There is growing concern that vitamin D deficiency is linked to a list of serious health problems, from coronary disease to the lesser seasonal affective disorder. Vitamin D deficiency is often caused by lack of exposure to sunlight, thus seasonal affective disorders are most prevalent in the winter. Hence, the "winter blues". To make up for the lack of sun, experts encourage vitamin D supplement usage.
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This guy didn't bring a grill to work.
While this may be effective for the "winter blues", it can't cure the summer version of this disorder. Seasonal affective disorders in the summer are caused by employees forced to sit inside a miserable cubicle for 8-15 hours per day, resulting in lack of summer sunshine. Some call it the "summer blues", others (me) call it the Summer Cubicle Funk, and the only prescription is catching more rays during work hours.
Summer Cubicle Funk (SCF), is both a mental, and sometimes physical illness, that affects millions of people working in cubicles across the world. The name of this illness should not be mistaken for Cubicle Swass Funk, the name for the foul smell emitting from cubicles during the hot months when swass production is in high gear. To find out if you have Summer Cubicle Funk, click here to take the 'Got Summer Cubicle Funk?' quiz.
To help prevent Summer Cubicle Funk, here are 5 ways to get more time under the sun and less time in your cube:
1. Bring your gas grill to work and park it on the top floor of your parking ramp. No one parks up there anyway, especially after 20% of the staff was laid off. If you don't have a ramp, just use the empty corner of the parking lot. If you work downtown, get access to the top of your building and build a grill. Invite your work posse to go grill out every afternoon for a two-hour lunch. Make sure to keep it on the down low. Non-posse members just make it too difficult to find PC conversation topics.
How to upgrade: Cheddarwurst, a Sony boombox from 1985 that runs on D batteries and has double bass boost, lawn chairs, alcohol, Frisbeer (the greatest outdoor drinking game known to man. Side note: Using bricks as your pedestals could be dangerous after a couple beers. Bricks, faces, and alcohol are not a good combination).
2. If your office is equipped with wireless internet, scope out the wifi signal around the corporate campus lawn. Though your work may not allow working from home, the campus lawn should not be considered working remote. If a VPN connection is unnecessary, you aren't remote. It's called the wifi safe zone. Hiding in the corporate campus lawn is also a tactic used for sleeping during work.
How to upgrade: Two words - Slip and slide. Three words.
3. If your manager allows working from home for "extenuating circumstances", start compiling a list of fake circumstances to use on days when the forecast looks good. Upon approval, kick back and work from your deck. A few ideas to start your list:
a. "My kid is home sick, but I should be able to squeeze in working from home."
b. "My garage door is broken, the manual option is stuck, and my car is stuck inside the garage." When you return to work, make sure to print a fake receipt showing your garage was fixed and show it to your manager. But only display it during a conversation about how ridiculously expensive it was. Proactively covering up lies is one of the few times where I condone being proactive at work.
c. "Furniture delivery guys called this morning and gave me a 9:30 - 2pm window for delivery and I have to be here." Deliveries are always a nice legitimate excuse to work from home. If you're manager asks you to come in after 2pm, you can always play the "Delivery guys are running behind" card.
How to upgrade: Install a pool.
4. Quit your job and become a independent consultant/contractor. You'll likely pull down more cash in 9 months than you would working full-time for an employer. Budget your life according to your new schedule, which consists of little to no work between Memorial Day to Labor Day. The worst thing that can happen is that you become unemployed. Unemployed people get tons of sun once they wake up.
How to upgrade: Impossible.
5. Leave work at 4pm and quit working late. Work addiction is the leading cause of people hating you.
How to upgrade: Sneak out of work even earlier.
Do you have Summer Cubicle Funk? Find out now!
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Cubicle 101 is a recurring article in Dudley B. Dawson's Life in the Cubicle column.
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Comments
I installed the upgrade a couple years ago and am running out of "extenuating circumstances." Please devote an upcoming article to suggestions d-z. Thanks!
So going out for lunch and sitting on a patio did not make the top 5? It seems to be the easiest option. There are ways of getting outside at work without trying to sneak around. I proposed the idea of outdoor meetings with my boss and he approved the idea after getting the go ahead. All it takes is proper communication. You seem to be under the impression that bosses don not want to be outside. I have news for you. They do.
Jill,
I also have some news for you. You are a fuggin idiot. Dudley doesn't need to put "going out to lunch" in his top 5 because that's a given. Go read his 2 hour lunch article for more details. Maybe holding your worthless meetings outside makes sense, but for those of us with jobs that require things such as computers, projectors, teleconferencing, videoconferencing ... it makes it a tad difficult to meet outside.
Also, your logic that "bosses want to be outside too" is just plain naive. Based on your logic, why aren't there more office drones working outside? Of course managers may WANT to be outside, but they know that it'll look bad in the eyes of their superiors, so most would never allow it.
Dudley does it again! I love reading your stuff! Thanks!
As a manager, I take offense to the notion that I do not want to work outside. In my dept, we try to have a little fun on a Friday during the summer, and go outside for the lunch break. I live for those days. I think my dept really appreciates the effort that I put in to make those days fun.
Or you can move to Arizona, where one minute outside at midday supplies enough sunlight and vitamin D to last a week.
M. Rawling Billings, do you have a hand bell that you ring when their half hour of fun is up?
"Work addiction is the leading cause of people hating you."
Amen to that brother.
LOL! This was great...I think I'll gather up my posse and organize a bbq!
I gotta get outta here before I become one of those people (workaholics)
Your such a goody two shoes. Where is the fun in that?
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