Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

calnewport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 483 posts

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#51

Post by QuantumRoar »

It's also very easy to "accidentally" put more people into a very large room than it would be allowed by working regulations. There's at least one large Silicon Valley company who likes to do that. The working conditions can be quite miserable.

You can call it an open office that amplifies communication in the team, so noone will notice that they're almost piling up vertically. And the problem is not just noise. Too many people breathing the same air leads to rising carbon dioxide levels which makes concentrating quite hard. Unless the office was literally built for large crowds, the ventilation will usually be insufficient to cool the office in summer and to provide adequate levels of air flow.

I stopped calling those things "open offices" and use the term "laying battery" instead.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#52

Post by mc32 »

fatlasp wrote: post #7
DougN7 wrote: post #4

Open offices were developed by people who don't have to really concentrate for their job. They're awful for developers.

I always thought open offices became popular because it was literally the cheapest set up for facilities. For startups it worked because all you had to buy was desks. Somehow that got spun in to 'open offices are so sexy!' Open offices are horrible for productivity imo. Moved to a job with an office and it is so. much. better.

They remind me of new York offices, like law offices with rows of paralegal looking through documents spread on endless tables.

It's something that was a financial necessity in expensive real estate, like Manhattan, FinDi in SF, etc. and someone got the idea to transplant that into suburban offices.

To add, I think it makes sense for a lean startup or a company going through a rough reorg, but once you're mature or overcome financial difficulties, it's not necessarily a good permanent layout.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#53

Post by monk_e_boy »

nashashmi wrote: post #14
DougN7 wrote: post #4

Open offices were developed by people who don't have to really concentrate for their job. They're awful for developers.

People go to cafes to work. It is not closed cubicles there. And I think they are able to concentrate more. I know for one that I can.

Libraries and study areas are more representative of what people need to concentrate.

I expect the cafe is more akin to white noise, not the sort of conversations you'd hear in a dev open office. Sometimes when you overhear some devs talking you can't help get sucked into the conversation. Especially when they are wrong.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#54

Post by jondubois »

I don't like open offices. Sometimes they can be downright harmful though I can deal with them if I'm sitting with my back to the wall.

Many years ago, when I was fresh out of uni, I lost my job because of an open office; I was sitting relatively close to a bathroom and people kept walking past behind me - After 1 week this made me feel stressed and paranoid and I couldn't concentrate.

One month in, the boss asked me into his office and basically told me that I was unproductive and that "I'm going to have to cut you loose" - Being young, I thought there was something wrong with me but after working in several other companies, I learned the importance of the workplace environment.

If I ever get into a situation where I had to work with my back facing a large empty room again, I would start looking for a new job straight away. I feel shivers just thinking about it...

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#55

Post by rcheu »

fsloth wrote: post #9

Is there anyone here who likes open offices more than a floorplan divised into smaller rooms? I ask because I've worked in an open office setting as a developer for years (the place is otherwise nice) and thoroughly despise it as a workspace. Yet some people don't seem to mind it. I don't mind serendipity. The problem is I serendiptously overhear everyones discussion which is incredibly disruptive for deep work. Fact…

Yes, I prefer open offices. It makes the office feel more alive and interesting, and I'm less likely to get distracted since I know other people can see my screen. I have no difficulty concentrating because of noise, in part because my office is super quiet usually--people know to grab a meeting room if they're going to have a long conversation. In the past when I worked at places without easy access to meeting rooms, I just used headphones more.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#56

Post by Declanomous »

chris_7 wrote: post #43
dilap wrote: post #13

An open office wouldn't be so bad if library-like codes of silence were enforced.

Yep. Work in an office with communal[1] music, it's really bad for focus. I would say that this policy likely loses us money. [1] controlled by a clique, really

I thought listening to music all day was bad. Then I got moved in to a cube area when I got promoted. The old-timers listen to the radio all day. The radio is so much worse than just listening to other people's music -- not only am I forced to listen to music I don't care for, but the ads are twice as loud as the actual music. So I can completely tune out the music and still be interrupted by some grifter yelling about what a crazy deal you can get on a new car.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#57

Post by rdtsc »

caleblloyd wrote: post #27

I worked for a year at IBM's RTP campus. Everyone had their own dimly lit cube with 5-foot walls, no natural daylight, and white noise playing over speakers to drown out conversation. The depressing undertone of the office was part of what pushed me to quit. My team at my present job works in an open setting with 8 people in the room and windows with natural daylight. It's quiet enough to focus but gives us the oppor…

Heh. Except for no natural light, the 5-foot walls with white noise to drown out conversation actually doesn't seem bad.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#58

Post by joezydeco »

nashashmi wrote: post #14
DougN7 wrote: post #4

Open offices were developed by people who don't have to really concentrate for their job. They're awful for developers.

People go to cafes to work. It is not closed cubicles there. And I think they are able to concentrate more. I know for one that I can.

Because nobody is tapping you on the shoulder every 10 minutes asking "did you get the email I just sent out?". You also don't see long multi-person meetings in coffee shops (well, actually it does happen, and that's just as annoying).

If you could train coworkers to respect the explicit and implicit signals that people give off when working and concentrating on something and use some fucking etiquette like keeping the shouting to a minimum or taking long conversations elsewhere, this wouldn't be a problem.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#60

Post by falcolas »

vhost- wrote: post #32
DougN7 wrote: post #4

Open offices were developed by people who don't have to really concentrate for their job. They're awful for developers.

What are the alternatives to open offices for companies with hundreds or thousands of developers? Do you have offices with dozens of people split up by team? I've been to the AWS headquarters in Seattle and I think that's what their setup is like but I didn't get too much of a chance to look around. I've worked on systems administrations teams that had their own office and being able to close the door was awesome.

I worked for a company which had one office for every two employees, with a total number of employees around 1,500. It wasn't that hard; it was still a campus, it just took an extra building to house everyone.

So many open office plans leave enough floor space for walls and hallways; they just don't put them in place.

Post reply on HN