May 12, 2006 9:15 AM

Thinking inside the box
Posted by Douglas Eisenhartat 9:15 AM

The story seems to be filtering its way out now and was picked up by FORTUNE magazine writer Julie Schlosser in March. Turns out the inventor of that oft-maligned staple of contemporary office life, the cubicle, died a few years back. And just before he passed away, he had a confession to make:

Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."

Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence.

Sound boring? You're wrong. There's a good chance that you're one of the millions of workers who spend the majority of their waking hours cooped up in some variation of Propst's invention, so you owe it to yourself to learn a little more about your immediate environment. There is also an interesting photo gallery of cubicles through the years.

Once you're fully inspired, let us know your own thoughts on cubicle life.