Degree Farm's Deanery Genius Du Jour: Open Plan

Yup.  Open Plan  One of the deanery has the design bug, so we're doing away with our semi-private offices (two or three to a space) and joining the ranks of the call centre worker.  Don't get me wrong, open plan has its place...in a call centre, for instance.  But not only is it not overly productive to producing great research (oh, sorry...forgot that wasn't a priority), it's just not overly productive full stop.  Now, I know a lot of you reading this may be in open plan.  You might have a lovely cubicle, decorated with pictures or memos...a nice safe place which keeps out pretty much everything except the noise.  Is this what is planned?  Er, no.  When we say open plan, we mean OPEN plan.  We'll be facing either a window or our co-workers.  No dividers.  No walls or dividers to put ANYTHING.  But hey, maybe this means more space for everyone?  No.  We'll get one shelf in a bookcase and one lockable drawer in a file cabinet.  Books?  Resources?  Pah, who needs 'em!  PAPERLESS is the way to go in academia.  And, I bet the studen...er, 'clients' will LOVE it!  Remember how it felt when your boss called you into the office in front of all of your open plan co-workers?  Like 'oooooh, you're in TROUBLE!'  Yeah, that's how your kids are going to feel.  Because if they have anything they want/need to say to us, we're going to have to leave the open plan and try to find a private place to talk.  For those already in open plan, this often means the stairwell.  TOP NOTCH!  Do you really think that your child is going to come to me in front of everyone and say 'I'm failing, I need help', or 'I'm really feeling a bit depressed, can I talk to you?'  I sincerely doubt it.  So not only is management treating us like call centre workers, they seem to be working really hard to dis-assemble the already tenuous relationship between student and lecturer.  Ah, you say...but if everyone is open plan, it must be great!  But not everyone IS going to be open plan.  The deanery certainly isn't, and right now the current idea is to not have management in open plan.  Because, you know...they need their privacy.  At the degree farm, everyone is equal.  Some are just a little more equal than others...