furniture that lives up to the government's high standards.

New furniture, then, can be selected using the EPA's guidelines, which call for FSC-certified wood, water-based or bio-based glues for laminated surfaces, and recycled materials where possible.

New eco-friendly office furniture can also be bought based on their recyclability in the future - tables and chairs made of plywood, steel, chipboard, and plastics can be recycled easily at a processing plant, while compact laminates and MDF are more difficult to recycle in the future.

Go refurbished/remanufactured, if that's an option for your office - not easy if you have a reputation to uphold, but getting easier due to the glut of furniture (you can thank the recession for bankrupting a significant number of businesses, freeing their relatively pristine furniture for use in the market).

Take the furniture our guys at Cubicles.com are ready to offer you - lower-cost, recycled workstations recreated from used cubicles - processed with eco-friendly procedures to replace and recycle the parts that can still be used.

Cubicles.com uses low-VOC coatings and recycled fabrics in its remanufactured cubicles. They look brand new, but come having already made most of its impact on the environment!

Buy local. Even if your furniture demands can't live up to the earlier two points, you can still go green with your office furniture, simply by buying from a supplier nearby. By buying local, you cut down on the carbon emissions created by transporting your new furniture from point A to point B.

How to Choose a Modern Executive Desk

Image © Global Upholstery Co.

No corner office is complete without a modern executive desk taking pride of place. The ideal executive desk does more than keep an executive's papers from falling to the floor: it provides much needed storage and defines an executive's workspace as well.

Once personalized properly, the modern executive desk also defines the personality and outlook of the executive who's using it.

If you're newly arrived to your corner office, and assuming you can choose the kind of desk you'll be spending the rest of your executive career on, how will you go about choosing your new command center?

The right one will come to you, once you ask yourself a few questions:

How flexible do you intend to be? Modern executive desks come in modular versions, which can be set up easily, then reconfigured once your needs change down the road. High quality modular desks are easy to assemble and configure, with European connectors that make disassembly and reconfiguration a breeze.

What kind of electronics will you be using? Likely the answer won't be "none" - you'll need at least one grommet hole to tame those pesky computer and telephone wires. Look for a hutch with a sweep that keeps those wires in place. And look for height/angle adjustable keyboard trays that can help you work while maintaining a comfortable, ergonomically-friendly position.

How many people will you be working with? The best desks allow for collaboration with colleagues, coming with island worksurfaces that allow teammates to "meet at your place" and still have enough leg room below.

A good example of modern executive desk that fits all the above: the Zira line of desks, a modular desk system that can be infinitely rearranged to ensure maximum work efficiency and organization.

Zira offers a multitude of storage components, allowing you to find a way to store everything in your corner office the way you like - putting them away (your boring old files) or putting them up for display (that glowing letter from the Chairman).

This video shows you how easy it is to get that corner office started with Zira - and this link takes you to Cubicles.com's desk page where you can look at Zira and many other modern executive desk options.

Workplace Tips to Help You Survive the Recession.

The recession isn't going away anytime soon (jobs bill notwithstanding), so we're offering a handful of workplace tips to tide you over till the economy improves/World War III arrives.

As an employee, you're not that powerless: sure, you've probably seen one or more of your colleagues getting laid off, but if you've gotten to this point and still hung on to your job (in which case, congratulations!), you still have the power to minimize the effect of the slowdown in your company, and yourself by extension.

What are you doing to contribute to cost cutting in your office? The company's already done most of the heavy lifting - cutting salaries and fringe benefits, reducing the budget for food and transportation, and slimming down the workforce.

Now the onus is on you - it's now your responsibility to help the office find places to cut costs. When you do this, you reduce your company's operating costs, and thus you ease your company's way through to the end of the recession.

If there's one thing you take away from this list of workplace tips, it's this: you're not a passenger anymore, you're a stakeholder. Take an oar and row.

Take printing paper: don't print stuff that can as easily be emailed. Reducing your printing quota not only saves your company a mint, it also helps the environment, too. Use as little paper as possible, for your company's sake.

Reduce your travel expenses, by relying more on the phone and Skype. If travel can't be avoided, try to exhaust all possible cheap deals on tickets, through Expedia and Kayak.com. Hot tip: book early for the lowest prices on tickets.

