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Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#251

Post by Xcelerate »

eyko wrote: post #131
blattimwind wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rather small, even for a single-person office.

I worked from a 2.2m x 2.5m "pod" office once and it was great, but the views also helped. Imagine one wall being a massive screen window in the country side with views of a lake, and the opposite wall being mostly window, leading to a balcony overlooking and inside courtyard (where other pods also look into). The side walls were exposed brick and the ceiling was at a decent height. The entire building was an old Ara…

Wow, that sounds really awesome! Do you have any pictures?

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#252

Post by Bartweiss »

wskemper wrote: post #20

I work for Viasat; all of our new-build offices in the past few years have been designed around what we call the neighborhood concept. A neighborhood is a set of individual offices (maybe 60sqft-ish?) with three solid walls, and one glass/wood wall with a sliding door. All the offices open into a central room that can be outfitted in a bunch of different ways. There are neighborhoods of different sizes, and basically…

This is an awesome idea. From what I've seen, the Pixar offices are actually very similar. Probably more stylized, because Pixar, but it's a mix of unowned open spaces for collaboration or socializing and clustered office spaces.

It seems like an exceedingly good answer for teams where "water cooler" collaboration is genuinely important, but so is silent work time.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#253

Post by amw »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #219
PeterStuer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I work from home most often, and I find that not having to tack on a 2 1/2 hr daily car commute leaves me time for actually socializing IRL as opposed to trying to cram that need into the office.

Yeah, but where do you find anybody to socialize with?

Meetups, dance classes, community outreach, church, RPG message boards (speaking theoretically, not personally for every single one of those).

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#254

Post by motohagiography »

ajross wrote: post #226
motohagiography wrote: post #176

Funny behaviors from an open office plan I experienced: - tribes claiming spaces: there was a couch area where a natural affinity group formed based on common personality types typical of urban/suburban tribal divide. developed an in-group/out-group mentality. a counter group formed in a lunch area. - posturing: top tech individual contributor used main boardroom for "really important video conference meetings," and…

> Interior design wouldn't solve all these problems, but Pretty much. Drama finds a way. You can find similar horror stories from any layout. I mean, I take no particular position on this subject and and not personally a fan of open plans. But there's an important distinction between office combatants using the terrain to their advantage and blaming the war on the geography.

Arguably, to extend this very rich metaphor, the reason nobody can ever win is in fact an artifact of geography. One particular mountainous region known to be the graveyard of empires springs to mind.

I think drama comes from uncertainty and power vacuums, which I would say are artifacts of the terrain.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#255

Post by flamtap »

afoot wrote: post #161
ubermonkey wrote: post #157

I get I'm part of the privileged few, but: I've been working for a small software company for almost 11 years, and EVERYONE at my company is remote. We don't lease any real estate anywhere, unless a mailbox and a colo rack count. It's AWESOME, but there are caveats. The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies; everyone we've brought in has to be mid-career at a minimum because the absence of the "water coole…

This is very interesting, because your office sounds like hell to me. Any time I work from home I'm absolutely desperate for meaningless social interaction, a walk and a chat while out for coffee, a beer with my team at lunch or after work and face to face discussion. I guess it's hard to find something that works for everyone.

I think remote work definitely favours the introverted personality. I have started a remote gig as of four weeks ago, and I was surprised that I did actually miss the water-cooler/coffee machine conversations. Based on my own personality (and the reasons I chose to pursue a remote position), I didn't expect to. It's harder to talk about sports or make wisecracks over Slack.

On the whole, I am happier working from home for a variety of reasons, but it definitely hasn't been without it's trade-offs.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#256

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

klez wrote: post #234
BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but where do you find anybody to socialize with?

If you only socialize with co-workers I'd say that is the bigger problem. All my interaction with people outside office hours are with people I don't work with. Should I consider myself privileged in this respect?

How dare you have friends, you privileged person!

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#257

Post by amw »

ghaff wrote: post #223
ubermonkey wrote: post #157

I get I'm part of the privileged few, but: I've been working for a small software company for almost 11 years, and EVERYONE at my company is remote. We don't lease any real estate anywhere, unless a mailbox and a colo rack count. It's AWESOME, but there are caveats. The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies; everyone we've brought in has to be mid-career at a minimum because the absence of the "water coole…

>The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies I'd be interested in counterpoints but I'm inclined to agree. I'm mostly remote now though I have an office I can go into. However, while it's true that communication systems are much different than earlier in my career, it's hard for me to imagine the first ten years or so of my career after grad school working remotely. For all sorts of reasons, including social…

We do it and it seems to work out. Our system is based on assigned mentors, which we do for everyone who wants it, but explicitly do for newbie engineers for their first .

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#258

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

afoot wrote: post #161
ubermonkey wrote: post #157

I get I'm part of the privileged few, but: I've been working for a small software company for almost 11 years, and EVERYONE at my company is remote. We don't lease any real estate anywhere, unless a mailbox and a colo rack count. It's AWESOME, but there are caveats. The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies; everyone we've brought in has to be mid-career at a minimum because the absence of the "water coole…

This is very interesting, because your office sounds like hell to me. Any time I work from home I'm absolutely desperate for meaningless social interaction, a walk and a chat while out for coffee, a beer with my team at lunch or after work and face to face discussion. I guess it's hard to find something that works for everyone.

To each his own. I have been self employed for well over a year and cannot see myself ever going back to and office environment. Don’t care if it pays 5x more even.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#259

Post by Bartweiss »

PeterStuer wrote: post #200
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #170

I juuuust got off a catch-up call with an old college buddy who works at one of the big wireless companies. He described what I read about here on HN and in some blog posts: The company completely changed its "culture" in a desperate attempt to "attract millennials" (and be on trend). Moved to an open floor plan where nobody has an assigned desk. You literally cannot leave anything overnight or you get some sort of a…

It's called 'hot-desking'. In practice everyone still sits in the same place every day, and sublimizes their territorial marking. Sitting in 'someone else's' spot is seriously frowned upon. This trend happened when the 'open plan' needed a next level of hell.

> This trend happened when the 'open plan' needed a next level of hell.

I seem to remember Dilbert explaining this as a way to ensure employees felt more like company-owned sacks of potatoes than actual humans. Hot-desking really does seem like one of the most dehumanizing office designs I can think of.

I know the supposed benefits of open offices, but I'm not even sure what hot-desking claims to achieve? Except in call centers I guess, where it's explicitly "to speed up firing people".

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#260

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

ekimekim wrote: post #236
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case I'm using the wrong terminology, I mean 6 metres x 6 metres rather than sqrt(6) metres x sqrt(6) metres.

Yep, that would be 36m^2. If it helps, think of a grid of 1m by 1m tiles laid out on the floor. How many tiles could you fit?

I always thought it was "4 metres squared" means 4x4 and "4 square metres" means 2x2. Unless 4m^2 doesn't mean "4 metres squared", which would really be confusing me ...
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