Concierto Cúbico

There are times throughout my extremely busy day in which I find myself sitting my cubicle with nothing but silence to keep me company.

During those times where I find myself sans radio and sans small talk with coworkers, I will sit back in my chair and concentrate on what my half of the floor is vocalizing.

Now if you think that listening to what the floor is saying is somewhat difficult, it really isn't. For better or worse, I work on an open floor. An "open floor" means that because the walls to the various cubicles are rather short (a shade under 5' 7"), sounds and conversations that under normal circumstances would be private, are in fact not.

Let me give you a travelogue of sorts.

For instance, I can hear during my break a loud conversation from the far corner of the floor drifting over to my cubicle. I can hear someone flipping through a pile of papers as they sort out time sheets to distribute to the various departments on payday.

Off to my left, I can hear a phone call or two being played out. A fax machine spitting out a ton of faxes. Above me, I can hear the quiet hum of the heating system seeping through the vents.

Elsewhere, someone is tapping away on their computer keyboard; a desk drawer being opened and rummaged through; someone wheeling their chair back and forth in their cubicle.

A phone is ringing and being answered; the elevator stopping at the floor with its specific dings stating whether they're going up or down. A printer is running a couple of print jobs and even with all of these sounds, I can still hear my computer doing its intermittent internal proccessing.

Sometimes, it can get so quiet on the floor that I can hear the bathroom door open and close, or even a private conversation in Spanish.

And sometimes during my work day, the floor comes alive with so much noise that I can often lose my place in whatever I'm doing at the moment.

What kind of noise?

When a bi-weekly management meeting concludes, everyone comes pouring out of the room with tons of energy and loads of motivation. Extremely loud conversations as people are talking over one another trying to get their point across.

Or, during the holiday season, or even if some is retiring, I can often hear the various celebrations and good times seeping through the closed doors and make it back to my cubicle.

And even though I sit next to a widow on the 8th floor and I'm pretty much insulated from the outside world, sometimes the outside world is loud enough to pierce through the windows to make themselves known.

Finally, at the end of the day is what I like best. The floor slowly goes silent as it carefully regurgitates its current occupants so that its inner chi can be restored to a normal balance.

My friends, thus ends the Concierto Cúbico. I trust that this piece of of avant garde music didn't turn you off and instead opened your mind to the endless possibilities of the complex world we call sound.