The Meaning of Cubicle

Now that Simon has moved to QA and I have not, the cubicle by the window is now open. My boss Willard set up a competition which we would get ten minutes to explain in 1000 words or less why we are deserving of the cubicle. Honest to gawd, the following was my submission (only the names changed):

Willard,

Once upon a time, I saw a sign on the street. It said, “Office furniture and ‘cubicles’ for sale. I couldn’t help but notice that they put the word “cubicle” in quotation marks and I asked myself why they did so. Has the word ‘cubicle’ not really not entered our collective consciousness to the degree that we still need to put quotation marks around it? Is there a reason that we should doubt the terminology involved? Is this a euphemism for darker things? But what could “cubicle” be a euphemism for? The dark hole in which one spends his days? And yet I can’t help but feel that a cubicle is a cubicle is a cubicle. Not that they’re all the same mind you – I relate all of this to you in a campaign in order to achieve the High Cubicle By The Window after all – but a cubicle is generally defined as three or four walls in a desk. I’m not sure why it’s called a cubicle when it’s actually square, unless you count the third dimension, but if you’re counting height off the ground then my head is actually above the cubicle and therefore either I extend slightly beyond the size of my “cube” or I am hitting my head without realizing it.

But yet the term is strange. Am I to doubt the cubicleness of the place we work? If it is in fact a cube, aren’t height, width, and physical height supposed to be the same? I don’t have time to get out a tape measure for ours, but it might be 4x4x4’ and thus fit the definition completely. And yet other cubicles in this office do not share all three dimensions of the same size. Is there such a thing as rectangubal? I knew I should have paid more attention in geometry class instead of passing notes with my new-fangled (at the time) graphing calculator.

But by virtue of the fact that I put so much thought into things involving cubicles, and by virtue of the fact that I want it, and by virtue of the fact that Marcel is the only other full-time employee with more experience and he has conceded to my desire for the cube, and by virtue of the fact that Edgar thinks I should have it, and by virtue of the fact that I want it, and by virtue of the fact that I need the leg room (let us forget for a moment that the leg room is the same), I should get it.

Thank you for your consideration,

Will

I won.