Working at a cubicle farm

This is how the corporate cubicle office looks:

Doug Benz for The New York Times

Debt collectors working the phones at the Northstar Companies near Buffalo, one of 108 collection agencies that have proliferated in western New York.

Yuck. Been there, done that. Look at the smallness of each cubicle, the proximity of one to another. That makes for virtually no privacy. Making private phone calls is out. Of course, with cellphones now available, one can simply go outside and call one's spouse, lover, child, or recruiter. When I worked in such settings, there were no cellphones. In this case, of having a phone to carry anywhere, progress is good.