Word: propst
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...father of the cubicle never meant to wreak such bleakness on the American office. We know this from the delightfully delusional name Robert Propst gave his invention: the Action Office. Back then, in 1968, most office workers toiled in open bull pens. Propst's pod offered at least as much privacy as they had in a toilet stall, albeit without the door. Corporate America, which is run by people whose offices have doors, has snapped up more than $5 billion worth of the units from maker Herman Miller. Today 70% of U.S. office workers sit in cubicles, which have long...
What in the hell was Bob Propst thinking? It's a reasonable question to ask as you survey the cramped confines of your standard-issue corporate cubicle and bathe in the dull glow of overhead fluorescent lights, all the while trying to ignore the sound of your colleagues' clipping their fingernails or blathering away on a speakerphone...
...Propst is the guy who, three decades ago, dreamed up these modular boxes for furniture giant Herman Miller. As he envisioned it, the system of wafer-thin, movable walls would be a revolutionary tool that would break down rigid hierarchies, spur creativity and free work spaces from the shackles of uniformity. Unfortunately, he didn't count on the square-foot police. Those FORTUNE 500 facility managers arrested his innovation and reformed it into an impersonal, white-collar assembly line, one that can make a genuine gearhead long for the good, old days of windowless offices and rotary phones...
Neither, apparently, did the Georgia board of regents. Chancellor H. Dean Propst announced an investigation of the developmental program for "the credibility of certain academic practices." Moreover, the regents, who were meeting when the judgment came down, deferred reappointment of the heads of all state-supported schools, most notably Fred C. Davison, the university's president. Davison did little to help his cause by stating that Georgia could not afford to "disarm unilaterally" by flunking stars while rivals kept theirs eligible. That argument was shot down by Propst: "It is neither an effective excuse nor a sound justification to argue...
...rather switch before fighting again, did much better as a Republican. Though Hattiesburg is the Governor's home town, Grady defeated Democratic Incumbent Claude Pittman Jr. 2,429 to 1,827. In Columbus, another Democrat-turned-Republican, City Councilman Robert D. Harmond, 54, beat Democratic Mayor William Propst...