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Rats in a Rage

Rob Walker
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2001, at 4:25 PM ET
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty

This past November, a study released by a firm called Integra Realty Resources painted a picture of a stressed-out American work force increasingly prone to "desk rage," manifested in shouting matches and even violence. Stories appeared in USA Today and elsewhere, and the issue resurfaces today in the Wall Street Journal under the headline "Increasing Incidents of 'Desk Rage' Disrupt Offices." (Actually there was an earlier bout of publicity about desk rage as well stemming from an earlier survey in the U.K.)

So what is the culprit, what is causing all this anger and stress in the workplace? You'll be startled to hear that one of the problems the realty company that commissioned this study found is limited physical space in the workplace. Apparently corporate America needs to increase its real estate holdings for the betterment of our civil culture. Reports about the study invariably pass along Integra Realty's concern about the "Dilbertization" of the American workplace: a nation stuffed into small, identical cubicles, squeezing a stress ball and wishing for enough privacy to make a personal phone call or finish reading Moneybox without being accused of sloughing off.

Right, then: Who is to blame for this abomination, for the plight of all these white-collar workers trapped in a doorless, windowless, dehumanizing maze? Actually, according to the New York Times obituary of William Hewlett last week, desk ragers can grind their teeth at the legendary founders of the seminal American tech company. "Hewlett-Packard pioneered the 'open plan,' office in Silicon Valley," writes John Markoff. "It was a way of organizing an open workplace without doors where employees were separated only by low-rise dividers." And come to think of it, for the last few years, hasn't practically every glowing report about this or that exciting new startup noted with approval the lack of walls, the teamwork-enhancing togetherness of the open floor filled with cubicles?

So much for that, I guess. Obviously there's nothing funny or trivial about violence in the workplace, which I'm pretty sure is something that occurred long before realty firms started to study it. But there's something kind of astonishing about the speed with which the trappings of the New Economy seem to be going from innovations to culprits in some societal decay. As with so many examples of the hype-followed-by-backlash loop that we seem to be trapped in, both attempts to generalize about the greater significance of cubicles seem a little overdone.

Now get back to work.

Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.

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[Notes from the fray Editor: We were hoping for some dramatic stories of office rage, but what we got was workspace whining, which frankly we don't have to go to The Fray to hear. We're still pondering whether Tony Adragna, who says "I have, on occasion, snapped at my colleagues... I am limiting my comments to actual acts of Rage, as opposed to the type of conduct that is normally attributed to criminals", means that he has some good stories he's not telling, but probably not. Tony always sounds very reasonable. There was some nice stuff on "kennel effect" from Zeitguy, who tells us it's not so hard on him because he is an alpha male. Ratliff had this good point: "The so-called open space in the workplace only works if it's backed up by a corporate culture that's equally open, and most of them aren't, no matter how many cool toys are lying around." And the first poster, below, had the best Fray name of the week.]


It is not the design on the room that is the problem, it is the way people treat each other in the workplace. It is assumed by this article that if a person did not have a cubicle, they would have an office. That is not true. Before cubicles, there were open areas with metal desks in rows, on tile floors, and there was even less privacy, and it was noisy. With cubicles, at least there is visual privacy, more storage space, and noise deadening walls.

What is missing now is the lack of respect for each other, and lack of civility. That is what is to blame for so called "Cubicle Rage".

--Cubicles Don't Kill, People do

(To reply, click here.)


There are precisely two reasons for cubicles in American business:
1) They are cheap.
2) They send the unmistakable message that the inhabitants have little worth and are expendable.
It's little wonder that desk rage is so common.

--Gilker Kimmel

(To reply, click here.)


America has John F. Kennedy's 10% ITC (investment tax credit) to thank for cubicles, not H-P. Under the tax code, expenditures for cubicles were "equipment", and got the 10% credit, while the same money spent on a leased space-build out did not.

--Jim Woodhill

(To reply, click here.)


I am an American currently working in Japan. One of the biggest changes I had to deal with in adapting to a Japanese workplace was the absolute lack of privacy in the office. A Japanese office is, with few exceptions, a large room with desks simply grouped together according to department. There are no barriers whatsoever. Your colleagues are privy to every word you say on the phone, every pixel which appears on your computer screen, and every word which you write at your desk. Furthermore, personalizing your workplace is strongly discouraged, for example I have yet to see family photos on display at any desk since coming to Japan. I note all of this in contrast to the fact that the Japanese workplace is also an order of magnitude less violent than its American counterpart.

--Gabriel Carter

(To reply, click here.)

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