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

Open offices are bad for us

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 377 posts

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#201

Post by cmdrfred »

Arizhel wrote: post #156
toast0 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Headphones don't damage your hearing, headphones at high volume damage hearing. If you're using noise cancelling (or just closed ear in most environments), you can listen to your audio at a reasonable volume, if you're listening at high volume to drown out other noise that could be dangerous.

Noise-canceling headphones do not cancel out conversations, so you must listen at high volume to drown out that other noise. The only thing noise-canceling headphones are really good for is canceling out constant drone, for things such as fan noise and jet engine drone. That's why they're so popular for frequent airplane travelers. They do absolutely nothing if you're in an office surrounded by yapping coworkers (at…

Your right. When you consider it there has been a few million years of iteration of the human ear to attune it to the sound of the human voice. A difficult problem to overcome to say the least.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#202

Post by ptero »

rotten wrote: post #185
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, open offices with cubicles can be more expensive than building drywall walls to make closed offices. And the much-vaunted flexibility of cubicles is way, way overrated. In my experience, cubicles sit in the same place for years. Any benefit of re-using them is lost. Also if the company is growing, new ones get bought all the time, so old ones aren't re-used anyway. Its obvious on the face of it: re-usable…

At one place I worked we went in on a weekend and rearranged all of the cubicles in our work area to better suit our work style and needs. (moved openings, created a central collaboration area, etc) Our boss was ok with it because he said he was responsible for the budget for that floor (including real estate) and if we felt it would make us more productive he was all for it. Unfortunately the corporate bureaucrats g…

Could it be that one of the team members made a complaint privately (or anonymously)? Otherwise it would be a stupid move (and would be easy to fight by taking the case to the next level of bureaucrats -- "bureaucrats have greater bureaucrats to go to .. " :) )

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#203

Post by [deleted] »

logfromblammo wrote: post #138
romanovcode wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and this should be encouraged by everyone, not only managers. You should definitely tell your workmate to go home if he is sick.

My company does not provide sick leave or paid vacation. They replaced it with "PTO" to make it easier to treat a de jure salaried employee like a de facto hourly wage-earning employee. I have no time-card code to use for hours that I cannot work, due to being involuntarily banished from the office due to illness. So guess what, people? If I'm sick, and I feel like I can work, I'm coming in to the office. If I don't…

[deleted]

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#205

Post by eropple »

sjclemmy wrote: post #189
eropple wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're really not, though. In addition to "hey, hearing damage!" if you're listening loud enough to actually counteract the din of crap around you, it's a profoundly isolating thing to be wearing them for six hours a day. It's symptomatic relief that pushes the buttons of way worse problems, IMO.

Which is why I just bought some of those Bose noise cancelling cans. Listen at a safe volume and block out noise. They're great.

That you have to block out noise by strapping things to your head for six hours a day is the problem that you are steadfastly not solving, though.

You can't get around needing to strap things to your head when you're operating a jackhammer. Nerd at a desk? At the least we should fight for a little dignity.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#206

Post by user5994461 »

smelendez wrote: post #21

Open offices are awful, but they're here to stay for the same reason more adults are living with roommates and relatives: high real estate prices. Working remotely is one solution, but many companies don't think it would work for them. Personally, I'd make the shared area for solitary work only: no work discussions longer than a minute at work areas (use a conference room, take a walk or Slack), no eating at work are…

> Open offices are awful, but they're here to stay for the same reason more adults are living with roommates and relatives: high real estate prices.

There is no proof that open office are cheaper. There never was any decent study done on that topic.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#207

Post by chris_7 »

wccrawford wrote: post #194
chris_7 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that the team's mood might not actually be as good as you think that it is? It's generally inadvisable to bring up environmental things that are making you unhappy at work, it could mark you as "not a team player" or "not a culture fit". People might be keeping it internal and just waiting it out until they can leave (I'm doing this now, actually).

I've worked with quite a few programmers who absolutely wouldn't bring up things that put others in a bad light. I worked with a Chinese guy that routinely put up with many of the others making jokes (all nice, IIRC) about his ethnicity. I noticed that he didn't look happy about it, and tried to help, but he refused to do anything about it. He eventually stressed out and quit, and I can't help but think that was at l…

Well, they do something - they find a new job.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#208

Post by empthought »

amyjess wrote: post #38
tgb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I'm confused. If you like cube farms and cube farms are more likely in higher cost real estate and urban real estate is more expensive, wouldn't you prefer urban offices?

I want to avoid open offices where people sit on long benches shoulder to shoulder or just have a bunch of desks jammed together. A guy I know who works at Dell recently got moved from a cube to one of those, he's posted pictures of his workspace, and just looking at those pictures set off my claustrophobia badly. The cubes at my company are huge. If company policy here didn't forbid photography, I'd show you. I'd gu…

>The cubes at my company are huge. ... I'd guess they're about 6 feet by 6 feet.

Is this seriously huge nowadays? 75 square feet should be minimum. Or do you mean 6 feet by 6 feet of open floor with the remaining area covered by desks/cabinets/etc. ?

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#209

Post by amyjess »

nilkn wrote: post #134
Someone1234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that was cubicles are designed to solve? You take a large inexpensive space, pack in staff densely, than rely on cubicle walls to isolate everyone.

This is a good point. The psychology of office design is surprisingly nuanced and complex. Practically speaking, cubicles solve a lot of the problems with open office floorplans. On the other hand, they introduce new issues. A big, silent cube farm can feel incredibly dehumanizing. Somehow a large open space feels more lively and human-friendly even if it's actually a way less efficient design for productivity. Whene…

> But guess which one led to an office at the end and which one did not? They weren't equivalent at all in practice.

At my company, the technical track includes Architect as a director-level position, and they get their own offices just like actual Directors. I think that's even weirder. We have one architect in my department, and he has this giant office. It's one of the bigger offices in the area, even (about twice as big as the Director of Product Management's office next door). He doesn't manage people, and he spends most of his time designing software and writing code just like the rest of us. Going into his office is a really weird feeling, and it's outright surreal seeing my boss (who also has a cube, because he's a Sr. Manager and not a Director) go into his office to have a design discussion.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#210

Post by nawitus »

jasode wrote: post #96
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, open offices with cubicles can be more expensive than building drywall walls to make closed offices. And the much-vaunted flexibility of cubicles is way, way overrated. In my experience, cubicles sit in the same place for years. Any benefit of re-using them is lost. Also if the company is growing, new ones get bought all the time, so old ones aren't re-used anyway. Its obvious on the face of it: re-usable…

>We need some kind of vaccine to combat it. The vaccine is a startup that is 10x (or even just 2x) better than everyone else because they use private offices. Since that hypothetical business hasn't yet proven that idea, all the articles from journalists writing about "open offices bad" are just preaching to the choir. Even the common cited reason for open offices being "saves real estate costs" is questionable. As a…

An "open office" for 5-7 persons is different from an open office for 30+ people. In fact, I think an "open office" for 5-7 persons (e.g. the typical software development team) is quite ideal.
Post reply on HN