Your kid is not Davinci...

I'm pretty sure my coworkers are obsessed with their kids beyond any natural or sane level. It isn't hard to notice who has a kid and who doesn't on my floor. There is artwork decorated with crayons, markers, or pastels in practically every office or cubicle. It really is annoying because it's just a celebration of mediocrity in my opinion. That's fine if you want to tell your kids how great of an artist he or she is for the piece of crap that they created but don't subject everyone at work to more than 1 or 2 pieces. Just put it on your fridge for the only people in the world who actually appreciate it…you, your significant other and the kid.
I recently strolled to the back side of the floor during one of my periods of boredom and walked by this particular office, only to have to backtrack and stare in complete awe. This lady had at least 5 pictures of crappy kid artwork hanging on her walls…some of it even framed!! On her desk she had construction paper hearts speckled with bright tissue paper next to boats made out of popsicle sticks. These are just a few of the items she had and judging from the pictures on her desk, she only had one kid! God knows what her office would look like if she procreates again. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that she loves her kids so much, but nobody wants to see all that stuff when they walk by your office. Furthermore, I think it's a tad unprofessional. So your boss walks in and it looks like she just walked into peewee's playhouse.
This other coworker around the corner from me has these monster size blown- up photos of her sons all over the walls of her cubicle. I purposely take the path to get to my desk that can avoid seeing them each morning. It's just creepy looking and I feel like ripping them down each time I walk in to work. On the other hand, I do feel bad for the lady who apparently doesn't have any kids. To compensate, she has about 12 pictures of her dogs and cats decorating her cubicle and it's just sad to say the least.

Cubicle Code of Ethics

I’m going to veer off my usual topics to write about something that has been annoying me to no end lately. So my boss, I call him Pop-In because he is a fan of randomly popping his head into my cubicle to ask for status reports or just to talk about anything under the sun whenever the whim hits him, has this nasty habit of invading my cubicle space. Yesterday he did this and it was beyond awkward considering after I finished telling him about the status of my current assignment, he kind of just stood there bobbing his head and saying, “yep” for another 5 minutes. This uncomfortable encounter is usually limited to every 3 to 4 days, which makes it bearable. However, this morning he popped in again!! This time he began to ask me how my night went. WTH…I’m not discussing my personal life with my boss on any level. Imagine if I told him what I really did: met a stranger at the bar, went home with him only to find out he was a SVP at a Fortune 500…ok, so that didn't really happen to me but hey!...a girl can dream.
Regardless, it made me think why people don’t think before they invade someone’s space. Yes, I work out of a cubicle, but just b/c I’m out in the open does not give everyone the right to make me have a conversation with them whenever the mood hits them. When he doesn’t feel like being bothered, he just shuts his door. This is so unfair and I think people should observe the following code of cubicle ethics in the office:

1. Always send an email prior to just stopping by for status updates. This gives the person enough time to contrive some story of their progress, even if they were just on people.com or facebook for the past hour. Putting people on the spot is just not cool at all
2. If I have my headphones on and what you have to say is not important, just go in your office and revert back to rule #1.
3. If I’m on the phone, even if it is a personal call, do not stand there and just wait for me to get off.
4. It is rude to place a subordinate’s cubicle directly in front of their boss. Constant minimizing of windows that aren't work related gets really annoying and lets be honest, everyone slacks off 50% of the day.
5. Just because you have to walk by someone’s cube to get to a common area, do not look into their space every time you walk by. It makes the person feel like you’re keeping tabs on her. Keep your eyes forward!

Geez, I really hate to have written this but I just felt like it needed to be put out there. Some days it really makes me want to dig a hole in the floor and escape. (Since my boss is across from me I can't walk out and leave without him seeing me) I might just decide to buy one of those “Do Not Disturb” signs to hang on the outside of my cubicle to prevent all of this.