Open office is the main reason why so many people prefer to work from home nowadays.
Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
341–350 of 483 posts
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm fairly certain Microsoft is like the gold standard when it comes to office spaces. I have always been super impressed when visiting any Microsoft campus.
As I understand it, they went so far as to build office buildings that could efficiently house as many private offices as possible. So rather than a volume efficient cube, they would build long, thin buildings with offices around the perimeter and shared services in the center.
So on the plus side of working for Microsoft is that you get windows in your office. Which compensates for the minus side, which is that you get Windows in your office.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#343I 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…
Thank you. I'm scared of the virulent backlash against open offices from devs right now. Is "productivity" really the only measure of job satisfaction?
I'm more than happy to sacrifice some of my productivity for the sake of feeling more connected to my team, more light, and a general sense of freedom.
If my employer agrees, and is willing to tolerate this productivity decrease (as apparently most employers are), then this is a mutually beneficial arrangement!
These devs complaining about open floor offices think that the alternative is every company springing for private offices with optional team areas. It's NOT. Most companies can't and won't afford this. The alternative that most of us would be facing is rows and rows of dimly lit cubicles, as was the convention in the 90's.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#344I work in an open office, and have been to Facebook's open office campus many times. I love working in an open office, and think Facebook's campus looks excellent. I think the disadvantages of open offices are radically exaggerated by people who have difficulty imagining how easy it is to book a small conference room for yourself for a few hours, to walk away to a hotel desk in a more quiet part of the office, or (mo…
Depends what you do, I suppose. The reason most devs have large or multiple monitors is so they can keep a lot of things open at once, and reduce the amount of window switching they need to do to improve focus. When you leave that setup and drop down to a small 13-14" monitor you lose most of the advantages there.
I find about half of my time needs to be spent with as few distractions as possible, and the other half I can be open to interruption. I categorically don't get as much done when in a coffee shop or breakout table when needing to concentrate, though still more than working in a distracting environment.
Having to keep 10 disperate systems and their interfaces in your head requires concentration, I don't care who you are. Its like doing a very difficult math problem, or painting, or drawing, or any other number of things. When it takes half an hour to build context for a problem and another half hour after that to get anything meaningful done, 3 attention grabbing distractions a day can mean a zero productivity day.
I'm in an open office now, but work at home 2-3 times a week because the job requires concentration. If they required me to be in the office all days I would have to quit because my productivity would go down and I wouldn't be able to hit ship dates.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked for the better part of a decade on my phd in an office with no windows and no clocks on the wall, and a coffee machine. We liked to joke it was a near equivalent to a Vegas Casino for mathematicians.
I literally had a 4th floor corner office with a window in grad school. Unfortunately, the window measured about 10"x24", with a lousy view, and the office literally wasn't big enough to accommodate the three of us who shared it all at the same time. :P
I shared an office with a floor to ceiling set of windows.
Some director of another division found out about it and literally had facilities remove the desks and put high cubes in so that we wouldn't have more window than him.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm fairly certain Microsoft is like the gold standard when it comes to office spaces. I have always been super impressed when visiting any Microsoft campus.
As I understand it, they went so far as to build office buildings that could efficiently house as many private offices as possible. So rather than a volume efficient cube, they would build long, thin buildings with offices around the perimeter and shared services in the center.
Right. There's a running joke that building 36 (the main Office building) looks like the mothership (or jail, depending on who you ask) because of this criteria.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft.
Intel. https://youtu.be/sZmos0GSCWE
Its the definition of dreary/depression, but perfect for concentration.
There's so much room in the middle - theres no reason you can't have nice offices, or even nice cubicles, or mixed spaces depending on the job type or even personal preferences.
It seems though that the only "acceptable" option outside of lifeless cube farms is open offices for some reason - I have no idea why.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha I used to be at Microsoft in a building like you described: a combination of open space with offices and break-out areas. They're trying to renovate all their buildings to follow this hybrid approach as they did with building 16 which is just incredibly gorgeous ( https://news.microsoft.com/stories/b16/ ). Now I'm at a startup in the bay are that adopted the generic open-space/warehouse design and although I'm h…
Its very interesting that they only have one shot or two of the actual offices that people work, and the rest being the architecture.
Yeah, I think it's due to their paranoia of taking a picture of anything work related: monitors, whiteboards with notes, papers, etc.
Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?
#349I used to work at FB and the huge, open offices were one of my least favourite parts about the job. I worked in the London office for a year and that was actually a little better because it's smaller and generally quieter there, but the three years that I did in the Menlo Park offices were not particularly fun for all the reasons described. It's very difficult to concentrate when there's constant background noise. Me…
Huh, when I interned at Facebook in the new, open floor building, not only was noise not a problem, I could always walk to one of the many mini-lounge/libraries for absolute silence when I needed to. Plus, headphones and ear plugs are always offered, if I recall.
> headphones and ear plugs are always offered
This isn't a solution. Wearing headphones all day will lead to hearing loss. Especially if you have them turned up to any sort of level needed to block out even light conversation.