Hardwallers vs Softwallers

In nature, they are hard shell animals and soft shell animals. The former includes tortoises and turtles while the latter would include snails. The same dichotomy is seen in the sea where there are different kinds of shell fishes (prawns and crabs as opposed to oysters and mussels).

A similar arrangement is evident in an office setting as well. But here it is by human design rather than by evolution or heredity. Walk into a typical office and one will see the following spatial arrangement:

• A central area comprising enclosures demarcated by softboard partitions into individual work areas. The partitions are up to neck level and one can literally see heads popping up whenever there is any form of commotion.


• Then lining along the perimeter are rooms with glass windows and doors. Most are usually left open unless privacy is desired by the dwellers.

Hence, the monikers hardwallers, for the room inhabitors, and the softwallers, for those who reside in the cubicles, two terms that I picked up recently.

As for who gets to be the hardwallers, the criterion is invariably seniority, not necessarily with the firm, but based on the length of working experience. So a recent recruit but with experience can be assigned a room. Similarly, employees who have chalked up a sufficient length of service would also be upgraded from a softwaller to a hardwaller if a vacancy opens up.

The way I see it, there is no difference between the two in terms of work since both categories work for the same firm. However, as a matter of practicality, hardwallers can entertain visitors (mostly two at a time) in their “office” whereas softwallers would have to adjourn to a meeting room unless it is a brief encounter whereby the visitors will spill over into the corridor.

Also, hardwallers can engage in “sensitive” telephone conversation by simply closing the door while softwallers would normally walk out of the office for such an eventuality, provided the call is received on a cellphone.

In my experience working in the US in the private sector, whether a softboard partition or a hardwood panel partition right up to the ceiling is just a form of marking out individual work spaces. There is no deliberate attempt to equate the type of work enclosure to the position of the worker in the office hierarchy. Likewise the workers themselves interact freely and find their own particular niche more as a personal preference rather than hemmed in by the rigid organizational structure.

However, the office dynamics is likely different in the government sector. Again based on my personal experience but not in US, the attachment to the pecking order of the type of office space one is allotted is omnipresent, and is savored by those who have made it, it being the promotion. The chain of command is layered and is not be trifled with. Here, the type of room, the area, the kind of furniture, and the kind of décor, are all subtle or ostentatious, depending on one’s point of view, display of the office rank.

While the view from the inside may be different, meaning the occupants may not have harbored such an association, outsiders do perceive the link as a status symbol and act accordingly. I think such hierarchical structure, both in terms of the office position and the privileges/perks that go with it, has its origin in the colonial past and has outgrown its usefulness in the knowledge era of today.

In the fast-paced work environment of today where information abounds and moves at a break-neck speed, a worker is a nucleus in one’s own way in the sense that one is relatively self-reliant as far as carrying out the incidental duties of completing an assigned task such as making the contact, preparing the communication, searching for the relevant files, and writing and typing the documents. A smart office would provide the necessary office equipment for uninterrupted use by the workers. Gone are the days of typists, file searchers, and office peons.

The computer has become the one-in-all work station, which is the common denominator for all workers, be they hard- or softwallers. A worker’s domain knowledge has become the distinguishing element of his raison d’etre in the firm. And the mission of the firm is to leverage these knowledge workers into strategic collaboration for the common good of the firm. So the monikers hard- and softwallers are mere fodder for office banter by bruised egos.

I'm a hardwaller by the way. But I also consider myself a knowledge worker. So my transition from a government bureaucracy to a private firm where flatness, structure-wise, is the order of the day has been a smooth one.