What do you put on your cubicle walls?

Question

What is the most valuable thing that you have pinned to your wall? While XKCD printouts are good, I'm more interested in items that help you do your job better. While this may vary based on your actual position and language of choice, I'm hoping to find general items that people put up. Thanks!

Answer 1

Dilbert comics from my one-a-day calendar.

Answer 2

IDE keyboard shortcuts

Answer 3

TASK - DEADLINE

MODULE - DEADLINE

DEADLINE, DEADLINE, AND DEADLINE. DAMN IT [information technology..lol]

Answer 4

I have a freeze calendar and my indoor soccer schedule.

(the freeze calendar tells me when I can push changes to production. I need it to give my users promise dates.)

Answer 5

Pictures of my projects at home to remember why I should just stay at work.

Answer 6

Family pictures. It's good to remember what's really important.

Answer 7

Nothing. I've tried putting things up on them before and it seems to generate more distraction than anything else.

Answer 8

A while back I had all the C string functions and their Unicode and MBCS equivalents. It's really hard to remember _ttoi, _tcslen etc. when there are so many of them.

Answer 9

A whiteboard.

Answer 10

As many whiteboards as I can find and any poster from visibone

Answer 11

Cheat sheets. Right now, I have PHP, HTML, CSS, and MySQL cheat sheets on my cube walls. Depending on the project, I would have the appropriate ones. Great if I get stuck and forget what a certain method is or how I do task X using a technology.

Answer 12

• Notes on code
• Layout diagrams of our production clusters
• Important numbers that support asks for but that have no meaning to the naked eye (i.e., the really random heck-if-I-know PIN that the help desk asks for every time you're locked out and yes it can be found online but if I could GET online I wouldn't be calling you now would I?)

I think there's a correlation to be made to how decked out your cubicle is and how difficult your job is and/or how hard you work. The programmers that come up with your software and have to solve all the problems in code probably have a couple of toys, a Transformer figure, maybe a humorous desktop picture. The guy whose job it is to sit there and monitor jobs (not even a sysadmin, just the guy who sits there and makes sure programs don't crash) has 50 different things in his area, including Hawaiian leis collecting dust from the trip he took three years ago, a xeroxed picture of the Miami Vice guys with the heads of two coworkers grafted on, ten different things that display which football team he is a fan of, etc. People who have too much non-work-related crap in their cubes have too much time on their hands (which isn't necessarily their fault)

Answer 13

I follow clean desk policy. I like to keep the walls clean in my cubicle.

Answer 14

Quotes that I like.

Answer 15

I tend to put things that keeps me in a positive mood.

• A Jugo Juice Powerzone sticker. Yeah my cubicle is a Power Zone!
• A dilbert strip.
• Oh... And a picture of my wife. :)

Answer 16

Slackware sticker, the quote "'Proof by analogy' is a fraud.' from Bjarne Stroustrups' "The C++ Programming Language", Pizza Hut and Subway's numbers, and my girlfriend's birthday (which I seem to forget despite having it written there). Also, there's some gibberish I don't remember why I ever wrote there.

Answer 17

Well, it doesn't help me program, but I usually have an (1'x2') American flag on my cubical wall. (At my office at home, I have a full-size one, 4'x6')

Answer 18

Database ERDs.

Answer 19

Post its! that remember me my unfinished task's !

Answer 20

I have a whiteboard leaning up against the wall of my cube and nothing else. I'm super minimalist at work and at home.

Answer 21

• a calendar with pretty pictures :)
• a logarithmic radio frequency chart from Omega
• a binary tree of morse code

All of which are ways I change how I think about a problem at hand

Answer 22

Printed XKCD comics.

Answer 23

• Regex cheat sheet
• List of CLR exception types with what to throw and what to not
• 14 rules for website performance
• list of HTML tags
• jQuery cheat sheet
• javascript and browser object quick reference.

Answer 24

I think a better question would have been along the lines of - what programming aids do you have on your cubicle walls.

