How to Read Your Colleague by Their Cubicle (Part 1 of 4)
Every office has cubicles.
And every cubicle tells a story.
You can spend months working beside someone and still not really know them. But walk slowly past their desk, take one quiet look, and suddenly… oh.
There they are.
The cubicle is not just a desk.
It is a psychological profile with a swivel chair.
There are four common species found in office environments.
Today, we examine the first.
Species #1: The Empty Table Person
You walk past.
You stop.
You look again, because you're not sure anyone actually works here.
Just a laptop.
A mouse.
Maybe a water bottle.
No photos.
No files.
No stationery.
No evidence that a human being with feelings and a childhood exists behind this cubicle.
Your first instinct: Wow, so organised.
The reality: This person has never emotionally moved in.
To them, the cubicle is not a home.
It is a temporary operating base. A pit stop. A place where work happens and nothing more.
They are practical, efficient, and completely unbothered by their surroundings, because in their head, they are already somewhere else.
These people typically:
• Work perfectly fine from a café, a hotel lobby, or a random bench at Changi Airport
• Do not understand why you need three types of highlighters
• Have never once opened the stationery cabinet
• Could pass a background check for a spy agency, no paper trail, no trace
If the company announces, “Everyone move to a different floor,” this person closes the laptop and walks away in under three minutes.
While the rest of us are still untaping our motivational posters.
If you are reading this and your desk has nothing on it…
Are you the Empty Table Person?
Tomorrow: Species #2 — The Cluttered Table Person. The desk that looks like a natural disaster, but somehow still functions.
