There have been calls for cubicle crenellations and modern moats, so this may be a derivative idea. But.

I'm just back from Brittany, where anyone who was anyone (and many people who weren't) built themselves a fortified chateau.

They don't build them like that, but why not? Every major company in every major city tries to build itself a taller, shinier or just odder skyscraper. The objective is not to accommodate their staff as efficiently as possible, but to make a grand statement that speaks of their affluence. However, the end result is always just a slightly taller or curvier glass and steel structure which, at the end of the day, look like it was put together from large Ikea components. Within three years, tbe neighbours will build something slightly taller or curvier, and the effect is lost.

Castles are grossly inefficient and uneconomic. Their immensely thick granite walls are nightmarishly expensive to produce, and the use of floor space is abysmal. Gargoyles, pinnacles, stone- mullioned windows and intricately carved furbelines can only be created by vast teams of ludicrously expensive craftsmen at great expense.

What better way, therefore, to advertise your corporate wealth? Instead of a giant oblate-spheroid greenhouse with elevators on the outside, build a city- block-sized castle with a courtyard, six- foot-thick granite walls and all the trimmings! Imagine the psychological impact on your competitors, and on potential customers, when a fanfare from the tabbard-wearing security guards announces the lowering of the drawbridge for the going-home procession at the end of the working day!
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 15 2008

(?) Pimp my cubicle http://www.pimpmycu...es/viewcubicles.php
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 16 2008]

Evil Genius Contracting Company Evil_20Genius_20Contracting_20Company
No job too large ... [8th of 7, Jun 16 2008]

Metaphor_20Actualisation_20Agency [hippo, Jun 16 2008]

[+], apart from the slight concern that it might encourage megalomania in senior executives.

Suitably equipped dungeons with flickering torches, for the storage of maidens, one presumes ?

The thought of the average corporate accountant practising phrases such as "I like a girl with spirit" and "You're a pretty little thing, aren't you ?" is most amusing.

A moat. There must be a moat, dotted with the bloated remains of former salespersons, each with a sign reading, "Fayledd To Mete Thee Monthlie Targett" around their neck ....
-- 8th of 7, Jun 16 2008


Anyone using the word "Leveraged" will be put to the Rack in Ye Olde Dungeon, to be taught what leverage can really do.
-- Ling, Jun 16 2008


I misread the end of your second line as "...fortified chapeau" which might be the budget version of this idea.

There's a fantastic arts-and-crafts faux-medieval castle near Cardiff which was built by someone who's name I can't now remember - he was at that time the world's richest man though. It wasn't his office building, but it served the same purpse as this which was to communicate to his competitors how much of a grande fromage he was.
-- hippo, Jun 16 2008


//Anyone using the word "Leveraged" will be put to the Rack in Ye Olde Dungeon// Only if there's enough room - people who say "repurposed" take priority.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 16 2008


//Anyone using the word "Leveraged" will be put to the Rack in Ye Olde Dungeon// - possibly a job for (shameless plug) the Metaphor Actualisation Agency (link).
-- hippo, Jun 16 2008


I build castles out of boxes here. The "lets build a fort" mentality...

[+] to this idea
-- evilpenguin, Jun 16 2008


Next time I use any corporate phrase, such as "at the end of the day" I will spell it medieval-like. "Att ye ende of ye deighe"
-- phundug, Jun 16 2008


Ecksellente.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 16 2008


This could add a whole new dimension of interest to the rarified world of corporate wheeler-dealing; if "hostile takeover" really does mean besieging one's opponent, rather than just being a metaphor, and "leverage buyout" is much more entertaining because the actual lever in use is the swing arm of a trebuchet ...... luvverley !

The defenders, of course, will no doubt pour boiling coffee from the ramparts, and have a vicious arsenal of rapid-firing automatic staplers .......
-- 8th of 7, Jun 16 2008


And the governement gets a new revenue stream - sale of licences to crenellate.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Jun 16 2008


If you crenellate in here, you'll clean it up yourself.

Besides, it makes you go blind, you know.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 16 2008



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