Last Updated on February 19, 2026 by Dave Farquhar
Every once in a while at work I hear something that should have been a line out of Office Space.
The line? “You’re not supposed to work at your desks.”
What, pray tell, are we supposed to do there, then? Drink beer and play cards?Some context: My group is being moved. Someone other than our supervisor is designing the new layout. Our supervisor is trying to nix the current proposal.
The line with immortality written all over it was a response to his complaint that the layout didn’t have enough desk space for everyone. There was enough room for a monitor and a keyboard, and not much else.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
Most of these "ergonomic specialists" or "facilities managers" don’t have a clue about human interaction or the synergy that can result from it. Apparently, your guy "got the memo".