Real Deal
October 30, 2008
Since I came from a non-office-furniture background, I find the terminology around office furniture very confusing. I have actually found a lot of people outside our industry who have a similar dilemma. Why don’t you just call it what it is? Well, when we were asked to create the Steelcase Store, that is just what we did. We call a chair a chair, a table a table, etc (how novel). However, I wanted to use this blog entry to translate office furniture language into everyday language so that everyone can start getting along. Yes, there will be a quiz at the end (seriously):
- Worksurface – Dictionary.com finds no entries for such a word, so it must not exist in the typical lexicon of everyday people. What is a worksurface? It is the surface where your computer sits and where you typically do your work. Here on the Store, we have decided to call these what they are – tables and desks…because that is what you call them. By my thinking, if we were to apply the office furniture lingo to everyday life, then I would eat dinner at the ‘eatsurface’ rather than my kitchen table.
- Ped - Ped is short for pedestal. Still not helping? Hmmmm….well, a pedestal is a small storage box with drawers that is usually made out of metal or wood. Peds can be mobile (i.e. wheels) or stationary, in which case it is usually bolted to your desk. I am trying to start a movement by calling these ‘storage boxes,’ but I’m not having much luck. Peds are further broken down using an arcane language:
- B/F = Box/File Ped – Box and file refer to the type of drawers that are located on the ped. A Box/File Ped consists of 1 shallow and 1 deep drawer. You would think that the box drawer would be the deeper drawer but you’d be wrong. The box drawer is the shallow drawer and the file drawer is the deeper file that you put your files and file folders in.
- B/B/F = Box/Box/File Ped – This ped is similar to the B/F ped but has an extra box-style drawer. So Box/Box/File ped has 2 shallow drawers and 1 deep drawer
- F/F = File/File Ped – This ped has 0 shallow drawers and 2 deep drawers, for those of you who like to file away a lot of material away so you don’t have to look at it
- O/B/F = Open/Box/File – This is a late entry. The Open/Box/File ped is similar to the B/B/F ped, but instead of having a shallow drawer at the top, it has an open slot (thus the ‘open’ in Open/Box/File).
- Cable Manager – This is not the person you hire to help you sort out your cable bill and manage the cable company for you. No, this is what you are looking for when you ask “where am I supposed to put all these ugly computer cords?” Unfortunately, science has not given us a good solution to this problem. Wireless mice are a good first step, but I need a place for my printer cord, power cord, monitor cord, speaker cord, USB hub cord, and my cable modem cord.
- System Furniture – Guess what this is? I actually am not sure, but I know it revolves around the cubicles that people sit in every day. I don’t know where the term came from but I am looking. Systems furniture relates to high cubes, low cubes, powered cubes, glass cubes and Rubix cubes (OK, maybe not the last one). But anything to with office ‘walls’ that surround you….high or low…that is systems furniture
Now for the quiz: Match up the following terms with their pictures below: 1) B/B/F ped, 2) B/F ped, 3) O/B/F ped, 4) Worksurface, 5) System
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