I've noticed a few things about office life in my small tenure, all of them being complete uniques that as a whole create this thing called 'Office Dwelling'.
One of the first and formost being the elevator silence; sure we've all experienced it, but when you're an office dweller, you experience it 5 times a day at least. It goes something like this: you and your 'colleague' are chatting about something, about to hop on the elevator, when lo and behold the door opens up and its got people in it. A rift in the space time continuim occurs here, your conversation stops, no matter how intense it was at the time the elevator open, and everyone - including you and your 'colleague' - just stand there and stare blankly, heads titled at forty-five degrees, looking at the little current floor readout. The second you hit your floor and get out, the conversation starts back off right where it ended and no one even blinks at it. Dave says that in phsyc curriculums in college, they have entire classes on 'Elevator Behaviour', I believe it.
Another anomonaly is desk arrangement. I'll start this one off by saying if you're in a cubicle, you already know your station in life (or in the office rather). But, if your have your own desk in an open office (or even your own office for that matter), here's a sure fire way to tell whether or not you're a scrub or a man of stature: if your desk faces a wall, you're a grunt; if your desk faces a door or a couple of chairs, you're a real player. To recap: facing wall - peon; facing open space - not a person that will be replaced if the shit hits the fan. Now this isn't a dig at your skillz in your chosen craft, its just simple office politics.
Well, this is getting kinda lengthy, and I have some work to finish, so I'll be adding to this from time to time I guess.
Feel free to post your own astute observations about this way of life in the comments.
