ADP = cube farm. But we can get all crazy and throw stuff around but its just grey for miles. On a side note they did just tear the roof off the building and put a new one on, so for awile we had tar and rocks falling from heaven.

I think it has more to do with managers not being evil overlords than having fun furniture. Because if you where to walk into ADP and look you would be all great a HUGE payroll company, but its really a fun place to work.

I must work for the same company as Folklore because he just described my dismal work environment (minus the orange wall). Anyway, I applaud your efforts to better your workers situation.

I would sure like a window, or just the faint traces of daylight...something to give me hope. Perhaps a nice chair like they have in the fancy boardroom and not the back-killing plastic metal thing I have now. Wish I could help.

I work for a small private college. We have a small staff. We have our own cubes with 6' walls. The top 2' are smoked class so we have privacy but still get natural light.

The culture is very relaxed. I'm in jeans today. I can have all of the food/drinks/coffee I want at my desk. Flex-time and working from home are always an option. Our office Christmas party is tuesday, and our VP talked Dell into footing the bill for a 5-course dinner and wine tasting for us. December 24 through January 2 is a paid holiday.

The best part about my job is that my managers trust me to get my job done and don't care when/how/where, just as long as I meet my deadlines.

The down side is that my paycheck isn't that great, but everything else makes up for it.

Our office is of the neutral fabric type environment. On the plus side we each get decent size offices, and the walls are about 7.5 feet tall, so it doesn't exactly feel like a cubical.

Other then the difference architecture, our office sounds a lot like Lex's, fairly pro-casual.

Our environment: There are two of us in about 1000 sq. ft (I underestimated and just about halved it) of floor space split in two by a divider wall. It's in the middle of a large 1-story building in IBM's huge RTP campus. There are no windows.

Robert's half is brightly lit by overhead office fluorescent lighting, has rows of server equipment on and under workbenches lining the walls, and two desks. Robert's desk has stacks of manuals and his personal collection of cigar wrappers taped to one side of the hutch (it's completely covered). The other desk is for Jim, who was laid off from our team but still works for IBM and sits there when he visits the site to work here. There is also a green pepper plant growing in a pot filled with used coffee grounds and dirt from the parking lot. It actually produces peppers at a rate of 1 or 2 every month or so... without natural sunlight! It came to be when Jim decided to plant some seeds from a green pepper he bought at the supermarket. It has been living in here for about 3-4 years.

Roughly in between are bookcases filled with manuals and books about everything, shelving with spare parts for servers, fridge, microwave, a b/w laser printer, and a color laser.

My half is dimly lit. I have the fluorescent lighting off (I HATES IT) and a single halogen sconce going. Stacks of new Thinkpads (for an acquisition we're working on) up to chest height are in one part of the floor. Two full server racks and one half-height hold servers. Stuffed Beeker (Muppets), THINK placard, and a formula 1-shaped pez dispenser (most of the time it's empty) are on my desk along with test systems and my Thinkpad. IBM e-promotions (eVulcan, eSpidey, eTC.) are on the walls. My workbenches are organized haphazardly around stacks of equipment. I'll get my yearly re-organization time over Christmas week... I hope.

Culture-wise it's me and Robert working in here. Occasionally Jim is in or someone stops by. We're busier than hell, but you'll hear music playing (sometimes LOUDLY on Fridays). We each have a badge-enabled door on our half of the lab, and turn the readers off and motion-sensors/alarms on when we leave for the day. We control the access list. It's rather insular... I suppose that's nerd heaven.

Culture = Very small company, but been around for a very long time. Think Northern Exposure or any other oddball sketch comedy.

Color/decoration = base color scheme on walls is an ecru color with sage green accent walls. Carpet is sage and gray in dotty abstract pattern. Cube walls are gray. Cubes are arranged so as to give as many people as possible a view outside. Art is a combination of stuff gathered by the CEO over the years. The one closest to my area is an E-sized print of "Color Study of Squares with Concentric Circles" by Kandinsky right in the middle of one of those green walls. It definately livens up the place.

Architectural Layout = Sealed off and locked down NOC backed up against a kitchen/fileroom ringed with several open areas which are in turn surrounded by around the rim by offices and workrooms. Wall upon wall of books.

