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

351–360 of 483 posts

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

#351

Post by zo1 »

bduerst wrote: post #126
jrockway wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the idea to figure out who's not working and then Eliminate Them? Because I can do that without ever seeing a person in person.

>Is the idea to figure out who's not working and then Eliminate Them? Not at all - Foucault looked at discipline in the sense of humans being molded to become skilled and efficient at work - observing everything from monks to boarding schools in an effort to analyze power structures for discipline. With panopticon, the power model is the all seeing eye, which is necessary to scale to so many prison inmates. With the…

Can you say which one of his books deals with this topic?

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

#352

Post by elnado »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #342
coredog64 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hahaha too true, too true. My lingering loyalty to MS obliges me to defend this though. There were custom shells, dev tools, and compilers for almost every major project combined with Visual Studio and C-family languages (which is an extremely overpowered editor btw - I mean you can even do 3D editing with it, proof: https://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Visual-Studio-3D-StarterKit) so, to be honest you didn't really miss Linux/Mac OS X that much.

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

#353

Post by tobych »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #252
nilkn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural light is one of the most important aspects of an office to me. A few years ago I actually turned down an offer because I realized I'd be sitting in an interior team-sized room with no windows and just a door to a hallway, again with no windows. I would have been giving up a seat next to huge windows with light flooding into the room. I just knew that I'd end up depressed in those working conditions and decide…

I sit right next to a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. The new designer who just started sits across from me and can't stand the sunlight, so he pulls the blinds down every day, all day. Drives me nuts, especially in the winter when I'm at work for all of the daylight hours I'm awake for.

I can recommend this book: "Difficult Conversations"

https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...

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

#354

Post by deckard1 »

irrational wrote: post #37

When my company moved to an open office plan we, the developers, tried to argue that we needed the ability to concentrate and that this would hinder that. We were told that every job required concentration and that we shouldn't be such prima donnas who think we are special snowflakes. Someday I'm going to get a special snowglobe and shove it down the throat of the sales lady who sits next to me who holds conference c…

I feel your pain.

Few years ago my company switched to an open office layout. There was a temporary arrangement issue, so I had to sit in the sales section of the floor for a few weeks. I don't think I accomplished a single thing the entire time I was there. Constant phone calls, loud talking across multiple rows of desks. It was like that scene in the movie Wall Street. The guy behind me was incapable of properly using a keyboard. He would mash the keys down as if he was angry at them. Never heard such noise from squishy dome keys before. Jesus.

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

#355

Post by jedberg »

deckard1 wrote: post #349
personjerry wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on the headphones. A good set of active or passive noise cancelling headphones will block all the sound even with no music.

I wear my headphones as earplugs on an airplane when I want to sleep, and I can usually keep my volume at 10% of max or less and hear everything crystal clear.

The biggest downside is that my headphones cost $350 and are only available in Europe or Montreal, CA.

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

#356

Post by tobych »

Declanomous wrote: post #240
cylinder wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't expect that in the US anytime soon as we haven't even mandated annual leave yet. I really think natural light should be required for all. I went to a high school in Texas literally modeled after a prison. No windows, no natural light anywhere in the entire building. Built in 1979. What is wrong with these people? I took my SATs at a high school classroom with a huge windows looking out to a forest setting... It…

I struggled with fatigue for most of my sophomore year of high school. I started falling asleep in class out of nowhere. Then, as suddenly as I started falling asleep in class, I stopped.Looking back, I realized that I had been going days and weeks without seeing the sun. None of my classes had windows, nor did the lunchroom or the gyms. I had been getting to school early for clubs and leaving late because of sports.…

Ouch. Plenty of jolly and upbeat advice here for teachers on decorating their "Windowless Classroom", which is apparently a thing. OMG.

http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2015/08/25/best-of-t...

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

#358

Post by pinewurst »

daok wrote: post #287
cbhl wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression that Microsoft was The One Company of the big five that still gives its employees offices with doors.

Microsoft's buildings are converting one after the other ones into open office. About 8 to 12 people per office.

http://news.microsoft.com/stories/b16/

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

#359

Post by uiri »

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.

Amazon generally has team aisles with 7 (iirc) foot walls between teams which blocked out most conversations from neighbouring teams and desks placed against 4-5 foot walls breaking up the aisle into sections. Each aisle had a window at the far end from the hallway and meeting rooms, bathrooms, office supplies, etc. were in the middle of the floor.

A much nicer setup IMO than Google which had a fairly haphazard cube farm resulting in distance from a window being basically luck of the draw.

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

#360

Post by throwaway_java »

zo1 wrote: post #351
bduerst wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is the idea to figure out who's not working and then Eliminate Them? Not at all - Foucault looked at discipline in the sense of humans being molded to become skilled and efficient at work - observing everything from monks to boarding schools in an effort to analyze power structures for discipline. With panopticon, the power model is the all seeing eye, which is necessary to scale to so many prison inmates. With the…

Can you say which one of his books deals with this topic?

Discipline and Punish
Post reply on HN