Robert Propst is greater than an inventor: he’s a visionary, an innovator dreaming up how one can make the proper workplace workstation. When he reveals his daring design for a artistic, versatile ‘cockpit of tomorrow’, he comes into battle with the unyielding push for office effectivity. This conflict of beliefs will go on to form our working lives without end.
This episode was initially launched to subscribers. For ad-free listening, month-to-month bonus episodes, month-to-month behind-the-scenes conversations, our publication, and extra, please contemplate becoming a member of the Cautionary Membership.
Additional studying
The definitive sources on Robert Propst and the invention of the cubicle are Nikil Saval Cubed, and Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler Open Plan: A Design Historical past of the American Workplace.
Different sources on the historical past of the cubicle embody Wired, Pinup, the Monetary Instances, Fortune, Whalebone, the New Yorker, the Harvard Enterprise Evaluation, the Henry Ford weblog, and Herman Miller’s archives.
On surveillance methods we relied on reporting from the New York Instances and the Guardian. The meta-analysis of productiveness monitoring methods was printed in Computer systems in Human Conduct Studies.
