THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Saddest Offices in the World Contest Winners (or Losers)

Posted by Heidi Schwartz
Originally published on 11/9/2007, this story is part of FacilityBlog’s Throwback Thursday offering.

This post comes courtesy of Wired magazine, which runs an annual Saddest-Cubicle contest. And since Wired caters to the IT audience, nearly all of the finalists were submitted by poor souls from that profession.

Pictured here is the winner, submitted by David Gunnells (who also supplied the photo). Julie Sloane of Wired, writes,

David Gunnells is an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His desk is penned in by heavily used filing cabinets in a windowless conference room, near a poorly ventilated bathroom and a microwave. The overhead light doesn’t work — his mother-in-law was so saddened by his cube that she gave him a lamp — and the other side of the wall is a parking garage. Gunnells recalls a day when one co-worker reheated catfish in the microwave, while another used the bathroom and covered the smell with a stinky air freshener.

For the other 10 finalists, click this link.

Personally, I think the IT contractor inside a 40-foot steel cargo container is worse than this. Have you put anyone in a work station worthy of this (dis)honor?

After seeing these entries, I have come to the following conclusion: some facility professionals should be ashamed (particularly those at the facilities featured in this segment). The sad thing is, I’m sure we’ve all “worked” in a similarly dismal setup at one point in time. I know I have.