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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

#311

Post by firmgently »

alanh wrote: post #283
idlewords wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcasm that's marked is not sarcasm.

idlewords or not, that’s not true. Verbal sarcasm is usually 'marked' by its delivery. (Can you hear Homer Simpson's sarcastic voice in your head?) In my experience, seeing an explicit (sarcasm) at the end of a post has never ruined the post for me. Certainly I spotted the sarcasm here myself, but clearly many didn’t.

Verbal sarcasm being marked by its delivery as per Homer is a very US thing, in the UK (or at least in my life experience) sarcasm is supposed to be subtle, otherwise what's the point? To put a special voice on to denote sarcasm would be roughly equivalent to carrying a small drum-kit around to play 'badoom-tish' whenever you say something wry or funny.

The function of sarcasm almost seems to be a kind of social 'weeding'... "Do you think so badly of me that you don't realise that the horrible thing I just said is the opposite of my real view?" / "Are you too stupid to know when someone's being sarcastic?". The deliverer of the sarcasm gets confirmation that people know she isn't that much of a dick, the recipient gets to demonstrate that they 'get it'. Validation all around.

I think the cues are still there in physical interactions over here, they're just not as garish as a Homer Simpson sarcastic voice. "American-style sarcasm" exists as a phrase :) I realise the rise of internet/text communication will dilute these subtleties out of our lives but for now I'm one of the people who finds the /s tag very disappointing.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#312

Post by stale2002 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #309
matthewmacleod wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you are a developer who has to check in code, then you need a quiet place for focused work. You can try to argue that some developers don't need that, but those who can achieve peak concentration while context switching and talking to others are biological curiosities, if they exist at all. I haven't met anyone like that. Now most employees working in tech companies are not developers. There is a whole "developer…

Hypothetical scenario here:

Lets say that you have a 5 minute question, that would save you an hour of work.

In a closed/cubicle style office, you may be less willing to bug your expert co-worker. In an open office, it may be perfectly normal to turn to your left, and quickly ask you question.

Sure, you are taking time out of your co-worker's day, but even so, on the net whole, asking the question is probably a net benefit time saver to the company.

In closed-style offices, it is a big gesture to walk into someone's office and ask a question. I'd feel less comfortable doing that.

Even sending a slack message still feels less comfortable than just turning your head and asking a quick question.

Coding is a collaborative process to many people. I don't want to schedule a freaking meeting for my simple question, or walk into someone's office. I'd probably just not ask if I felt like I was bothering someone.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#313

Post by Kluny »

stale2002 wrote: post #312
rsj_hn wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a developer who has to check in code, then you need a quiet place for focused work. You can try to argue that some developers don't need that, but those who can achieve peak concentration while context switching and talking to others are biological curiosities, if they exist at all. I haven't met anyone like that. Now most employees working in tech companies are not developers. There is a whole "developer…

Hypothetical scenario here: Lets say that you have a 5 minute question, that would save you an hour of work. In a closed/cubicle style office, you may be less willing to bug your expert co-worker. In an open office, it may be perfectly normal to turn to your left, and quickly ask you question. Sure, you are taking time out of your co-worker's day, but even so, on the net whole, asking the question is probably a net b…

That five minute question may well save you an hour of work, but it's just as likely - I'd say_more_ likely - to steal an hour of productivity from the person you ask.

Just send them a message in slack. Don't be so obnoxious as to assume that whatever's bugging you at this moment is automatically more important than whatever your co-worker is on.

I don't know why it feels weirder to slack them then it does to turn your head and ask. One demands immediate attention, the other allows them to answer when they have bandwidth for it. It seems obvious enough to me which is more polite.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#314

Post by bamboozled »

freehunter wrote: post #260
bamboozled wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely too and I often think about how much this has reduced my environmental footprint. It would be interesting to see some figures on how much of a positive impact it has.

