“Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”  – Peter Gibbons, Office Space

I never really appreciated the value of color, beauty, and being sensitive to human desires until I had them almost fully taken away from me. I am fresh off of my first and hopefully last large corporate job, and that kick to the pants was one of the best thing that has ever happened to me. I worked here:

Approximately 15,000 employees. Hearsay pegs it as the second largest building by useable office floor space in the country (the Pentagon being the first). Five wide floors — each an arid wasteland of cubicles literally as far as the eye can see.

Humans are not made for life like that. We need beauty and creative outlets. Inordinate amounts of process design and modular space is logical and maybe good for a corporation, but is it good for the humans creating it??

Life’s too short! Change everything if you must to escape! Burn your cubicle!