I’ve been trying to figure out how the design style office-drab came about. You know what I’m talking about–white noise, indirect lighting, no plants, rows of beige cubicles… Well, I’ve finally figured it out.

The core assumption underlying this style of interior design is the belief that workers will do their assigned tasks if there’s nothing around them that is more exciting or stimulating than the tasks themselves. Taken another way, if you introduce anything interesting into their environment, workers will reduce their output effectiveness in proportion to the novelty of the change.

Damn brilliant, I say! And here I thought it was just poor taste.

I now understand the significance of a recent Internet access policy I heard about. It was nothing extraordinary, just the usual filtering of sites like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, eBay, and some sports and celebrity gossip sites. Those affected were receptionists and clerical staff–9 to 5ers. Clearly, if you give them nothing else to do with their time, they’ll do their work.

Who said management was hard?

(However, I am struggling a bit with this.)

- Bandit