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I once worked under similar conditions. It was at a very small software company, they made a chiropractic practice management app and I was on the support team.

I once worked under similar conditions. It was at a very small software company, they made a chiropractic practice management app and I was on the support team. There were four of us on the team, including our manager, and our cubicles were in a cross shape with two open sides each. My cubicle had my back wide open to the CEO's and lead programmer/VP's offices, so if either of them walked out of the office they could see my screen. I never had anything not work-related on my screen, but I was big into anime at the time and so my wallpaper was SE: Lain or Cowboy Bebop or Robotech or whatever, depending on my mood that day. Anyway, I was the butt of a lot of jokes when I'd close out of a full screen app and one of them would walk by and see it. It's a bit dehumanizing to have the two most important people in the company make fun of you at the lunch table every day. "Hey Morgan, which cartoons are you watching now?" "My 5 year old can recommend some for you" and so on. Yeah, I was a college kid and all my peers were into anime too, but it stings when your bosses make fun of you every day. If we had had a more sensible cubicle layout with our screens facing away from the entrance, it would have been a less stressful job.

meric 12y ago
"That's a playground tease right there. My kid can show you better ways to do it."
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Yeah, I was a college kid and all my peers were into anime too, but it stings when your bosses make fun of you every day. If we had had a more sensible cubicle layout with our screens facing away from the entrance, it would have been a less stressful job. Or if you had bosses with a modicum of respect for their employees, independent of cubicle arrangement.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  Yeah, the cubicle configuration was only part of the problem. Early on I had expressed an interest in learning to code (I was taking SQL and Java programming classes alongside my regular courses in college at the time), and I approached the lead programmer/VP with this desire. He said he'd get back to me on it, that they had no problem with training me up to work on the codebase since they needed fresh eyes on it. The next day he drops about a ream of printed paper on my desk and said I should "study this code" and let him know what I thought of it. It wasn't code of course; it was old garbage data they used to test the program. Not a single line of actual code, just pages and pages of test data. I felt it was equivalent to an adult handing their toddler a toy cellphone to keep them occupied. Needless to say, I quit working there once I was out of school, and went back to government work.

meric 12y ago

"That's a playground tease right there. My kid can show you better ways to do it."

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Yeah, I was a college kid and all my peers were into anime too, but it stings when your bosses make fun of you every day. If we had had a more sensible cubicle layout with our screens facing away from the entrance, it would have been a less stressful job. Or if you had bosses with a modicum of respect for their employees, independent of cubicle arrangement.

morganvachon 12y ago
Yeah, the cubicle configuration was only part of the problem. Early on I had expressed an interest in learning to code (I was taking SQL and Java programming classes alongside my regular courses in college at the time), and I approached the lead programmer/VP with this desire. He said he'd get back to me on it, that they had no problem with training me up to work on the codebase since they needed fresh eyes on it. The next day he drops about a ream of printed paper on my desk and said I should "study this code" and let him know what I thought of it. It wasn't code of course; it was old garbage data they used to test the program. Not a single line of actual code, just pages and pages of test data. I felt it was equivalent to an adult handing their toddler a toy cellphone to keep them occupied. Needless to say, I quit working there once I was out of school, and went back to government work.