Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace

Written by Nikil Saval

Narrated by Stephen Hoye

You mean this place we go to five days a week has a history? Cubed reveals the unexplored yet surprising story of the places where most of the world's work—our work—gets done. From "Bartleby the Scrivener" to The Office, from the steno pool to the open-plan cubicle farm, Cubed is a fascinating, often funny, and sometimes disturbing anatomy of the white-collar world and how it came to be the way it is—and what it might become.

In the mid-nineteenth century clerks worked in small, dank spaces called “counting-houses.” These were all-male enclaves, where work was just paperwork. Most Americans considered clerks to be questionable dandies, who didn’t do “real work.” But the joke was on them: as the great historical shifts from agricultural to industrial economies took place, and then from industrial to information economies, the organization of the workplace evolved along with them—and the clerks took over. Offices became rationalized, designed for both greater efficiency in the accomplishments of clerical work and the enhancement of worker productivity. Women entered the office by the millions, and revolutionized the social world from within. Skyscrapers filled with office space came to tower over cities everywhere. Cubed opens our eyes to what is a truly "secret history" of changes so obvious and ubiquitous that we've hardly noticed them. From the wood-paneled executive suite to the advent of the cubicles where 60% of Americans now work (and 93% of them dislike it) to a not-too-distant future where we might work anywhere at any time (and perhaps all the time), Cubed excavates from popular books, movies, comic strips (Dilbert!), and a vast amount of management literature and business history, the reasons why our workplaces are the way they are—and how they might be better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9780804190961

Reviews for Cubed

[amylee39 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Too long, too much information and rather depressing. Blech.

[jen6e6moore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting little book on the history of office work - more architecture-and-design focused than I would have preferred, but illuminating nonetheless. (The more I read the more convinced I am that most of what passes for "work" in an office is 100% unnecessary in every way. But people gotta get paid, and for some reason we insist they spend 40+ hours a week doing it, so we keep making up things for them to do.)

[gregorybrown-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cubed is impeccably well-written, humming along at a steady pace, yet occasionally tepid in the earlier portions. Originally excerpted in N 1 (where Saval's an editor), the centerpiece of the book is an account of the cubicle's birth: originally designed to create a greater sense of freedom for the worker, but slowly whittled down until it achieved the very opposite.

To explain how the original ideals turned into a drab result, Saval has to deploy a methodology that serves as the template for the book as a whole, drawing from sociology, pop culture, and the economic determinants underlying both. At his best, Saval achieves the same kind of zeitgeist omniscience as Rick Perlstein's accounts of conservative history. But in some of the earlier chapters, this kind of omniscience can turn into a more drab New Yorker style, jumping from factoid to factoid without much of a thrust behind it. All the corners have been sanded off, which makes the prose a pleasure to read but lends it kind of a forgettable vibe.

After that account of the cubicle, though, Saval's book seems to become more lively and pointed, covering the rise of open offices and the latest playground-chic workplaces of Silicon Valley. And even the earlier parts have their own merits, taking the book's premise as a reason to detour through the introduction of women into the workplace, urbanization and suburbanization, and more. Saval's strength is in drawing out the sorta historical materialist reasons behind each change, even if he never gets close to that term.

All in all, the N 1 coterie continues to have an excellent batting-average when it comes to producing full-scale books—even if this work is pop enough to deploy a nonsensical subtitle. (300 pages later, I'm still waiting to find out what's "secret" about its history of the workplace.) Recommended!

[heatherwhitney-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great general overview of the changing nature of the workplace from the early 1800s to today. Given the sheet scope of coverage, don't expect a lot of in-depth analysis. That said, the author builds nicely. My biggest complaint is that the reference section is a bit light. Additional footnotes, to additional sources, would make this a particularly good reference work for those interested in the future of work in the United States.

That said, definitely worth reading for those interested in the relationship between work and workspace.

[ohernaes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A history of the office and office jobs, from nineteenth centtury clerks, to todays "knowledge workers", going through different management fads, worker aspirations and status, design ideas, office frustrations.