Cubism.
"The cubicle was not born evil, or even square. It began, in fact, as a beautiful vision. The year was 1968. Nixon won the presidency. The Beatles released The White Album. And home-furnishings company Herman Miller (Research) in Zeeland, Mich., launched the Action Office. It was the brainchild of Bob Propst, a Coloradan who had joined the company as director of research." (Propst would later deem his invention "monolithic insanity.") Fortune's Julie Schlosser recounts the ignominious rise of the cubicle as the bane of the American workplace. "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."
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Ah, cubicles.... I SO remember working for a Fortune 500 company in the city where you knew you were a "somebody" when you had a job that merited a cubicle with a mini-conference table in it, rather than the "regular" ones with just the regular seat.
Also, memories of the "decoration police", who would come around from time to time to make you remove any obvious attempts at self expression. I think you were allowed one small photograph....
We used to really upset them with those little cubicle basketball hoops, and of course the beachballs..... heh heh.