Save electricity - shut down your PC when you're done, and unplug all the appliances you use at work before you head off for home. Be careful with office resources - and remember that electricity and water are among the easiest office resources to waste.

Finally, avoid using the office phone to make personal calls. Use your personal cellphone, or use email or instant messaging. Try and get a texting package on your cellphone that allows unlimited texting.

Every little bit helps. With the recession still going strong, you now have a greater stake in your company's success… and a greater responsibility to your company.

Cubicle Decorating Building Blocks.

Going cubicle decorating? Good start. By flashing up the ol' workspace, you'll make your cubicle your own, create some conversation starters for colleagues, and improve overall office morale and productivity.

Cubicle decorating begins with some pretty simple building blocks. These items are easy to find and easy to personalize: Start with these items and you can put that personal stamp on your cubicle in no time!

Plants, real plants. While plastic plants are easy to place and easy to take care of, real plants have significant advantage over their artificial analogues. Real plants exude oxygen, which is good news for your productivity (your brain needs more of the stuff, and offices are notoriously low in this life-giving gas).

Plants are also guaranteed mood boosters, and the right ones add an invigorating dash of color to a drab workplace. Just don't get a plant that exudes pollen or a too-strong smell.

Just remember this when using plants for cubicle decorating: choose plants that won't grow too much. You want a plant that will help you interact with your colleagues - impossible when it blocks the hallway or your view of the rest of the office.

Family pictures. Adding a framed image of your loved ones tells your workmates that you have a life outside your office. Having images of family creates a positive impression of yourself in the workplace, too.

Postcards. A real, written-in postcard from a family member abroad is cubicle decorating gold - a personal touch that shows your sense of adventure and (depending on where it's from) a sense of belonging to a larger world.

Candy bowl. A dish of treats is more than just a cubicle decorating whim - it's a great conversation starter and a cool way to make new friends, especially when you're new and you need an excuse to socialize with your new cubicle neighbors.

Calendar. A personalized calendar that shows off your personality or interests can "brand" your cubicle as yours like nothing else can. Hey, you might also get to meet other colleagues who share your interests!

How to Choose the Best Ergonomic Keyboard for Your Office.

The best ergonomic keyboard for you will ease your carpal tunnel… but won't look like your regular keyboard.

The flat, clumped-together keyboards that come standard with most PCs don't offer any sort of ergonomic relief whatsoever - you'll have to turn to those odd, split and tented keyboards if the carpal tunnel is starting to get in the way of work.

Doing the Split

The split keyboard design, when it hit offices in the 1990s, looked odd to traditionalists - a gap was introduced down the center of the key array, and both key sets arranged around the gap in a V.

While this takes up more space and attracts odd looks from officemates, the arrangement is actually more natural - arms aren't placed in an awkward position while typing, and wrists are less stressed in the process.

If you're choosing an ergonomic keyboard, choose one whose "V" angle feels most natural to you. Or if you can't decide, spend the extra dosh and choose an adjustable ergonomic keyboard to get the flexibility you need from your input device.

If the price bothers you, tell yourself that an expensive keyboard now saves you the expense of surgery to heal stress injuries further down the road.

Test It Before You Buy It

Finding the best ergonomic keyboard for your office takes time, and continuous testing.

Throughout the testing process, make sure the environment is as close as possible to the one in your own workplace. Use the keyboard at a chair and desk with similar angles and height to your own. Use the keyboard with wrists straight and in line with your arms, elbows close to your body, and relaxed shoulders.

Ask yourself the following questions when you test your new keyboard:

Can I adjust the keyboard easily? An easily-adjustable keyboard helps users find their optimum settings in the smallest possible time. Inferior keyboards are harder to adjust, and as a result will not provide the optimum settings needed for the user's ergonomic comfort.

Does the keyboard "tent" to an angle I prefer? You don't have to set the tenting angle to the highest possible setting - just to one that your wrists can live with. The ideal tenting range seems to fit within ten to twenty degrees for a majority of users.

Does it come with palm supports? The best ergonomic keyboard models come with padded and removable palm support add-ons.

Can I live with the key rearrangements? Some ergonomic keyboards move some keys around to optimize ergonomic comfort. Users have to be aware of these switches beforehand, or else they risk reducing productivity while they're getting used to their new keyboard.

Ten Tips for Buying Used Office Cubicles.

