Household HSBC Watch

Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:24 pm      

Our document on the history of predatory lending provides insight into industry culture. Now, for the first time, we show you what it is like in the cubicles of collections at HSBC.

Original Title: Office cubes can put a chill on privacy in the workplace

Subtitle: Environment requires tolerance, patience and a sense of humor, but noise can be distracting.

By Dorene Weinstein / (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Argus Leader, Monday, February 14, 2005

Hundreds of cubes lined up like ice cube trays subdivide a room the size of a city block as a low-level din floats above short dividers the color of faded gym shorts.

Personal memorabilia liven up the gray walls of individual cubicles. Overhead lights augment the natural glow from distant windows.

Bounthienie Moumy spends 10 hours a day, four days a week in a cube that could fit into a closet. He can touch either side of his "office" when he stretches his arms.

Walls that are two feet taller than the desk separate him from other HSBC Card Services Inc. workers on three sides.

Working in the cube culture common to many offices requires tolerance, patience and a sense of humor. Even so, individuals' idiosyncrasies can take their toll on workers -- from disgusting habits to annoying co-workers and overheard conversations.

The cubicle work system, however, could be considered an improvement over the metal desks and cement floors common a half-century ago.

Seventy percent of office workers today spend their time in cubicles, according to HR Magazine.

Bottom line: Workers must adapt to the workplace.

And the ability to stay focused and filter noise are welcome traits of cube dwellers.

Still, privacy can be a big issue.

"I make sure I don't say anything inappropriate. Someone's always listening," says Moumy, 26, a collector at the financial services company in Sioux Falls. HSBC has 900 workers. About 75 have offices with doors.

If an employee makes a phone call, personal or work-related, the information discussed is considered office fodder. Private conversations among co-workers are impossible.

"If my manager is having a personal conversation with me, people just jump in," says Nichole Lemme, 25, also a collector at HSBC.

In the open cubicle environment, conversation at a person's desk can be overheard even when the voices are soft. As a result, co-workers are privy to hearing everything from weekend plans to a pet's surgery.

"I hear stuff I shouldn't be hearing" when co-workers are talking to each other, Moumy says.

Noise in the cubicle environment can be distracting, too.

"We have over 300 collectors on the floor, and it gets really noisy when we're busy," he says.

Squeaky chair issues can drive him bonkers, but he self-monitors when the stress becomes overwhelming.

"I scrunch down in my chair," Moumy says, to help with the racket. Otherwise, he just puts up with it as part of the work environment.

His company has a flexible seating arrangement. If a certain spot gets too annoying, he can ask to be moved.

While Moumy has moved four times in the two years he has worked there, it was only to break up the monotony, he says.

"We're a close-knit group," he says.

Lemme agrees - except for the time when a nearby co-worker had an irritating telephone manner. Listening to the co-worker yak about her family for hours a day spurred Lemme to ask for a double phone headset.

Loud talkers, eavesdroppers and food snitchers are common complaints, but the most distressing problem Lemme encountered was a co-worker's body odor.

"It was nauseating," Lemme says. And it drove her to talk to the manager.

"I wouldn't have felt comfortable approaching the person," she says.

Lemme has become skilled at letting petty annoyances roll off her back. She copes with the close quarters by leaving the "sea of gray" during her breaks.

Toni Crittenden spends her work life in a 6-foot-by-8-foot space partially enclosed by 8-foot walls, but the claims specialist at Howalt-McDowell Insurance Inc. doesn't mind her cubicle.

"It's quiet; you don't hear a lot of office noise. You don't hear a lot of the conversation around," the 17-year employee says of her taller walls.

Crittenden has personalized her work space with 200 cat pictures. "If you can decorate or make it personal, you feel like you belong," she says.

Cubicle work spaces have come to symbolize today's workplace. They were developed near the end of the 1950s as a work-space system and have grown into a worldwide billion-dollar industry.

Scientist Marcel Propst thought the right environment would motivate workers and increase productivity because cubicles could be modified to suit the worker and tailored to the business for maximum use.

In the 1960s, the concept exploded, according to cubicles.com.

Specialization also has created new ways of looking at work areas.

"Twenty years ago, we didn't have 500 people in the same building doing the same thing," says Rhonda Toft, a human resources director at HSBC.