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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

#151

Post by seorphates »

pteredactyl wrote: post #116
inetknght wrote: post #85

My company only has offices for upper management. Everyone else is at a table . Tables are arranged in groups of four. Now, I get it, some people like open office environments. Good for them. Me? Well, I've told many coworkers that I can't work from home because I wouldn't work from home. There are too many distractions at home, so I need to be at the office to be productive. But this open office? There are days wher…

Visual distraction is very real when trying to focus.

For. Sure. I have difficulty with lively sensory input conditions. In a nutshell I will, by default, listen and hear every conversation within ear-shot. It can be a huge effort when attempting to carry a discussion when among many.

Not too mention I reflexively am willing to snark at anything I hear, no matter who's speaking. That can get uncomfortable, too, but in different ways.

That's one of the reasons I wave one of those tech-broad-brush-anti-social banners around - Internally I'm interacting with everything around me. That can be hard. I demure when the option is available if for only to manage my senses. I'm so misunderstood.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#152

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

notyourwork wrote: post #139
blauditore wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally see the issue with open offices, especially if they're densely populated. But I think home office has certain shortcomings as well: Communication quality is not as good over video or text chat as IRL, nuances are missed more easily and sharing a whiteboard is harder. In addition, I have the impression that some people slack off much more because they feel "unwatched".

If employees are measured correctly, it is impossible to slack off. In engineering, measuring hours is silly, measuring output and throughput is what determines performance.

And what do you propose is the correct way of collecting these measurements?

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#153

Post by NikolaNovak »

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #149
khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're ha…

That sounds horrible. Also extroverted vs assertive, I would lean towards engineers are assertive but not extroverted. There is a whole lot more to extroverted that isn't included in speaking your mind, and that speaks directly to why open floor plans can be horrible for many introverted people. * A person working without headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question. * A pe…

I'm fairly certain entire post is sarcasm, including extroverted engineers, headphones making it OK to keep yelling, and quiet/meeting rooms being used for unproductive purposes :)

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#154

Post by inetknght »

notyourwork wrote: post #137
khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're ha…

> Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them. Might be the first person to claim engineers are extroverted.

You might want to read the replies on his previous post

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395204

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#155

Post by danielharrison »

hota_mazi wrote: post #80
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.

So I'm supposed to pack up my computer, a couple of monitors, my notebooks and stationary and move it all whenever the noise levels are distracting me from focussing?

Sounds efficient.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#156

Post by mrpippy »

icanhackit wrote: post #93

John Kullmann, who ported OSX from PPC to x86, was able to work from home. I wonder if it's set up so that when you need to get shit done you work from home and when you need to collaborate you visit the spaceship? Or perhaps only the superstar engineers get to pull that kind of thing.

As I remember, that was a special-case arrangement for some kind of family reason (and after he had worked in Cupertino for several years). There are current Apple engineers with the arrangement you describe though, I know of at least one on Twitter.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#157

Post by aetherson »

loeg wrote: post #122
inetknght wrote: post #85

My company only has offices for upper management. Everyone else is at a table . Tables are arranged in groups of four. Now, I get it, some people like open office environments. Good for them. Me? Well, I've told many coworkers that I can't work from home because I wouldn't work from home. There are too many distractions at home, so I need to be at the office to be productive. But this open office? There are days wher…

If you can work from home, try it. It's not that bad.

Counterpoint: Working from home is awful. In contrast, open office plans are pleasant.

It's fine that lots of people here have the opposite opinion, but they shouldn't assume that their opinion is objective truth.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#158

Post by inetknght »

andrewfong wrote: post #143
khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're ha…

You can improve upon this by giving everyone VR headsets to shut out visual noise. You'll still need to come into the office though. Face time is important.

Ironically I have a Vive at home and it would be one of the reasons I'd never get much work done

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#159

Post by extesy »

khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're ha…

Well played! Just don't forget that there are too many people on the internet (including HN) who don't understand sarcasm if it's not explicitly marked as such.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#160

Post by developer2 »

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #149
khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're ha…

That sounds horrible. Also extroverted vs assertive, I would lean towards engineers are assertive but not extroverted. There is a whole lot more to extroverted that isn't included in speaking your mind, and that speaks directly to why open floor plans can be horrible for many introverted people. * A person working without headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question. * A pe…

Their _entire_ comment is sarcastic. Even "Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less" - all it takes is 2 people talking to ruin the environment for everyone else. Scratch that, it takes 1 person - someone on the phone.
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