Used office cubicles are, for the smart facility manager, reaching the ideal confluence of wide availability, wide variety, and low price. If you're in the market for office furniture, buying used is a great option - you get to save substantially on your budget and still get as wide a choice as if you decided to buy brand-new!

Of course, buying used office cubicles comes with a few rules of the road. Read on to see what they are.

• Be prepared to be flexible. Once you decide that used is for you, be sure that you're comfortable with the two top limitations of the market. A) be prepared to be flexible on colors; and B) be prepared to be flexible on size configurations.


• Make sure you understand the grade of used you are buying. Buying used office cubicles is like buying a used car - 10,000 miles in is hardly broken in, but 100,000 miles means it's ready to break down!


• Know your space dimensions before shopping. Shopping before you understanding the benefits and limitations of your space is like shopping for a plane without knowing how to fly!


• Buy a popular cubicle model - this ensures a ready supply of spare parts. These are the models you should look out for: Steelcase, Avenir or 9000; Herman Miller, AO or Ethospace; Haworth Places; Knoll Morrison; or Reff.


• Check if your seller has a detailed inventory of all the parts and pieces you need for the cubicle you want to buy. This includes panels, connectors, work surfaces, bins, and everything else in between. This is something you don't think about until the delivery comes in and has one or more missing parts, leading to big delays and headaches if your supplier doesn't have his act together.


• Ensure seller's reputation and track record in buying and selling used inventories. As for references from your prospective seller. Selling used cubicles requires a certain skill, as the business has plenty of complications in store if the seller doesn't manager his business professionally.


• Ask for product photos showing what it looked like when it was standing. If it hasn't been disassembled and stored in the warehouse yet, ask the supplier to take snapshots of the product you want, so you get a good idea of how the finished product will look like in your office.


• If you can, buy from an inventory that is still standing. Not a lot of inventory comes to you still waiting to be knocked down. So this will limit your options, but it may minimize your risk.


• Inspect the inventory before handing over your cash. Again, this might limit your options to only inventory that's a drive away, but this also limits the possibility of dissatisfaction with the final product.


• Ensure that seller is selling inventory they own and control. It's not necessarily a bad thing if the seller is actually just trying to "flip" someone else's inventory, but there's a bigger potential for trouble the further removed they are from the product source.


• Don’t make yourself crazy trying to price shop previously owned inventories. If you find a reputable dealer who you have confidence in, and if they can deliver the quantity you need in the configuration and color you can live with, AND if they can offer you a substantial discount off new (50% or better), take the deal and don’t look back. You are sure to have a winning combination!

6 Home Office Design Ideas You can Steal

Here are a few home office design ideas you can put to good use in your own workspace: they're simple to do and suitably cheap to execute. Home offices, as a rule, come with smaller supplies budgets than your typical cubicle farm, but even with a limited budget, you can implement home office design ideas that strike the ideal balance between good-looking and budget-friendly.



Choose a productivity-friendly color. The colors you see in your workspace can make all the difference in your productivity. Choosing a bright color like yellow or bright green can ease the monotony of repetitive tasks. Pale blue or green can add a calming effect to the home office. And plain white tells everyone you mean to do serious work in your workspace.

Or you can toss the rules and settle on a color that has great personal significance to you alone. "Different hues resonate with people in a certain way," says Suite101's Victoria Foley. "A bright red might make you think of lipstick, or hearts/love, or even stop signs…However, take that shade a little bit darker, to a deep cherry-maroon, and it could make you feel empowered."

Choose a chair with comfort in mind. When you're shopping for a chair, do prioritize its comfort over the long run - don't just get the cheapest butt-rest available. Many home office design ideas look good, but fail the comfort test. Make sure your home office doesn't go the same way. If you're not sure where to start, check out our ergonomics checklist to get a clue.

Lighting should be easy on the eyes. You're not a coal miner - you get to choose just how much lighting you need to get the job done. Make sure you pick an area of the house that gets ample lighting. You can also get a lamp for your desk that ups the light quotient, and reduces eyestrain too.

Put a motivating artwork in plain sight. A reproduction of your favorite painting? A vase your mother gave you? Something your child drew in art class? Get something motivating in your office space, and keep it somewhere that's easy to spot.

Image © Nathan Searles / Creative Commons.

