Workers' dream office has all the mod cons

A hammock, an aquarium, a personal water cooler and a "boss monitor" - what more could the office worker want?

Cartoonist Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, which chronicles the woes of America's white-collar wasteland, has teamed up with a Silicon Valley studio to design the "ultimate cubicle" for office workers.

"Over the years, thousands of Dilbert readers have e-mailed me with gripes about their cubicles. I feel their pain because I served a 16-year sentence in cubicles during my corporate career," says Adams.

Working with design firm IDEO, which has designed everything from personal electronic organisers to train compartments, Adams designed a "fun but also surprisingly practical" set of solutions for improving the cubicle.

Using a kit of different modules, the perfect cubicle can be customised into a flexible workspace that highlights privacy, individuality and efficiency, he says.

As well as regular features such as a desk, chair, phone and filing cabinet, the Dilbert cubicle features other options not found in most modern offices, including a hammock, a personal cooler, an optional aquarium, and "rotating floor modules" that allow workers to select everything from a Persian rug to AstroTurf.

One innovation, Adams says, is the "boss monitor" - an icon on the worker's computer screen that, when pressed, activates a camera scanning the boss' office door.

Adams says: "The general need was to try to protect yourself in your cubicle from the boss sneaking up behind you and catching you in your hammock."

As for the one thing every cubicle worker really wants - a door - Adams said that was still no-go.

"If you put a door on it, it becomes an office, doesn't it?"