Feng shui? Phooey

If you hate coming to work and you are tired and listless once you get there, it could be because your office cubicle is suffering from bad feng shui.

(More likely it is because you are stuck in an awful, dead-end job or are not getting enough sleep, but never mind that; this column is about feng shui.)

Feng shui, for those of you who have been trapped in a negative energy field for the last few years, was dreamed up thousands of years ago by an ancient Chinese interior-design consultant who was looking for a way to perk up business.

The idea, basically, is that you can improve your mood by moving stuff around. If, for example, your wife tells you to push a heavy sofa from one side of the living room to the other, and then changes her mind and tells you to push it back where it was, she is (probably) not trying to ruin your back or give you a heart attack; she is simply attempting to improve your living room's feng shui.

Feng shui (literally: "Enriching chiropractors") is especially important in the office environment, according to author Patricia Santhuff. Santhuff claims you can improve the power and energy of your workspace by repositioning your desk and chair, adding mirrors or replacing harsh fluorescent lighting with attractive desk lamps.

She said you can tell if your cubicle has good feng shui if other employees spend more time visiting your cubicle than they do at their own desks.

(Cynics would probably argue that you could accomplish the same thing with a box of glazed doughnuts, but let us ignore their natterings and remain focused on the subject.)

Although I am willing to concede that the mood of your average cube-farm dweller could be improved by moving his or her desk nearer a window or providing better lighting, I think Santhuff takes this feng shui business too far.

For example, she recommends hanging a windsock and wind chimes in one's cubicle to enhance creativity.

It seems to me that if your office is drafty enough to activate windsocks or wind chimes, you are probably working for a company that has a lot bigger problems than poor feng shui.

During hurricane season, your socks and chimes could be generating enough feng shui to power New York City, but what good would it do if your cubicle disappeared into the sky like Dorothy's farmhouse?

I am also one of those people for whom a little wind chime goes a long, long way and would probably be more tempted to strangle the person who hung one in an adjacent cubicle rather than congratulate him or her for enhancing the neighborhood feng shui.

Santhuff also suggests playing a "small stereo" during the afternoon to boost energy or avoid mood slumps. Santhuff does not say what she would play on her small stereo, but I've got this uncomfortable feeling that the feng-shui crowd's taste in music leans heavily in the direction of John Tesh, Yanni and Kenny G.

Speaking strictly for myself, I would rather have my cubicle relocated in a New York subway tunnel than try to work next to something like that.

Finally, Santhuff says placing a desktop fountain on the far left- hand corner of your desk sends a message to your boss that you deserve a raise.

I agree. Anyone who can get any work done with windsocks flapping, wind chimes gonging, fountains gurgling and Yanni caterwauling deserves a raise, not to mention an immediate promotion to another department, preferably in a far-distant state.

It would certainly improve the mood, if not necessarily the feng shui, of everyone else in the office.

David Grimes writes for The Sarasota, Fla., Herald-Tribune, which is part of the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group.

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