Don't Let Your Cubicle Cooties Infect the Office

Editor's note: If you have a pressing business-etiquette question for Miss Conduct, please send her an email.

From 250-square-foot apartments being introduced into the Los Angeles sprawl to the $40 million price tag on some of Manhattan's new Plaza residences, everyone seems to be dealing with real-estate challenges lately. So this week, Miss Conduct contemplates the cubicle.

Good fences make good neighbors, but in a cubicular workplace, it's easy to feel like you have none. Instead, be grateful: At least you're better off than the staff of The New York Times, where they jam desk against desk with no real boundaries at all. (But to all my friends at NYT, at least desk equals paycheck, right?)

Here then, is Miss Conduct's Five Senses Guide to never crossing your cubicon.

1. Taste

Miss Conduct sincerely hopes that mastering your teensy domain doesn't mean tasting it.

But pursuant to the oral sense, obviously, eating fragrant foods at your desk can be a distraction for your colleagues -- so she's sure that you confine the popcorn, pizza and hauntingly garlic-laden foods to the lunch room.

Otherwise, you might get cubiculitis, where you appear to think the whole office is your personal space. And this can lead to a cubiculectomy, in which your cubicle is taken away and you're left out on the street.

2. Touch

Hands on anything at the office besides your keyboard is usually a no-no; so too the idea of touching your colleagues' cubicle items.

That includes borrowing them. If you absolutely must swipe your neighbor's scissors (again), leave a note begging forgiveness and offering thanks. Then return it promptly, leaving the note as evidence of the loan. Arguing with an angry colleague over sharp objects can mean a bad day for the whole office, not to mention emergency room personnel.