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Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

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Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#41

Post by jotux »

gervase wrote: post #13
nemo44x wrote: post #6

It all seems so backwards. Instead of having collaborative working spaces with private rooms for meetings, doesn't it make more sense to have private rooms for working and collaborative meeting spaces?

I suspect the thought process is something like, "Collaboration makes the office more productive. Therefore, if we force the employees to collaborate all the time , we can maximize productivity!"

I suspect it's much simpler than that. Open floor plans give less square footage per person so you get more people per building. It's just cheaper to build open floor plans.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#42

Post by brightball »

landhar wrote: post #31
nashashmi wrote: post #15

Man, I remember in college when we would be working long hours in the library on a computer lined up in a row of computers. Every one would be intensely working on what they needed to. Sometimes two would work together. This was especially true before presentations when we were trying to put our stuff together. It was neat. It was collaborative. It was fun. And we were happy. Open floor plan is reminiscent of those d…

IMHO, I think what's missing is focus. In college, people in the library were there to get stuff done and would leave when they were done or needed a break. In today's workspace it's less likely that everyone is completely focused on doing work every hour of the 8 to 5 work day, and that's what creates distractions.

You nailed it.

In the company's mind, everyone in the office is there to focus on exactly the task at hand all the time. In reality, it comes in spurts and each person has those at different times. When people are in there unfocused, they just distract the people who are focused.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#43

Post by andrewflnr »

nashashmi wrote: post #15

Man, I remember in college when we would be working long hours in the library on a computer lined up in a row of computers. Every one would be intensely working on what they needed to. Sometimes two would work together. This was especially true before presentations when we were trying to put our stuff together. It was neat. It was collaborative. It was fun. And we were happy. Open floor plan is reminiscent of those d…

For one thing, I'm guessing you didn't do all your work there, only specific things for short time periods. If you worked in that environment all day every day, the fun would wear off eventually. Also, as people relax, they'll get noisier.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#44

Post by Someone »

IMO, it is all in the execution. Open offices can be terrible, but they also can be good, just like private offices.

There's a huge difference between a few dozen desks in a bare concrete hall without any dividers between desks or a few dozen desks in a room with sound-dampening dividers between desks and lots of sound proofing on the walls and ceilings.

I work in an open office, and barely hear it when people three meters away make a phone call.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#45

Post by MikeTLive »

they screwed up my award winning office design. common section down the middle with individual offices on opposite walls, large enough for pair programming, one end of the alcove has windows above shelves, other end has multimedia. offices to be used as small conference rooms and manager offices, without windows, are in a perpendicular central hallway. i designed this over 10 years ago and a virtually identical design was used for my company's buildout the following year. no one is assigned to the common central table. offices can have the door open or closed depending on the occupant need/desire to be heads down or passively participate with others. each alcove houses a functional team

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#47

Post by seorphates »

Working in open office plans is simply awful.

Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity.

Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could actually support that? I think so.

The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thousands of people daily just needs to stop. Tech companies are guilty. They're huge and, humbly opined, are idiots for making it worse and not really needing to. Top that off with an open floor destination and.. damn, work is beat.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#48

Post by whipoodle »

nemo44x wrote: post #6

It all seems so backwards. Instead of having collaborative working spaces with private rooms for meetings, doesn't it make more sense to have private rooms for working and collaborative meeting spaces?

Depends what you mean by "make sense". If you mean save money on office space per square ft, probably not. If you mean fit into Jony Ive's elite design sensibility, also probably not.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#50

Post by norea-armozel »

I'll never understand the fascination with firms repeatedly going for the open office plan. I remember seeing pictures from the early 20th century where such offices existed full of people typing away. I don't know how they handled the noise or the fact they couldn't isolate themselves to do their work whether it was repetitive or novel in nature. It just seems like firms think of labor as a singular mechanical process and not as something that's done in an irregular and discoordinated fashion (as I've seen in my personal experience from working in factories and currently working in software development). I really think managerial practices need to update with the facts instead of forcing the facts to fit with their expectations.
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