For the best negative shopper ever Introduction Someone wise once said (Okay, it was me, about a minute ago), "Never sit for eight hours a day in a fabric-covered box that someone else paid for." And then it hit me. I finally figured out what's wrong with the whole cubicle concept: Communism. That's right; cubicles are a form of communism. Think about it. You don't own your cubicle—the "state" does. Well, technically your stockholders own the cubicle, not the state, but it's the same problem. Because the people who pay for your cubicle don't have to sit in it, there's no incentive for cubicles to be all that they can be. It's no wonder they're bleak and dingy. Maybe it's time to lift the yoke of communism from the oppressed cubicle masses. I say every employee should own his or her cubicle and take it along to every new assignment. The cubicle of the future would be modular so you can easily relocate it and customize it to taste. Sure, this new system would introduce some annoying eccentricities into the system. Every person would have a different idea of what the perfect cubicle should be. Your neighbors might have low-rider cubicles and Barbie-themed cubicles and maybe the clothing-optional, disco cubicles. But that's a small price to pay for the freedom to customize your own workspace. I would decorate my cubicle like the inside of a womb, except with better electronic gadgetry. I wouldn't need a chair. I'd just curl up in a fetal position near my keyboard. When you're in a womb, it feels as if your life is full of possibilities and all of them are ahead of you. You feel warm and fed and loved. And I think I'd put censors at the doorway (the design of which I shall not describe), so that when I left my womb-cube a motherly voice would scream as if giving birth. It might annoy my cubicle neighbors, but we can take that up at the next meeting of the Cube-Owners Association. Scott Adams