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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

#71

Post by fullshark »

IBM wrote: post #27
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?

The WSJ story has some pictures of what it looks like [1]. There seems to be offices with doors, but they look like it seats about 20 people. There are also common areas with long tables between them. https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF776_0817CO_1... https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF775_0817CO_1... https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF777_0817CO_1... [1] https://www.wsj.com/art…

Looks like the ministry of information in a sci fi dystopia.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#72

Post by ClassyJacket »

aetherson wrote: post #24

I am fairly close to someone who works at Apple. His team is avoiding the new spaceship building. He mentioned wanting to keep his office, but that was just one part of several different complaints, including just "it turns out that the building isn't big enough for most of the people who work at the HQ in Cupertino," and "My team would probably have to split up in awkward ways because not everyone would be able to w…

The building looks gigantic but most of it is empty space due to the donut shape. I wonder if they plan to ever build in the middle.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#74

Post by tapatio »

quantum_magpie wrote: post #67
JSONwebtoken wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the complaints, that looks very cozy even if you have to share with what looks like a total of 4 engineers per room which is a reasonable number for collaboration. The second picture makes it look greater than 4, however. Assuming the cubicles are walled off, it'll just feel like a college library meeting room.

Ok, just at a glance: 1. No separators -- you see everyone, everyone sees you. All the time. 2. No separators between neighboring desks, thus every flinch your colleague next to you makes distracts you. 3. No shelves and drawers. Where do you put all your papers, books? 4. At least based on the pictures, reflections of light, coming from every single angle. 5. The tables are way too small. There is just no space for…

What a joke. Now I love my large private cube even more, lol.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#76

Post by scrumper »

danso wrote: post #38

OT, but is there a good book on the history of offices, at least in American workplaces? What existed before cubicles?

Private offices for managers and more senior types, desk farms for the hoi polloi, and a separate, deafeningly loud typing pool. Very much like today's open plan, but with individual desks with some separation rather than long benches.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#77

Post by brudgers »

hkmurakami wrote: post #58

It's really kind of amazing to me how in 20 years we've gone from laughing at the cacophonous, claustrophobic, diseases-transmission-inducing, open office plans of other economic regions (ex: the traditional Japanese office http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CadIFZ3h638/T7yGtzdxVDI/AAAAAAAABe... , or the Wall Street trading floor), to precisely emulating their layouts (with better superficial aesthetic design), inheriting bot…

Historically, a cube farm is an open office plan in architectural lingo. About twenty years ago, there was a movement toward movable furniture and hotelling and removing the cubical walls. For what it's worth cubicles were generally considered an improvement on grid layouts of desks.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#78

Post by dsfyu404ed »

One of the perks of working in defense is the office buildings you wind up in are usually either all offices or a series of very small cube farms because the building organization needs to be capable of supporting teams working with materials of various levels of sensitivity. Even for unclassified work most stuff is "don't share this if you don't need to".

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#79

Post by awad »

danso wrote: post #38

OT, but is there a good book on the history of offices, at least in American workplaces? What existed before cubicles?

Don't have a good book but a quick search led me to this Wired post: https://www.wired.com/2009/03/pl-design-5/

Anecdotally, when I think back to images from the early century, I'm led to believe that open plan with higher level employees in private offices is actually the historical norm. While the actual nature of work of course has changed, I'm not so sure that everyone having their own private office has ever been a reality other than a select few employers.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#80

Post by hota_mazi »

seorphates wrote: post #47

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 thou…

Nah, it's fine. If it gets noisy, put on headphones or go sit in a different place for a few hours. Individual offices can be awful and isolating. Cubes can be an acceptable compromise but it still kills a lot of spontaneous conversations.

You gain a lot with open space plans: more interaction with coworkers, cultural gel and socializing. And of course, the company can cram more people in the same place.

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