They should rebel collectively, through a union perhaps
Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
231–240 of 409 posts
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#232In (almost) all open office environments, people above a certain level have private offices.
Why?
Why don't they want to be as productive and collaborative as their reports? Conference rooms and phone rooms are just as available to them as they are to the rest. They can probably even afford much better head phones than the rest.
I just don't see enough of a difference to justify it.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had two different earplugs. I don't remember the first brand, it was close to 20 years ago by now. The second pair is a discontinued Skullcandy. They work well enough but they're not really noise cancelling ... more like noise blocking . They're wearing out though. Last week I pulled one out of my ear and it left the rubber piece in my ear. That wasn't fun to fish out. I bought a pair of Bose QC35 on Sunday. Ove…
The recently launched Sony MDR1000X does the job for me (and also has a voice-passthrough option that is handy at times). It's around the same price as the Bose.
Speaking of price, were you able to get them expensed?
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fuck, that sounds awful. It's hard for me to believe that there are techies who haven't ever heard of Peopleware, have never heard of Joel Spolsky and his FogBugz offices, and have never consulted even a single authority on what makes software developers productive. It's even harder to believe that those people are responsible for diverting giant sums of money towards making palatial office buildings that will house…
The problem with the Spolsky example is that Atlassian with their huge open-plan offices completely overshadowed Fog Creek in just a few short years.
I don't think that's a problem, more a question of leadership's priorities.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly work from my home, which is self-sufficient for water (rain tanks) and heating (firewood), produces its own electricity (solar), has its own septic, produces some of our fruit and veggies and all of our eggs, with virtually no food waste that is not fed to the animals and low amount of landfill waste (you really think about it when you take it to the tip yourself). I occasionally commute to the local coffee…
Depending on how far you going (size of the aircraft and its occupancy) it is like driving all the way to your employer in a car that gets 2.4L/100Km [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#1.2C0...
Well that is way better mileage than my car gets so at least I know I'm getting there in the most efficient way.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depending on how far you going (size of the aircraft and its occupancy) it is like driving all the way to your employer in a car that gets 2.4L/100Km [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#1.2C0...
Well that is way better mileage than my car gets so at least I know I'm getting there in the most efficient way.
Train!
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Engineers are also well known for being unable to effectively communicate sarcasm in written prose.
Nah, in this case it's good sarcasm, if someone doesn't get it they need to work on their sarcasm detector: http://www.wikihow.com/Detect-Sarcasm-in-Writing
I come here for intelligent discussion not useless sarcasm. This is HN right, not Reddit?
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#238Working 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…
No, it’s not simple. I am awfully bored of these “everything is simple, open offices are uniformly awful, everybody should be remote” arguments. Yes - this works for some people, in some workplaces. In other cases, it doesn’t work. I’m fine with my open office space, and I prefer working from an office - which is a bike ride away and better equipped than I am. How about instead we accept that there are almost certain…
> Provide open office space for those who thrive in that environment. Make sure there are private areas for those who don’t. Establish a culture that supports remote workers, and encourages good behaviour in shared areas.
Yep. This is what needs to be done. One thing I'll note is that in my experience, remote workers are 2nd class citizens unless the company is a remote-first company. And if the company is bought or gets new management, the remote workers are the first to go.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The "it's cheaper" argument for open-plan offices only really works when the company hasn't spent $5bn+ on the building. They could probably have quadrupled the floor space for the same price.
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Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Noise cancelling headphones really don't seem to be tuned to 85-250 Hz (human voice) in my experience, so you don't have to actually talk louder.
I have a patent pending that uses ML to read lips combined with aggravated deep learning to generate specific noise canceling wave forms for people within visual range. It can also mask obnoxious follow on affectations like filler words and laughter out of visual range once it has locked onto a conversation. The next phase of research is for an inanity filter, predictions are that it will mute most of existence.
Let us know when you can detect people who start every sentence with "So" and tune them out entirely.