I worry about how much it increases my environmental footprint. I have an entire house of climate control being used for the sake of one person. I have lights in the house being used for one person. Sure I don’t commute by car, but I’m willing to bet commercial HVAC systems are more efficient per person and commercial lighting systems are more efficient per person and all of the other things that go into an office ar…

It sounds like most of what you're worried about could be mitigated pretty simply.

Use a smaller heater, solar panels, LED globes etc.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#315

Post by m1dnigh7 »

stale2002 wrote: post #312
rsj_hn wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a developer who has to check in code, then you need a quiet place for focused work. You can try to argue that some developers don't need that, but those who can achieve peak concentration while context switching and talking to others are biological curiosities, if they exist at all. I haven't met anyone like that. Now most employees working in tech companies are not developers. There is a whole "developer…

Hypothetical scenario here: Lets say that you have a 5 minute question, that would save you an hour of work. In a closed/cubicle style office, you may be less willing to bug your expert co-worker. In an open office, it may be perfectly normal to turn to your left, and quickly ask you question. Sure, you are taking time out of your co-worker's day, but even so, on the net whole, asking the question is probably a net b…

But there is the whole glass castle principle you forgot to me too. That 5 minute break does not take 0 minutes to recover from in some cases. You need to rebuild your glass castle in your head over and over again. So in reality it might take just as much time to go back to full productivity.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#316

Post by DerekL »

fullshark wrote: post #71
IBM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

John Gruber, the blogger mentioned in the article, thought the same thing:

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/27/video-footage-f...

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#317

Post by cliftonc »

cdkee wrote: post #117
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…

I'm a Solutions Engineer and whenever I have to get on a sales call or demo at my desk it's a disaster - it's simply far too loud and too much background noise is heard on the call. This is just one more complaint in a long-list that I have with this arrangement. Makes me miss my cube!

Why not use a headset? They work really well at blocking out background noise (we use the plantronics ones). Worth every cent.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#318

Post by EliRivers »

stale2002 wrote: post #312
rsj_hn wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a developer who has to check in code, then you need a quiet place for focused work. You can try to argue that some developers don't need that, but those who can achieve peak concentration while context switching and talking to others are biological curiosities, if they exist at all. I haven't met anyone like that. Now most employees working in tech companies are not developers. There is a whole "developer…

Hypothetical scenario here: Lets say that you have a 5 minute question, that would save you an hour of work. In a closed/cubicle style office, you may be less willing to bug your expert co-worker. In an open office, it may be perfectly normal to turn to your left, and quickly ask you question. Sure, you are taking time out of your co-worker's day, but even so, on the net whole, asking the question is probably a net b…

Reducing interruptions from people is a feature; not a bug. Maybe you would only do it when it would save you an hour; more commonly, people have a much lower "interrupt someone trying to work" threshold.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#319

Post by michaelt »

Clubber wrote: post #255
jnbiche wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Results. Delivery of requested work products on schedule with quality. Because we all know that software estimation is a solved problem. Particularly with non-technical managers.

>Because we all know that software estimation is a solved problem. Particularly with non-technical managers. Oh wonderful. They don't do estimates at your company then? This was explained to me by one of my professors 20 years ago. There are two types of company mentalities: A: The high school mentality. You show up 8 to 5 but it doesn't really matter what gets done. B: The college mentality. You pass or fail based o…

  Oh wonderful. They don't do estimates at your company
  then?
You can do estimates without thinking they're accurate enough to let you detect high- and low-performing employees.

Intern Ian's tasks are simple and well documented - so they always have good estimates. Veteran Victor is great at complex, poorly understood bugs - but he often takes longer than estimated to fix them, as often the cause is hard to find.

It would be a foolish manager that would punish Victor for performing worse than Ian.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#320

Post by sengork »

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…

Those desks on the renders don't look like standing desks, but rather height adjustable desks.

Here in Australia all new offices are equipping standing desks for OH&S laws and workspace regulation compliances.

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