Improve Your Office Day 2023: Date, History, Facts about Cubicle

Enhance Your Office Day, observed annually on October 4, is the day when we declutter and make our workstation more productive — and if necessary, cheer up our offices! The origin of the concept of an office is the medieval monks’ scriptorium, a location for writing. In the 18th century, when the East India Company required a “bureaucracy to process information and make decisions” for its newly acquired empire in India, the concept was formalized. Over the years, the office has undergone various designs, sizes, and philosophies, but it has always been within a designated building.

The background of Improve Your Office Day

The office has come to refer to any location where we complete our work, including office buildings, coworking spaces, Starbucks, the library, and even our homes. The office has a history, and it has not always been the way it is today.

In the 15th century, medieval priests created the first workplace. The “scriptorium” was a cubicle-style desk used by common scribes and illuminators to copy manuscripts. We do not know how the office evolved after this point. Prior to the advent of purpose-built office buildings, however, business proprietors performed their office work — primarily clerical tasks — in the homes above their shops. This includes families such as the Rothschilds and Barings.

When the first purpose-built offices, the Old Admiralty Buildings, opened in 1726, the way people worked changed. When the East India Company established its headquarters on Leadenhall Street in the middle of the eighteenth century, other corporations followed suit.

The 20th century introduced an era that transformed the office into what it is today. Open plan office, Bürolandschaft (office landscape), and Action Office were succeeded by the much-maligned cubicle farm, business centers, coworking spaces, and ultimately remote work. The commercialization of the light bulb at the beginning of the 20th century and the advent of mobile phones and personal computers enabled longer work hours and blurred the line between work and personal life.

Employers and employees alike have observed Improve Your Office Day on October 4 for years to make their workplaces more productive.

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5 UNCOMMON FACTS ABOUT THE CUBICLE

Although cubicles were originally intended to give workers more control over their workstations, they evolved into what they are today when businesses realized they could save money by placing workers in smaller, enclosed enclosures.

While the original cubicle concept was lauded as the pinnacle of office freedom, it has since become synonymous with a repressive work environment, and thus has lost much of its appeal.

Action Office, the original cubicle design, included standing desks, which are now extensively used in corporate organizations, primarily in the tech industry.

In 2007, a press release disclosed that many Americans believed that their bathroom was larger than their workplace.

Robert Propst, the inventor of the cubicle, referred to the perversion of his creation as “monolithic insanity.”

IMPROVE YOUR OFFICE DAY DATES