The Cubby

We have this lab at work. Actually, it is a closet with network connections. We call it the cubby. It is not wide enough for people to sit at the opposite facing tables without doing the bump every time someone moves.

It has become one of the more popular labs. Today there were four people in this tiny space trying to work on different things at the same time. It is the only lab with an internet connection. There are times that is required for work on computers. There is no phone and thus, someone in this lab has a very hard time hearing any announcements over the address systems. This may be a plus or a minus.

There is a rickety shelf in the cubby that contains everything electronic that is left over from hardware purchases. There are  a hundred cables of strange descriptions with a few notable exceptions. Power cords have their own box. Network cords are sorted and kept elsewhere. There are mice, keyboards, drive cables, face plates and any other kind of junk  that came with a computer and was not needed at that moment on this shelf that was about to fall over when it was first constructed. It looks like the shelf was assembled from miscellaneous bits.

The tables are folding tables for the most part. This is no big deal because all our tables are these folding tables. However, there is one of these folding tables, broken, leaning against one wall. This is to prevent anyone from putting weight on that table and killing one or more of our employees in the process.

The chairs in the cubby are the dregs left over from the rest of the building. One is old, orange, no wheels, looks like it came straight out of a cheep dentist's waiting room and smells funny. Another is lopsided and doesn't roll, or go up and down any more. Another is a perfectly serviceable  folding chair, which is bad enough on it's own.

A guy who no longer works at our company created the space to use for setting up workstations and servers. This was the primary use of the area. For about a year or more the area was used pretty much exclusively for this purpose. Now it falls under miscellaneous.

There is one other attribute that makes this lab a bit different than any other lab. It is open on one side to a large room. When there are computers running in the cubby, you naturally speak louder over the computers. This causes someone on the other side of the large room, or in one of the close offices to hear every whisper.

The cubby was made official when it was given an office designation in our computer database. This is an attempt to find things as they vanish following daily use by a developer.