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Open offices are bad for us

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Re: Open offices are bad for us

#221

Post by user5994461 »

Raphmedia wrote: post #19

Diseases and sickness are the worst part of open offices. One day one person gets sick. The second day the person to his left also gets sick. The day after, half of the open office is sick. After a week, the entire office is sick. You can almost track the migration of the disease across the room.

As a matter of fact, that also works with private office.

Back in France, with private offices, there is a social norm in most companies that in the morning you have to go around and shake hands with everyone.

It's very efficient to propagate diseases. Private offices won't save you :(

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#222

Post by user5994461 »

bane wrote: post #69

I came from a world with shared offices and team rooms (about 10 to a room) and found the team rooms the optimal way to work -- with the ability to dive out into an office if you needed intense focus on something or privacy. Open offices (note I'm meaning cubes here) can be done reasonably well, but I think they need lots of small huddle rooms you can dive into for focus, discussion and privacy and that everybody in…

Agree. Offices for small team are the optimal solutions.

Source: many years of experiences in open plan offices and team offices.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#223

Post by whatever_dude »

Maro wrote: post #98

I've been working in open office environments for the last 5+ years, also at one of AmaFaceGooSoft. I find it's a non-issue, it doesn't bother me or others, I can't recall a time in the last 1-2 years when someone complained about it. Saying that o.o. is not effective is a bit fishy given how successful some of the companies employing it are. I remember 10+ years ago at my first job we had a nice office building (it…

I can't recall a time in the last 1-2 years when someone complained about it

Pick one (or more):

* they don't know the alternative

* they're afraid to speak up and sound un-cool

* they don't realize it's actually killing their ability to focus

* they do so privately and are ignored by the higher ups

Audio-visual distractions have proven to be detrimental to focused, "intellectual", work. Not by an article on Medium, but by actual research[1]. Time[2] and time again[3] and again[4], ad infinitum.

Open office is the anti-vaxx of today's tech world, where all known data is ignored in favor of superstition.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Second...

[2] http://www.news.com.au/open-plan-offices-make-you-sick/story...

[3] http://online.rivier.edu/open-office-layout-and-employee-pro...

[4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413...

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#224

Post by kdamken »

krzysg wrote: post #110
kdamken wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Fuck that. I don't normally curse on here, but I think it's warranted. I own a great pair of over ear, noise cancelling headphones. But I shouldn't have to risk damaging my hearing because management thinks having developers sit in the middle of a bunch of salespeople and project managers is a good idea.

True. I would like to listen to music when I like to, not when I have to. Anyway noise is not everything. It is so easy to be disrupted by people walking around.

I'm continually surprised how the smallest people seem to stomp the loudest up and down the hallway.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#225

Post by kylec »

hasenj wrote: post #117

I like open offices because I want to feel like I'm working with people, not in solitary confinement. When I'm alone in a private room, I'm usually playing; not working. I find it incredibly difficult to get into working flow when in a private space. I'm sure I'm not the only one. That's why people go to cafes to work when they have to work "from home".

I feel like I'm the exact opposite. I'll spend a good amount of my time during the day at work browsing Reddit, HN, and doing work that doesn't require a lot of time or concentration. If I really need to focus and get something done, I'll work from home in the evening or head back in to the office after everyone has left so I can buckle down and concentrate.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#226

Post by vgprice »

cnagele wrote: post #41

Hey everyone, Chris Nagele here from Wildbit. For some background, I wrote about our reasons for moving to a private office plan. In short, it's more than putting on some headphones. http://wildbit.com/blog/2015/03/06/wildbit-hq-ending-the-ope... And a tour of the office itself: http://wildbit.com/blog/2015/08/05/wildbit-office-tour

The office looks really good!

I enjoy working in an open office atm, it's nice having everyone so close. It is also a necessity for me to have a "no distractions" environment while coding. I'll throw on headphones and turn my desk so I have no visual or noise distractions.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#227

Post by Florin_Andrei »

bobbark wrote: post #12

Unfortunately, a large (if not the largest) reason for open office plans that rarely comes up is space efficiency, ie packing more people into the same space. Sure, there are might be some folks who also think about creativity, but in my experience, a large portion of open space layouts have been driven by real estate cost considerations.

> open space layouts have been driven by real estate cost considerations

Quantity #1: The price differential between the open space layout, and a good working environment for the rank and file.

Quantity #2: Total funds available for executive compensation.

Let's compare the two amounts and draw some lessons.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#228

Post by notahacker »

cmdrfred wrote: post #177
notahacker wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No offense, but I would suggest that you are highly atypical as a programmer. This is probably true, but whenever this subject comes up on HN people tend to forget that programmers tend to be fairly atypical people. Many people - mostly not programmers - find that a number of people around them with a shared purpose and even background noise actually helps them concentrate, and find casual conversations with people…

Two questions. > the only reason anyone would choose to work in an open plan environment is cost-efficiency is rather dented by the number of self-employed people paying (and commuting) to work in shared office space Does anyone have numbers for this. I doubt the majority of work from home employees use such a service. >more peace and quiet staying at home. Is this also true? Homes with children are rather loud place…

The size and recent growth of the multibillion dollar coworking industry is a pretty good indication that the number of people wanting a big open shared workspace is pretty high.

I mean, you've got a survey here finding over a million people using coworking spaces, of which more than half are single founders or freelancers. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64387613/Coworking%20Sur...

I'm pretty sure most of them aren't there mainly to avoid noisy kids.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#229

Post by dqv »

levelist_com wrote: post #54
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…

I agree. I used to design voice and data networks for call centers and I would always be part of the planning phase. A lot of times I would have to go with call center owners when they would go inspect cubicles they found and potentially wanted to buy, so as to answer any questions about how they will be connected to power, network, etc.. I was always amazed at just how expensive cubicles were. I mean, for what they…

I love that idea and I'm glad someone realized it. The dry wall helps with the noise, which reduces stress in that environment.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#230

Post by gdubs »

Anyone wanting to dig deeper into some of this might be interested in reading Susan Cain's "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking". [1]

It was a paradigm shifting book for me, made me understand some people in my life in profoundly new ways, and helped me discover stuff about my own personality. It's particularly interesting to think about introversion / extroversion in terms of managing energy levels.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/...

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