I would be interested in seeing a discussion of peoples favorite cheat sheets. MS has given out some nice keyboard shortcuts for VB and C# - anyone got links to them? I think i remember discussion on .NET Rocks about some professional poster sized printouts of really slick cheat sheets. That would be awesome!

I often refer to bookmarked pages, like the regex one: RegexLib .NET Cheatsheet

Answer 25

Isometric

pixelart

posters.

Answer 26

• ASCII dec/hex conversion chart ('man ascii' printout)
• XML Character Entities (photocopied from an O'Reilly book)
• Office phone system quick guide (how to set up call forwarding etc...)

Answer 27

I have a whiteboard on the wall. On my computer I have some post-it notes of the "TODO" variety, or with random unmemorable stuff that is needed to know. Very spartan- don't really like it, but it's not "my" space.

At home I accumulate widgets at a disturbing rate. Tux, pictures of girlfriend and family, pencil mugs, coasters, books, bits of computer hardware tacked up, etc. I always feel that the personalization touch makes a work area lived in.

Answer 28

A picture of some monsters (Domos) chasing a kitten through a grass field... the caption: "Every Time You Comment Your Code, God Kills a Kitten... Please think of the kittens."

Answer 29

Whiteboards and aviation charts (VFR sectionals)

Answer 30

I have a whiteboard on one of the walls around me, but what's a cubicle?

;-)

Answer 31

I have the following:

• MC Escher pictures from a page a day calendar a few years ago
• Dilbert comics from this year's page a day
• FAN/Heater. If I'm hot/cold, I can't concentrate on anything other than feeling cooler/warmer.
• Picture of wife and I on our wedding day where I'm giving her "moose antlers" (to remind me to not be TOO serious)
• Food seasonings (ok... it's on the desk but pushed into a corner)
• 1 can spotted dick (this is an english dessert and ALWAYS a conversation starter)
• The pile of take-out menus in the area
• The mindless toy I have (it's a bunch of sticks that are wired together). You can really play around with it and keep your fingers/hands busy while pushing a problem around your brain.
• Tech-help (a magic 8-ball... don't laugh once I've simplified any problem down to a yes/no question the 8-ball has a better track record than telephone tech help/coworkers)

And that annoying phone that always rings and gives me more work... like it's doing now.

Answer 32

I have a few things in my cube, but nothing intense. Just a process diagram for a project I no longer work on, the time recording guide for a legacy system (we use a new version), a few phone numbers and charge numbers, and a US flag. On my desk however, is a stuffed Domo Kun who guards my phone from fax machines gone wild, a can of Mountain Dew (invaluable), a tiny jar of peanut butter, and a ton of notes scribbled on notepads and strewn about for dramatic effect. Oh, and an ethics manual. My stapler is not red, but if you steal it I might just burn the building down. Not really.

A coworker of mine who has been here awhile longer has a ton of XKCD comics, a penguin water fountain, and a few other things in his cube. That said, I plan on expanding my cube warfare as soon as reviews are over. >:)

Answer 33

Taking exception to the remark about crap on the walls = too much time on our hands, I do have a fair amount of crap on my walls. It helps elevate my mood when I'm stuck on a problem I need to solve. I get my work done, on deadline, every time, and I have more than enough of it -- I just also have a personality. :)

Programming-related:

• "Application Block Coverage" poster from the Microsoft Patterns & Practices CD
• Architectural DB diagram for a large-scale project my company may never get around to
• GoF design pattern cheat-sheet from codebetter.com (first second)

Programming-related, not on walls but always nearby:

• GoF book
• .NET Framework Design Guidelines hardcover
• "Deploying .NET Applications"
• "Pragmatic Unit Testing"
• "Programmer Job Interviews"
• "Developing More-Secure ASP.NET 2.0 Applications"
• "Inside C#"
• "Icon Design"
• "Windows Via C/C++"
• Stack of MSDN Magazines
• Stack of Visual Studio Magazines
• Stack of Redmond Developer Magazines
• A few other programming books (but most are at home)

Not programming, but still work-related:

• Certificate of completion for Dynamics CRM automation training
• Certificate of completion for Dynamics CRM customization training
• Cheat-sheet for our Cisco phones
• Cheet sheet of office extensions

Personality:

• A couple of small stickers (still on their backs, tacked up) for Tattoo Factory
• Demotivator poster (outside cube): "When the winds of change blow hard enough, even the most trivial of things can become a deadly projectile."
• Fortune cookie: "You are competent and careful" (I have a sense of irony)
• Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" 8.5x11 card
• Birthday card from a friend, many years ago, that fits my mood well
• Images one of our former web designers did with my head grafted on Dr Evil and Mini-Me
• Punch Cigar ad: "I use my cigar smoke as an idiot repellant"
• Jolly Roger (small, 14x18)
• Photo of Dr Hunter S Thompson, with the quote, "At the top of the mountain, we are all Snow Leopards"
• Magnetic photo (attached to bin, nowhere near a computer) of Dr Hunter S Thompson, with the quote, "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Answer 34

Nothing. The walls are there to keep out distractions.

Answer 35

Motivational quotes to keep me upbeat when I'm feeling frustrated.

Answer 36

Portraits of animals in the wild (wolfs, elephants, etc...)that the company puts up that I can't take down.

Answer 37

A fish eye mirror that lets me watch bobo post trash on SO while I pretend to work

Answer 38

I like to keep desk clear except for whatever I am working on at the moment. As for the walls, whiteboard, calendar, and mirror to see behind me when someone stops by.

Answer 39

To help me?

When I came into the org I was given a run down of my role, they spent 4 hours talking during which I realised there's a HUGE stack of problems. I went to my desk and on a piece of paper, drew a mind map of all the issues I forsee in the organisation. It's still on my wall with 40 or something items on it. All of them are still valid :-P When I'm not sure what to do, or address, I look at that sheet.

Due to clean desk bullpants they got rid of all their cubicle whiteboards. Me, a stack of clear binding cover sheets and a roll of tape spent 15 minutes, constructing a makeshift white board.

Also a print out of the relationship diagram for the DB system I support.

Answer 40

I work in an open-plan office, so… nothing. Sometimes I would like walls to stick things to, but then I realize that they would end up like my corkboard at home: covered in old pieces of paper.

Answer 41

Posters from Despair Inc - http://despair.com/

Answer 42

I've had a few prints on the wall (not all at once) as reminders and inspiration for me, but also attracting (positive) attention from co-workers...

Code related, but not so technically detailed, rather food for thought...

• The Zen of Python
• The Joel Test
• a few design patterns
• J2EE design patterns
• a few code smells

Answer 43

Just added A Visual Explanation of SQL Joins

Answer 44

My walls are a low, see-through mesh, so I put up whatever I can find. Office floor plan, reference material, news articles, odd pictures, etc.

Answer 45

Mine may stray a bit from some of the answers as a lot of my items related to my job as a manager:

    Framed brochures for products the dev team has released
    Printout of ASCII codes (I really need to take that down before the Unicode cops show up)
    Regular Expression Cheat Sheet
    MCSD and CDIA certification certificates
    An architectural diagram of our dev, test, production environments
    A random assortment of Dilbert cartoons.
    A fortune cookie message "Hugs are life's rainbows" - Too cheesy for words.
    Purchasing authority cheat sheet
    Two whiteboards and a corkboard.

Answer 46

First of all I don't live in a cubicle, thank you very much :) But on the walls I can see the XKCD Emacs butterfly comic and YayArt of course.

Answer 47

Menus from various places. Places that deliver have menus near the phone, places that don't are near the exit of my cube. I also have a vi cheat cheat and three white boards. Depending on the project I'm on I might have an ERD or class model up too. Just depends...only constants are the menus and white boards.

Answer 48

• Star Trek calendar.
• Creepy plexi box with dead butterflies mounted in it. Supposed to have been art in the '70s.
• Zoloft promo wall clock. All black, no numbers, gold hands.

Answer 49

Where I work, we don't have cubicle walls. I've got a desk, with sticky notes all over it, and a copy of Clean Code to keep me company.