Green a Go Go: Secrets to Buying Green Office Furniture.

You know the green office furniture trend has hit its stride when even Chinese manufacturers are getting in on the act. For example, the Aurora Group (headquartered in Guangzhou) has conceptualized an "eco office" concept that it's promoting in major Chinese cities.

The showcase for the "eco office" idea is Aurora's X-series chairs, which are made of cloth dyed with EU-certified environment-friendly pigment, and are 80% recyclable.

Which only goes to show that green office furniture is getting much easier to procure. Part of it is due to increased demand: more government agencies are asking for it, more corporations are figuring green office furniture to be a useful PR angle.

So manufacturers have stepped in to fill the need: more furniture on the market is crafted from recycled material, constructed from sustainably harvested resources, and use eco-friendly materials.

Consider remanufactured office furniture, which today comes in practically the same quality as brand new. When old furniture undergoes the remanufacturing process, its metal surfaces are cleaned and repainted (often with low-VOC coatings that limit toxic emissions into the atmosphere), its fabrics are replaced and recycled, and even packaged with recycled material.

Also, recycled materials are making a strong showing in new furniture as well. Recycled fabrics, recycled steel, even recycled soda bottles - these are all weapons in the furniture manufacturer's struggle to lower costs and gain a higher green profile.

Finally, there's sourcing renewable materials, which companies like Herman Miller and the Knoll Group do their best to lead in. The former announced that they were using cherry and walnut wood for their high-end furniture, instead of harder-to-replace woods like mahogany and rosewood. The latter is checking up on its suppliers' sustainable practices and sourcing reclaimed lumber for its product line.

With more customers prioritizing eco-friendliness over lower cost, the furniture industry is responding to a demand for green office furniture that doesn't show any signs of slowing down. (We're surely no slouches in this department - our remanufactured office equipment category is one of Cubicles.com's top sellers.)

5 Symptoms of Carpal Tunnel You Shouldn't Ignore.

Image © Petr Kurecka.

Office work is hard on the eyes, brain… and especially the hands, as symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome emerge after years of abuse. Carpal tunnel syndrome should never be ignored, nor should treatment be postponed. As soon as these symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome emerge, you should see your doctor immediately.

Numbness in fingers and hand. You find that your hand "falls asleep" often when working. Or you have less sensation in the fingers and thumb. If this is how you feel after a few hours of work, congratulations - you now have the very first symptoms of carpal tunnel right in your hands.

Carpal tunnel syndrome begins very slowly - sufferers report feeling tingling or numbness in the fingers and palm. This usually happens when the sufferer grips something between thumb and forefinger - holding a cellphone, for example, or steering a car.

Decreased Grip Strength. Whoops! becomes a constant refrain in your life, as you begin to drop pens, coffee mugs, and utensils. As pain makes work impossible, your hand muscles may atrophy, decreasing your ability to hang on to small objects.

You'll find it difficult to grasp small objects, clench your fists, or perform manual tasks around the office. You'll have difficulty supporting yourself on stairs or climbing into a truck.

Pain Radiating up the Forearm. Carpal tunnel sufferers report feeling a shooting or burning pain moving up from the center of their forearm to their shoulder and neck. This occurs after repetitive or stressful use of one's hands. Sometimes the pain is constant - an ache felt around the upper shoulder and neck.

Cold Hands with warm forearms. As the nerve in your carpal tunnel gets pinched, blood circulation around the area gets constricted as well, contributing to the odd sensation of having two different temperature gradients on the forearm and hand.

Loss of fine motor skills. This progresses from the swollen and numb feeling in your fingers and hand, as motor skills begin to give way to the numbness. Everyday fine motor skills like writing, moving a mouse around, buttoning a shirt, or tying a shoe become almost impossible to do.

If any of these symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome appear, you must consult your doctor immediately. Carpal tunnel syndrome, if left untreated, interferes with work, interrupts sleep, and leads to more severe nerve and muscle damage.

The Ultimate Herman Miller Office Chair… and the Contender.

In the beginning, there was the Aeron, the ultimate Herman Miller office chair - and then there was everyone else.

Times have changed since the Aeron was introduced fifteen years ago. (Among other things, the office hockey league has since been disbanded.) In its heyday, the Aeron was the ultimate status symbol. If your behind rested on an Aeron, you commanded the best Herman Miller office chair in existence.

