Working Woman magazine essayist Ellen Hopkins asks the profound question: ”Does your office say bad things about you?”
According to Hopkins, there are three approaches to office decor:
– The substitute home/Edwardian social club is a power office in which everything-rugs, furniture, pictures, knickknacks-”is the real McCoy.”
Hopkins is particularly fascinated by workers who toil ”on Louis-something tables rather than desks. The absence of drawers makes me nervous; it`s as though the room were haunted by the ghost of Leona proclaiming, `Only the little people have drawers.` ”
– The Peter Pans re-create the college dorm rooms in their offices, on the theory that ”I`d never dream of putting X in my home because it`s too silly, cheap, fake, proselytizing, ugly, weird, but for my office, it`s just the ticket. . . . Decorating the office becomes a chance to shed tastefulness, a chance to grandstand” by displaying trophies and awards and ”a chance to reinvent yourself as the popular jerk you half-envied” in college.
– The form-function office is created by a worker who thinks ”that bare walls and peak productivity have a cause-and-effect relationship.`
