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Is the open office layout dead?

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Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#91

Post by RandomOpinion »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #17
cm2187 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone!

Don't give them any ideas, or things will go the other way: Want an external monitor? That'll be $50/month. Access to the supply closet is $10/month.

I've happily brought equipment purchased at my own expense to work. It amortizes down to very little over the lifetime of the hardware (even a $1600 workstation laptop amounts to roughly $0.25 per hour over 3 years at 40 hours a week) and makes work so much more efficient (always a plus at performance review time) and just plain more pleasant.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#92

Post by mahyarm »

ilaksh wrote: post #51
rdtsc wrote: post #14

I hope so. I didn't work in in one, but worked in a cubicle as an intern, then in an office with 3 other people focusing on the same project, then in my own office with a door, now at home. But I can only imagine the sensory distraction and just can't see why anyone thought it was a good idea for software development. