Nearly a decade later this shit is still so frustrating to think about. As soon as the cubes went up, all of the original employees were gone within a year.
The kids they hired were fresh out of 2 year art school (the only way to find people willing to accept salaries $10K below the average) and the most important thing to them was to feel like they were working with friends. The moment we moved to new offices they bought cubes for all the employees (which everyone protested as making them feel isolated from their coworkers and alone all day) and locked themselves away behind office doors. They insisted on conformity to their style rather than understanding the limitations and gifts of their employees and focusing on those in order to make everyone happier and more productive.įor instance, we all started working in the same room in a small office. I'm sure they were quietly seething every time I wasn't there at precisely 8am because that's when they told me to be there. And they did have a HUGE problem with anything that seemed like a slight to their ultimate authority over all their employees. When we asked Medscape readers to send us photographs of themselves wearing their nurses' caps for this slideshow, we got so many responses that we had to present it in 3 parts. Always being 15 minutes late kept me nervous about my status and gave them something to hold over me.
I really think you hit the nail on the head. It's been about 8 years since I worked for those guys and I think you've just given me some real insight into their mindset that I didn't have before.
