FENG SHUI FOR THE
MODERN DAY CUBICLE
By Ron Ehmke
Ladies and gentlemen, I am a rat. Gray is my color, metal is my element, and I’d better start facing west more often if I want to get ahead in life.
These are just a few things I’ve learned from my immersion in the exciting world of feng shui. In addition to being a rat, you see, I’m also a guinea pig. Before I had a chance to clutter up my new digs as Associate Editor of the magazine you are now reading, my editor informed me that my first assignment was to discover firsthand how the modern-day office worker might benefit from the centuries-old Chinese art of design.
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Can you find the four simple additions that
have been made this a feng shui cubicle? Photos by Jim Bush |
Feng shui (literally, “wind/water”) has received much attention in the U.S. over the last few years as a means of creating peaceful, harmonious living spaces, and some of its basic concepts have been adopted by such forward-looking businesses as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. But our little experiment was not about redecorating the entire headquarters of David Laurence Publications, just my little six-foot-by-six-foot chunk of the building. We wanted to explore what would happen if a lone cubicle underwent a cosmic makeover.
My quest for guidance led me to Shari McIvor, a twenty-year veteran of interior design who is the producer of an upcoming Buffalo-based television series called Buffalo Spaces. While feng shui is not her major focus, she has made use of its principles over the last couple of years. She asked me two simple preliminary questions, and within days she was standing in my cubicle aiming a compass at my computer monitor.
“People function best when they’re placed according to their personalities and [one of five basic] elements,” McIvor told me. “Your workstation is oriented southwest, and it needs to be pointing due west.” She had determined my element based on my birthdate (smack dab in the Year of the Rat) and my answer to a multiple-choice question about my personality type. (For the trait which best described me, I’d picked “intelligent, communicative, adventurous”—just the kind of person you want proofreading restaurant reviews—and as the one which fit me least, I chose “competitive, enterprising, business-minded,” which explains why I’m still proofing restaurant reviews in my early forties.)
The original position of my computer posed an additional problem, because it left me with my back facing the building’s entrance. “That opens you up to what the Chinese call ‘backstabbing,’” McIvor explained, a term which immediately brought to mind the O’Jays immortal early-seventies soul hit. “People are going to bypass you because you’re not making eye contact with them. If you can see them as they’re walking back and forth, it will help you get pay raises, promotions, and all that fun stuff.” Fortunately, the situation could be improved by moving my monitor and chair just 45 degrees.
A second glitch was also easily remedied. My cubicle was just a little too open, McIvor suggested, noting that there was not enough distinction between my private space and the more heavily trafficked public area just beyond it. One half-wall and two tall houseplants later, I would have something which registered as an entrance to my space without the formality of a door.
McIvor took a few “before” photos and headed off. In her absence, my colleagues in neighboring cubicles weighed in with their opinions on the project. “I hope you get a fountain,” said one. “An aquarium would be nice, too.”
“No running water,” insisted another. “I don’t want that sound driving me crazy.”
McIvor returned a week later with the plants and a boxload of goodies. Nothing fancy, just a clock with a pendulum attached (to add structure and rhythm to my life), a small fountain (to provide me with the gentle sound and motion of running water), a glass container of sea salt (to absorb negative energy), a live fish (to calm me), and a small silver dish with some loose change (to encourage career advancement).
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The total cost of these commonly available objects was well under a hundred dollars. This came as a pleasant surprise, since the internet has more than its fair share of supposedly informational feng shui sites whose real purpose is to push expensive, custom-made gewgaws on gullible neophytes. It’s also worth noting that the changes McIvor made were all fairly subtle; she didn’t call for anything that would draw undue attention in the average office environment. This minimalism is all part of the concept; rather than filling a room with lots of showy accessories, “feng shui is about creating harmony with different elements within a space,” she notes. The specific placement of each item—the money dish to the left of my chair, the salt in the entryway, the fountain in the window—matters at least as much as the items themselves.
So how’s the experiment going thus far? It’s been just over a week since McIvor’s second visit, and I’ve already brought in seventy-two extra cents, if you count the starter coins she left in my dish. (On the other hand, a fledgling performing group I’m part of brought in over 300 bucks on the day of the makeover. Coincidence? I think not.) The fish, a betta my coworkers have named Ruby for its oh-so-feng-shui coloring, nearly became bouillabaisse in the morning sun before an observant pal lowered the blinds. I’m convinced Ruby’s days are numbered along with those of the plant which shares its water, and I’m pretty sure their swift demise will not score me any points with the universe.
I’ve caught myself staring at both the fountain and the pendulum for embarrassingly long stretches of time. The salt got relocated for a few days and is now a solidified mass of bad vibes. On the bright side, word of my exploits has spread throughout the office, so I get lots of visitors—and thanks to my new seating arrangement, I can see them coming now, which all but guarantees me a juicy salary increase.
“I’m not sure you can lift random aspects of an ancient culture and adapt them to a much younger one,” says an officemate, probably on her way to yoga class. McIvor notes that while feng shui is far more strict than Western design practice, its rules are also open to interpretation. Indeed, even a quick dip into the vast body of writing on the subject reveals that a dozen different experts would have offered me a dozen different recommendations.
Am I any more balanced than I was a week ago? Ask me later; right now I’ve got a date with a fish, a fountain, and a clock.
Watch for an update on The Great Feng Shui Experiment in the next issue of Spree. Shari McIvor and Buffalo Spaces can be reached at 856-7040.
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