Open offices are bad for us • Hacker News Board

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#251

Post by blowski » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

sssilver wrote: post #245

I do my best work after everyone has left and the floor is completely empty. I hate distractions, and my brain is wired in a way where it processes every word spoken by a human to somehow be more important than abstract thoughts about an engineering problem. I wish I had a quiet room with blank walls void of decorations, and sound isolation. I'd be so much more productive. But alas, that is not hip.

I think there's more to open plan offices than fashion. They are cheaper - you can pack a lot more people into the same place.

If they're all juniors that's great. As you start hiring more seniors do you give each of them an office? That changes office culture because now everyone wants an office to feel important. Having worked in a few places hat went from 5-6 staff to more than a 100, I've seen how difficult these transitions can be.

I agree that senior staff tend to be more productive in their own offices with fewer distractions, though.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#252

Post by bitcrusher » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #86

searine wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hardly disrespect for private life. Your are mistaking respect for private life with being a "company man". Instead of setting professional boundaries the company in this case integrated themselves into your identity/family/life.

Yes, I suppose you are right. And today, I have moved on, retain equity in the company, and am proud to watch projects that I started there continue to grow and expand. They're doing great; I'm doing great. What's the problem?

I think the issue is not to invalidate your specific experience, but to highlight that your experience is pretty atypical and further that your experience should not be the norm. For every person like yourself that had a great experience in this mode, there are 500 people who are having a very BAD experience.

It's fantastic that it worked for you and your team, in that time and space, however, the combination of factors that created that were unique and not easily repeatable. So, in absence of a formula to replicate that, we should instead be working to normalize a baseline that is conducive/comfortable for most folks.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#253

Post by eicnix » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

I like the solution from Microsoft for this problem in their new Munich building: They have seperatr spaces for intense work without any distraction, areas like the most common open offices and areas for group work and meetings. Each area is its own floor and your are free to move between the areas.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#254

Post by andrei_says_ » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

Anyone working in an open office knows about the noise, distractions, interruption, attention fragmentation and unnerving lack of privacy.

Unfortunately, the office layout is determined by budget numbers related to office layout only (not including "cost of lost productivity"), and by people who more often than not do have their own offices.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#255

Post by blowski » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:24 PM UTC

rubidium wrote: post #58

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

Can you provide an estimate of total build cost / employee? It's a nice looking space, but likely only attainable for high margin industries like software engineering.

Exactly. Where do you put your 10 junior developers in an office like that and still be profitable?

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#256

Post by innocentoldguy » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:27 PM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #136

a1a wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the main takeaways from the story tho. In an open office those who need silence cannot get it, even if there are private rooms available: "Some of us even feel that escaping to a quiet room is a sign of weakness" and "it can feel as if we’re not pulling our weight if we’re not present"

Over ear headphones are a pretty good workaround if you don't want to be distracted by the noise.

It isn't just the noise that is distracting though, visual stimuli can be more distracting than noise; at least they are for me. I guess we could solve this problem via headphones and VR goggles with views isolated views of your desktop, but if you're going to go to that extreme, why not just work remotely or in a closed office?

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#257

Post by Arizhel » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:29 PM UTC

chinathrow wrote: post #247

Arizhel wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way NC headphones block conversations is because they are also acoustically isolating. That is, they would block conversations even with the NC feature turned off. The headphones you link to look like this: they're basically earplugs with headphones built in. Earplugs block conversations because they physically block sound waves from entering your ears. The same principle works with the big over-the-ear cans…

I own them so I can assure that having them plugged in without NC does not block conversation voices. Turn them on and they are gone or way quieter. Edit due to downrate: I own or owned multiple over ear medium size NC models and the mentioned in'ear ones win by large.

Hmm, interesting. I wonder if it's because they fit in the ear, rather than sitting outside like more traditional headphones. This would allow them to cancel noise at higher frequencies since the driver-to-eardrum distance is smaller.

Have you used other, more traditional can-type NC headphones? Can you compare?

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#258

Post by mwfunk » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:29 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #205

sjclemmy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed, I know that noise-cancelling headphones are a solution to noisy offices for some people, but for me at least it's almost as distracting to have something (anything) strapped to my head for hours on end. And yeah, no one should have to do that in the first place.

There is a huge overlap in my experience between people who like open offices because it's easy for them to socialize and ask questions, and people who like to pester their busy coworkers with questions they could have figured out themselves. Also people who get bored easily and like to pester coworkers because they need a break from whatever they've been working on for the last 15 minutes.

Basically whenever I hear someone say, "I love open offices because when I don't know how to do something, my coworkers are right there to help me", I can't help but think, "yeah, I bet you do, and I bet your coworkers are ready to claw their eyes out when you come around asking something because you couldn't be bothered to read a man page". Every time someone touts coworker accessibility for questions as a critical reason to have open offices, I can't help but wonder what the ratio is between the time they spend asking other people questions and the time they spend answering other people's questions, because it always sounds like it's pretty huge.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#259

Post by RandomOpinion » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:36 PM UTC

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.

>...noise cancelling cans...

Active noise cancelling systems generally only suppress continuous steady sounds, e.g. fan noise or motor hum. It actually makes conversations and other transient activities _more_ audible by reducing the background sound.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#260

Post by innocentoldguy » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 8:37 PM UTC

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…

The biggest issues I've seen with working remotely are perception and emotional validation.

Regarding perception, managers who have poor management skills, and employees who are lazy, create an illusion of productivity just by being visible. However, when you take away that visibility, the illusion seems to fall apart.

I believe this occurs because it is easy to conflate presence with productivity, so some managers don't look any deeper than that. When you take away that physical presence though, they start looking at the next easiest metric (e.g. Git commits, lines of code, or some other equally pointless measurement), and find these to be less reassuring.

If you have a good manager, who knows how to manage remote teams, working remotely isn't an issue. When you have an unskilled, butt-in-chair manager, it quickly becomes one.

Regarding emotional validation, I've worked with several managers that seemed to be emotionally validated simply by having their minions around them all day. In these cases, the remote vs. in-office arguments are always decided based on emotion, rather than any physical evidence.