Fast forward to today. The recession overtook us. Enron and Lehman Brothers fell. And formerly deep-pocketed facility managers are now looking for more cost-effective alternatives to the former King of Office Seats.

These days, the number one contender for the throne is the Eurotech Ergohuman Chair. Its popularity among office workers is surging ever higher, threatening to unseat the high-flying Herman Miller office chair leader.



How has the Ergohuman accomplished this? Firstly, it's been able to match - or come close - to the high-end upholstery and adjustability features designed into the Aeron.

Once upon a time, facility managers figured the high cost was a proper price to pay for getting the Aeron into their offices. (And the cost is still high - you can expect to pay up to $1,400 for a top notch posture-fit Aeron.) Today, the Ergohuman delivers what people look for in an Aeron - for up to $700.

The Ergohuman's ergonomics delivers: you get the same flexibility and adjustability you've come to expect from an Aeron, and you get the same tolerance for intensive use: the chair is designed to accommodate users who expect to use it for five hours a day or more, and deserve consistent comfort from beginning to end.

In the end, while the Ergohuman may fall a little short of the Aeron, the substantially lower price makes it a winner against the best Herman Miller office chair contenders. (Don't take my word for it, check out the Cubicles.com seating page to compare how the Ergohuman does against the competition. You won't be sorry.)

10 Steps toward an Environmentally Friendly Office.

Creating an environmentally friendly office takes baby steps. You don't just change the lightbulbs, set up segregated trash bins, and expect the Green Office Council to give you a medal. No, it's a long, hard slog, and may add an element of inconvenience in your office life.

Why do it? It's worth it. Think of the positive impact you'll make with an environmentally friendly office - and think of the improved morale in a workforce that knows they're committed to something bigger than themselves.

1. Power down. Turn off equipment that isn't being used. Don't just turn them off - unplug them. Little did you know that equipment on "standby" mode still sucks up juice, to the tune of hundreds of dollars' worth of energy a year! Unplug these appliances when not in use, or get a smart power strip that monitors electricity use, cutting off the power from outlets that have been idle for a while.

2. Turn down the thermostat. Reprogram your thermostat to be a few degrees warmer in the summer, and a few degrees cooler in the winter. Shaving off the degrees in this way can save you up to eight percent in energy costs per year.

3. Change the light source. Part the curtains, or open the blinds in daytime! The environmentally friendly office isn't afraid to use natural light - it's healthier than that sickly green artificial light that's commonly used in offices.

4. Replace your gear. Newer PCs, for example, may be up to 70% more energy-efficient than PCs from four to five years back. Monitors might also help you cut down on your energy bill - if you switch LCD models for your CRT monitors, you can use a third less power. The lower energy usage will allow you to recover the costs of replacing your equipment within two to three years.

5. Email, but try not to print. Email messages don't need to be printed out to be fully understood. Make sure getting a printout is absolutely necessary before you click "print"!

6. If you have to print, go with recycled and earth-friendly. Use recycled paper with at least 30% post-consumer waste, and print double-sided as much as possible. Go with soy-based ink, as it has lower levels of volatile organic compounds, and is easier to eliminate in the recycling process.

7. Check the bathrooms. Keep taps tightly shut - one dripping tap can waste up to 10,000 liters of water a year. A more committed environmentally friendly office would use a displacement dam - they place a small plastic container filled with stones in the toilet reservoir to displace some water in the flushing process - the water saved in this method adds up over the year.

8. Use real plants. Not only do they add a nice soothing touch to your office, but they also add oxygen to the surroundings, making the environmentally friendly office even more friendly to one's health.

9. Ditch the paper or foam cups. Encourage the workforce to bring their own mugs to work. This reduces office waste and saves money.

10. Buy remanufactured office furniture. When you're replacing your desks and chairs, look at remanufactured furniture as an option for your office. Buying remanufactured saves you money and lessens your impact on the environment, as you're buying equipment that's already made its footprint felt before.

This is more than just about being cheap - it's about making a company-wide statement to your workers and your clients that you are willing to cut out unnecessary purchases for the sake of creating an environmentally friendly office. (Read Cubicles.com's green office furniture page for more information about remanufactured office furniture.)

Relationships at Work: Managing the Minefield.