There are cubes in the open areas broken up into small islands here and there. They're filled by function with a secondary thought to personality/working quirks. So the content QC staff are in a cluster of cubes over by their boss, the customer service rep has an office so she doesn't have to deal with everyone and try to talk on the phone. The dev staff and testing labs is off in a sort of alcove area by itself with a cube complex that gives us the ability to talk easily and to have all our test machines arranged in logical functional groups but sort of off the beaten path so if the code review gets a little pointed it won't frighten the horses.

And the marketing guy is in an office on the exact geometric opposite end of things and he has to get past the CTO and the President of the company to get to us directly. We've had our fun in this arena, too, and I don't know if rearranging the deck chairs is going to help much with that whole marketing vs dev thing.

I'm fortunate to be working from home for the last few years so my office environment is exactly how I like it.

However, I much prefer the cube farm to the cattle pen (wide open areas) setup. In the open office setup it's noisy, you've no privacy and the various airborne plagues people bring to work with them spread like wildfire.

One of my best work environments was the cube quad setup. Basically a large square with high cube walls and 4 zones inside for 4 desks plus a common round table in the middle. Plunk 4 team members together and they can work privately or come together at the round table for ad hoc discussions, etc.

Workplace amenities are nice too, free pop/juice/water vending machines, free (preferable good!) coffee, snacks or even decent full blown cafeterias. I know many offices are starting to add onsite gyms and the like too.

Oh and for us programmer geeks, quality infrastructure makes us all warm and fuzzy. Decent chair, fast PC, nice big high rez monitor or three and a network that doesn't feel gerbil powered!

Laid back, wear whatever you want to work. Open atmosphere for conversation. As long as you meet deadlines everything is gravy. I haven't been to the main office(CA) but I'm sure it a much bigger production since the creative staff is there.

I work in the dead center of the upstaris, which consistes of 2 conference rooms, 2 offices, and a open area with 7 cubes and a center table. Its all gray with a lot of pictures of robots and nature paintings. Currently being contrat I get zero privacy since I am working at a desk that is in the center open area.

I went from working at a Communications/TV company where they had the 1/2 cubes but everything was totally relaxed and windows everywhere. Nerf dart guns and you could wear shorts/sandals everyday if you wanted; to a large chemical company where while the dress is buisness casual there's only windows on one floor that is the lunch room. If i dont go in there i have no idea what's up outside. They've got the typical cube farm layout and for some reason this week the white noise they pump in has been freaking out. Sounds like someone is practicing their scratching techniques. Still for it being a somewhat straightlaced company its not bad.

We have a big open floor plan of desks... a la google.

Except we don't have the cool stuff that Google does, you know, crazy stock options, chegs... etc.

I quite like it cause I can look across the floor and see if someone I need is at their desk.

~200 people in an open-cube farm environment. No high walls, occasional Nerf weaponry will hit my desk. The Network Operations Center has that Nerf Sniper rifle however I haven't had to fend it off yet. Our head honcho models much of the business after google, offering in-office laundry facilities, a full time Chef, and the ability to bring your dog to work if you wish.

That said the atmosphere for us in CS is fairly laid back, and we all get along decently. And Office functions are always fun.

I'm the 4th member. The cynical anti-hero clutching his head with both hands to keep the screaming inside.

Boring Communal Cube Farm...Nothing makes you feel all cozy like a...well not this place lol.

Things I noticed when they changed the building I was in from offices to cube farm:

* White noise gives some people (including me) headaches
* Florescent lights are no substitute for natural light
* Not enough overhead light can be remedied by personal lamps, the same is not
true about too much overhead light.
* Don't paint the walls red - we were in 4 connected buildings and they color
coded each building so you knew which one you were in by the color of the walls.
The people in the red building really did get upset more often.
* Carpet should not resemble a Magic-Eye picture or spinning pin wheel. We had
people who got dizzy from the patterns
* Carpets with "line" patterns should follow the same flow as the traffic pattern.
Otherwise you can't read and walk at the same time.
* Engineers will dismantle cube walls into cube windows.