In addition to the excellent advice already given, here are a few links with food for thought.

• Programming outside the cube

  We put our people in cubicles and then tell them to think outside the box.
  Hmm, cubes are boxes, so that essentially means:
  We put our people in boxes and then tell them to think outside the box.
  OK, that makes more sense, so we have a box, but we are supposed to leave it to think. Cool. I'll be in the park for the next few hours.
  Uhm, if you leave before your shift is up, you're fired.
  So, I supposed to think outside the box for this job, but I'm not allowed to leave the box to think. How am I supposed to think outside the box.
  Damn it, that what your off time is for.
  But my off time is supposed to be for me to do my own thing.
  Officer, arrest this bourgeois bastard. He is being unconventional. Thinks he's better than the rest of us.

• Lord of the flies
  • sabotage the lights. Find a ladder and take out all the fluorescent bulbs, then let folk bring in whatever lighting they're comfortable with. When maintenance turns up, tell them you're using flash-ram and that fluoro lights will destroy six months' work. If necessary, actually purchase some flash-ram.
  • sabotage the chairs. A good place to get comfy chairs from is executive conference rooms. Just souvenir one chair from each room in the dead of night. Put the old uncomfy chairs in your new conference enclosure. When maintenance turns up, point out the uncomfy chairs in your conference room and demand they be replaced with comfy conference room chairs
• Ringer tape

  Quiet phone by wrapping the ringer with tape.

• Peopleware
  • get the right people;
  • make them happy so they don't want to leave; and
  • turn them loose (i.e., empower them)