Admit it, it's crossed your mind: the idea of having romantic relationships at work appeals to you, besides, you think Denise at Accounting has been giving encouraging signs, being a little too liberal with the office Post-its (see video above).

Join the club: Careerbuilder.com's 2009 survey finds that four out of ten workers cop to dating a colleague at work, with three out of ten saying they ended up married to the person.

CareerBuilder.com's Rosemary Haefner isn't surprised by the results. "Employees spend many hours interacting with co-workers, so it’s not unusual for romances to spark," says Haefner, who works as the site's Vice President of Human Resources. "While workplace relationships may be more accepted these days, with 72 percent of workers saying they didn’t have to keep their romance a secret, it’s still important for workers to keep it professional and not let their relationship impact their work."

"Keep it professional" - that's easier said than done. Regardless of 72 percent acceptability levels, maintaining successful romantic relationships at work is a minefield, not just for the couple but for the whole office.

Part of it is the power equation that simply cannot be erased from the office context: relationships at work are as much about authority as they are about cooperation.

Employment lawyer Edward Hernstadt illustrates the problem: if things go south, an employee can always tell the law that she felt compelled to date the boss. "The supervisor will say, 'I just asked you to go on a date,' but the subordinate says, 'I felt I couldn't say no,'" recounts Hernstadt.

An office policy that sets the rules of legitimate relationships at work? This might sound positively authoritarian, but today's litigious environment might force HR's hand. Many offices now ask office couples to sign a "love contract" that spells out that their relationship is consensual and untied to company matters - this frees human resources from worrying about potential litigation in the future in case the relationship sours.

It's a little less romantic, but it's a very practical step to take for burgeoning relationships at work. And it saves the office a lot of Post-its in the process.

Top Tips to Prevent Carpal Tunnel.

Image © Andrew / Creative Commons.

Turns out that to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, you'll probably need to change some deeply-ingrained habits.

Work posture, for one thing. Getting carpal tunnel syndrome may force you to change the way you type, for example, or wear a splint on your wrist while you work, on doctor's orders.

There's good reason for this advice: the doctor wants to keep your hand from assuming the posture it normally does. Which eases the pressure on the median nerve, the source of all your carpal tunnel troubles. The same posture day after day, on the other hand, can stress the tendons in your carpal tunnel to the point of affecting the median nerve - leading to carpal tunnel syndrome.

When someone has carpal tunnel syndrome, the median nerve is pressured by ligaments and tendons in the carpal tunnel in your wrist, which sometimes get swollen from abuse to the hands. Pressure on the median nerve can make your hand hurt, or numb the sensation in the affected hand.

So, to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, you need to prevent your affected hand from assuming a posture that increases the pressure.

That means wearing the aforementioned splints to prevent carpal tunnel. But you don't have to go that far. It may be a simple as avoiding a downward bent position for your wrists. Or not resting your wrists on hard surfaces - soft wrist rests for both keyboards and mice are now de rigueur for keyboard jockeys in the office.

Regular typists may also benefit from a seating posture that keeps forearms level with the keyboard; this minimizes the flexing your wrists need to do while typing.

Resting the wrist may also be necessary: this means regular breaks for your wrists, or switching the dominant hand used for a certain task.

These simple fixes can prevent carpal tunnel syndrome from ever taking hold of your wrists. Nobody said carpal tunnel syndrome was hard to overcome!

Selecting a Mesh Office Chair - Pros and Cons.

The mesh office chair is becoming more and more necessary in the modern breakneck-paced office. But just as even the most advanced office computer can become a liability if badly-selected, the process of choosing a mesh office chair becomes ever more important: you can't just leap into it blind.

Here are a few dos and don'ts to help your selection process along.

DO test drive that mesh office chair. No mesh office chair is perfect; the flaws aren't usually evident in the first ten or twenty minutes of testing, much less just looking, at the chair in question. So don't just "eyeball" it, or rest your hindquarters and call it a day.

Put that mesh office chair through its paces: Ask yourself first how long you'll be sitting in the chair. The length of time you'll spend in that seat will determine whether you need additional padding. Mesh seats are cool and comfortable, but extended use can stress the tailbone, causing pain and numbness over time.

DON'T settle on the first one you like. Have several different models to choose from, when selecting a mesh office chair. You'll get a good idea of the varying quality of mesh office chairs in the market, and in the process, you'll also discover what qualities you prefer in a mesh office chair.

