Decorate Your Cubicle

Ever since the cubicle became the office standard, it's been obvious that cubicles need some decorating to personalize them. Celebrating holidays gives you even more reason to dress up that workspace! There's at least one special event per month to break out the crepe trimmings and throw up some lights.

If you're going to have to spend all day in a box, why not have the box that is the envy of the entire office?

Remember when you get started decorating your cubicle:

1. Check the office etiquette and/or corporate culture so you don't lose your job over your cubicle decorations.
   
2. Start small and don't do anything that prevents you from doing your work!
3. Cheap is good, recycled or free is better.
4. One bold visual element can be a lot more effective than lots of smaller ones.
5. Blinking lights and noise-making need to be kept to a minimum!

If you follow the calendar, your holidays can include some or all, or more than the following:

• New Years
• Groundhog Day
• President's Day
• Valentine's Day
• Chinese New Year 
• St Patrick's Day
• Spring Equinox
• Easter
• Cinco de Mayo
• Mother's Day
• Memorial Day
• Father's Day
• Summer Solstice
• 4th of July
• Labor Day
• Fall Equinox
• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Hannukah
• Winter Solstice
• Christmas

Decorating Your Cubicle doesn't have to be complicated or expensive!  In fact, limiting what you do will probably make it easier to actually get some work done and will most likely keep you from annoying the heck out of your co-workers 

The Holiday Zone - pick a defined area somewhere on one of the walls of your cubicle. Designate this area "the holiday zone." This is where any holiday decorating will go. You can pin up cards in this area, or other pictures to highlight the appropriate holiday vibes.

Lights - Pick a favorite horizontal or vertical line and highlight it with a slim string of lights in a seasonally-corresponding color. At the simplest end of things, you can do red from December through February, green in March and April, pink in May and June, blue in July and August, and orange for September through November.

The Top Wall Edge - just decorate all along the top edge of your cube walls. Garlands, lights, bunting, streamers and even some plants are just the thing for embellishing the perimeter of a cubicle.

Collectibles - filing cabinets and fabric cubicle walls lend themselves to a few collectibles perfect for offices: magnets and pinback buttons. This is great for people who love quotes and who love to collect! With magnets, you are limited by your cabinet space. For buttons, all your spare cube wall space will do.

• When To Decorate: Changing the look of your cubicle a week or two ahead of the special day is a good timeframe. It's best to come in early one day, stay late one evening or work during a lunch break for decorating your workspace.
• If there's one color that you can use over and over for decorations, it's RED! You can use and reuse red for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo and the 4th of July.
• In the Spring, good flower designs can go up for Easter and stay up through Memorial Day.
• In Autumn, things like leaf shapes and fall colors will span across Halloween and Thanksgiving.
• Don't be too distracting! Make sure whatever you do for decorations does not upset the office function so much that work isn't getting done. Be careful of things that blink too brightly or rapidly, or things that make noise. Those tend to make bosses and co-workers unhappy.
• If you include photos of yourself, the best rule to remember is "if you wouldn't wear that outfit to the office, don't post it on your wall."  Same goes for calendars.  This avoids politically-correct issues with co-workers and the HR department.