Cube farms.

"I'm like an animal! I'm in a cage! This is inhumane!"

Each cube contains a phone. Most of these cubes also contain one person that must turn their ringer up loud. This way, if they aren't in their cube, they can hear their phone ring and run back to answer it in time and therefore not miss as many calls. Many instances though, throughout the day, these people are not near their cubes and the phone rings and rings and rings until the voicemail picks it up.

Does the thought ever occur to these people that incessant, loud phone ringing might disrupt their cube neighbors?

There is a function on phones called "send all calls." When you press this button, calls ring once and then go directly to voicemail. Why don't people use it? Especially when you leave for two weeks to go on vacation. Some will argue, "but I have children at home and I need to answer the phone in case there's an emergency." Well, when you are gossiping with a group three rows up and five rows to the left and can't hear your phone ringing over everyone else's phone...your kid is calling until they get voicemail, then calling right back and calling right back and calling right back.



A cube neighbor can only take so much, so they might enter your personal cube space and push the "send all calls" button to save their sanity.

Here's the question: is that neighbor obligated to leave a large, obvious note stating that their "send calls" feature was engaged?

The neighbor did enter personal cube space and modify an important setting. The person may return to their cube and miss their first call because they hadn't realized the "send calls" feature was on. But didn't that person's phone violate their neighbors personal cube space with it's obnoxious ringing? Didn't that person exhibit disregard for their neighbors?

To be politically correct, yes. The problem with that is that you will then be obligated to do the same thing in the future.

I recommend ripping the cord from the wall and throwing it and the phone in the trash can. It may not be PC but it will have a better chance of solving your problem.

awe reminds me:

Doubtful, this kind of person tends to think about only themselves and nobody else.




Skip the note and just keep doing it every time they leave, better yet if you can turn off the ringer try that.

Have you asked the person to turn down the ringer or use this send all calls feature? I'd do this first.

...or you could just phart in the persons cube...

I'd probably just ask the person: "Do you know there is a 'send all calls' feature?'

If that didn't work, the next time the person was running for their loud, ringing phone, I'd shout:

*Expletive!* That phone is driving me nuts! Turn that *expletive* down!

This is why I don't have a lot of friends.

You sound like me.

I don't want to be there (work) and I am there to do my job and make money not to make friends. IF people did their jobs to the best of their ability I might not give them such a hard time.

My cube neighbor evidently expects me to catch her phone if it rings while she's away, and it's never job related calls. So I've quit answering it.

I would say something to them.

My manager has the most annoying ringtone (we have VOIP phones with lots of options). Sounds like a siren running on low batteries. Whaa whaa whaa whaa whhaaaaaaaaoooooo.

This have been my first job (intern actually) in a cube. They suck! I hate having to hear everyone's business AND personal converstations. I find it very hard to concentrate.

I'll take all your phone problems! The guy in the office next to me loves thai food and once or twice a week our entire area smells like a mixture of curry, b.o., and some other mystery smell. These are also usually the days he has some personal drama that he feels he must share with me in my office! What is the etiquette
on telling someone they STINK!? I am almost to the point of spraying him with a can of lysol and hoping he gets the hint. Not sure H.R. would back me on that one though

My wife works in HR and has had to tell employees to bath (based on complaints). That can't be easy.

Being the person I am, I'd would've already asked him when was the last time he took a bath? And of course,if he asked the stupid question why,I know I'd be saying: cuz it's time to take another.
But,thats just me. I have no time to be all warm and fuzzy with goofballs.

"You *expletive* stink! Taking an *expletive* bath!"

The company would probably be sending you to "Sensitivity Training" for that remark!

I can hear the talk now, "Be kind to those who stink. Just because they don't believe in bathing, it doesn't give you the right to offend them by using expletives and yelling. It may be against their religious beliefs to bathe regularly."

thats the thing. I'm not the only one and i think someone did bring this up to a supervisor and they told her "what do you want me to do about it". The guy isn't a bad person but the curry and stink smell is OVERPOWERING

NY Times article about smelly co-workers

Found this somewhere:

Sure, Hold Your Nose, But Colleagues' Odors Pose Serious Problem

"Any body odors strong enough to spread beyond their perpetrators' cubicles are bound to upset colleagues. Unfortunately, options for dealing with them are awkward. It isn't simply that no one wants to hurt a colleague's feelings. It's also the knowledge that you will see the offender -- and he or she will see you -- forever, and neither of you will be able to forget the torturous conversation. As a result, many people just frown and bear the discomfort, forced into one of the office's countless endurance tests. But that doesn't change the fact that there can be some really bad smells at the office, and that they won't be able to be blamed on anyone's dog....Peter Post, director of the Emily Post Institute, maintains that it's best to tell people about their body odors. In a poll of more than 400 people, 75% of the respondents said they'd want to be notified by a friend if they smelled. 'They want to be told, so be a friend and tell them,' he says. But how best to do it? Privately, he says, adding that a good way to start might be: 'If the roles were reversed, I know I'd want you to talk to me about it.' One way or another, he adds, the idea is to convey that 'this issue has the potential to really reflect on you here at work.' No kidding. In a study done earlier this year, two-thirds of women believed their personal scent had an impact on their career success. 'In a very visceral way you're judged by how you smell,' concurs Alan Hirsch, a neurologist at Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, who conducted the study for Suave."

[Wall Street Journal | July 21, 2004 - requires subscription]

I would copy that & put it on the co-worker's desk.

glad I wear " Nantucket"

yum...... Thai food!!! Love that curry. Guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.....or should I say nose! jk

I used to go to this great place off Connecticut Ave just down from the zoo called The Thai Room. Someone told me they don't think it's there anymore. You wouldn't happen to know would you?

According to this website it is still there.

Thanks PHISH. Why didn't I think of that?

Be very careful about how you talk to folks like those; it could cause you to be involved in an incessant string of meetings. Here is MY story:

I'm contracts, and I'm in PA. The project controller is somewhere else in PA, and our billing folks are in CA. I have met slabs of granite that are smarter than the girl who does our billing. You send her contract documents that she asks for but then she says she never got them (even when you can show her a delivery receipt), and when she finally gets around to thinking about sending out an invoice, she starts telling me that I need to get changes to the contract because it doesn't fit the way she wants to bill it. But the way she wants to bill it is NEVER the right way.

I have a T&M contract that we finished at the end of September '05 that only amounted to $3500. She is thinking about sending out a 3rd invoice to bill some labor that she knew about in November. Apparently, she is billing one thing at a time; do you have any idea what it is costing the Company for her to do this? So, because I sent her an email inquiring why she has billed $3,500 in 3 separate invoices, she got upset and scheduled a phone conference to discuss it tomorrow with her, her supervisor, the head of accounts receivable, the project controller, and me to discuss how she's supposed to bill a $3,500 contract. And of course they have meetings scheduled all day and can't be available until 5:00 our time.

Makes you just want to reach thru the phone and slap her silly!