You'll probably choose a mesh chair that provides a balance between comfort and support. Some workers will prefer mesh seats that make your hindquarters feel like they're floating on clouds; others will prefer stiffer padded fabric or leather seats with a mesh back.

DO think long-term. Mesh chairs don't wear as well as leather or fabric chairs; mesh chair manufacturers have to choose between soft mesh that sags quicker, or stiff mesh with lower comfort. Herman Miller has managed to hit the right balance with its Aeron chair, as it uses a Pellicle mesh that combines softness with durability. (It helped that the Aeron's ergonomic design won it raves in the workforce.)

DON'T neglect adjustability. Any ergonomics enthusiast will tell you that mesh seating alone won't make your chair comfortable - adjustability counts. As we've noted before, you'll need to adjust different elements of the mesh office chair to ensure they fit you and you alone - armrests, seat height, seat depth, backrest, and lumbar support.

Pimp My Cubicle: Five Awesome Cubicle Do-Overs.

To break the monotony of the typical office cubicle, more workers are spending a lot of money on "pimp my cubicle" one-upmanship. Blame the uniformity of the cubicle farm; office cubicles are a damned efficient way of corralling a large workforce into a single workspace, but the mind craves variety.

I don't know about you, but when the first time I tried to pimp my cubicle, I worked with a really low budget - and cheap clods like me began with action figures. Dollies for men. Surely you can't be a sissy if your office cubicle action figures come from the hit show Futurama could you?



ThinkGeek sells three sets of Futurama action figures, including the star-crossed duo of Leela and Zapp Brannigan (pictured above - with the awesome addition of Richard Nixon's head in a jar!).

Moving up the budget scale, indulge your Formula One fantasies by buying a RaceChair - an actual seat from a real-live sports car, lovingly transformed into a static office chair. How's that for a comedown? One moment, you're a critical collaborator on Lewis Hamilton's Formula One team, the next, you're warming a midlevel manager's expanding backside.



RaceChairs cost as low as $2,000, but may go for over $11,000, in the case of a seat stripped from a Lamborghini LP640 Murcielago.

More pimped-out cubicles after the jump.

Micro Management: Some Small Office Design Tips to Remember.

The rules are very different for stocking a small office: the best small office design ideas don't use the same rules as big offices. Yes, you too need to create an orderly, productive environment - but no, you don't have as much space to work with, and chances are you have a smaller margin for error.

Working with a small office design forces you to zero in on your needs, fast. Do you expect frequent client visits? Then you'll need furniture that leaves a good impression. No patchy second-hand furniture, or worse, wildly inappropriate furnishing choices (one small travel agency I visited this week had, I kid you not, a bed).

Is the industry you're working in a stable one? You might think about leasing furniture to stock your small office. On the other hand, choosing to buy your furniture outright may keep your budget low, and compel you to buy only the stuff you really need.

Tough questions like these can help you decide what furniture you need to be productive in your small office. Some things will always stay constant: a decent desk; a comfortable chair; a telephone; a PC.

If you're working from home, your work and personal facilities should be separate, or as separate as possible. Have a separate phone line for work, so you don't miss important calls from clients if your kid is on the line.

Think of your power consumption - can your small office location cope with the extra wattage you'll need to consume for your enterprise? Do you have enough power outlets to cope with a PC, desk light, printer, scanner, and fax machine all sucking up juice at the same time?

Finally, you should add a light touch to your small office design - a painting in the right place, or a photo frame of your husband and kids can lighten the mood in your small office. Ransack your personal wants and needs to create an office that's not just a pleasure to work in, but also a place you want to visit again and again. The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate!

Two Contenders for the Ultimate Eco-Friendly Office.

Get beyond the hype of the eco-friendly office, and you'll find a workplace that tries to minimize its own environmental footprint. The ideal green workplace also puts systems in place that encourage their tenants/workers to do the same.

Like many ideals, this is harder than it looks. Very few workplaces meet the gold standard of the ultimate eco-friendly office, usually by meeting the tough standards set by the US Green Buildings Council through their LEED program. Which green offices made the cut?

Architectural firm Perkins + Will constructed their Seattle office with lofty green standards in mind - lighting that's almost 50% more efficient than comparable spaces, water savings of up to 40%, and 80% of building materials sourced within 500 miles of the site.

The office's design is plenty innovative, what you'd expect in a green design pioneer like Perkins + Will - a "solid white box" fixes the office's center, from which the open design studio radiates. The box contains the conference rooms and service spaces; the rest of the office uses natural daylight and open furniture arrangements, all the better to encourage closer work between colleagues.

Perkins + Will's eco-friendly office cost $1 million to build, covering 12,000 square feet in a six-story brick building. It achieved LEED Platinum on October 2006, the first platinum-certified project in Washington State.

Over in San Francisco, Google's Bay area office pulls out all the stops to earn its LEED gold certification. Past the spectacular views of the Bay Bridge, Google's workplace utilizes natural light to decrease energy costs (by making artificial lighting superfluous).

Building waste was minimized, through the re-use of partition walls, door assemblies, and furniture. New material used in construction was mostly sourced from local, sustainable sources.

What was thrown away was recycled - up to 64% of it, by Google's estimate. Efficient water facilities were installed in bathrooms and kitchens. And indoor air quality was preserved by using low-VOC paint, adhesives, furniture, and sealants.

For Google, this kind of attention to detail isn't a fluke - it's company policy. In the following video, an employee chronicles the many steps that Google takes to earn its "ultimate eco-friendly office" stars:

Office Cubicle Installation in a Little Over an Hour.

Cubicle installation isn't a long, tiresome process anymore, at least not since the Sixties. When Herman Miller introduced their Action Office 2 (AO2) cubicle system, they introduced the open plan office into the business lexicon. They also made tedious office cubicle installation a thing of the past.

Take this example from WorkSquared - this video shows a timed cubicle installation session, transforming a bare space into a six-cubicle set in just over an hour. You've got to see it to believe it - office cubicle installation in a flash, giving you a complete office in the time it takes to finish your lunch!

Of course, the video leaves out the hard work done before the partitions are locked in place. The cubicle provider needs to know the dimensions of the work area, the type of cubicles that need to be installed, the type of electronics that will be used (AO2 cubicles accommodate cabling, but these need to be determined beforehand).

Our guys got this down pat, too - cubicle installation services and more. Ring us up if you want this kind of speedy magic pulled off in your workspace.

Picking the Best Ergonomic Chair for Your Office.

Image © Quinn Dombrowski / Creative Commons.

I've got the world's best ergonomic chair in my home office, and it suits me just fine. It was my old boss's ergonomic chair, but I got it cheap when the business folded and I've been using it for the past 12 years.

How is it the best? Because over time, it's adjusted to me - the depressions made by my back and backside have molded this chair, over the years, into one that fits my curves perfectly.

But not everyone has 12 years to make the world's best ergonomic chair out of any garage-sale purchase. Certainly not facility managers who have to contend with quick employee turnover - no employee really has that much time!

The only real lesson you can derive from my example is this: the best ergonomic chair in the world is one that is perfectly adjusted to suit the individual.

The best ergonomic chairs provide adjustment mechanisms that conform to individual body shapes. No single body is unique, and each chair must be adjusted to match specific body shapes. In some cases, you might be better off hiring an ergonomics professional to do the adjustments.

Also, really good ergonomic chairs allow for constant movement. The back, armrest, and seat should be able to let you shift your body into other positions, while keeping your body in the proper posture.

Ideally, you should also get the best ergonomic chair that suits your profession. Doctors, software engineers, and art directors have totally different working habits - their ergonomic chair needs are different, too.

Nothing can substitute actually testing the chair out for yourself. Finding the best ergonomic chair for your needs can be a matter of just sitting in it, making a few adjustments, and asking yourself a few simple questions:

• How much hip room do I have?
  
• How much can I adjust the seat's height?
  
• How comfortable is my lumbar, or lower back?
  
• How comfortable is my butt in the seat pan?
  
• How comfortable is the chair when reclining?
  
• How comfortable is the chair after an hour or so of use?

You don't have to wait ten years to get the best ergonomic chair, as in my case - you just need a little patience, some hands-on experience, and the courage to ask the right questions.

(By the way, I don't know if you've heard, but the best ergonomic chair for you doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg - check out our partner SeatingWarehouse.com's selection of affordable ergonomic office chairs.)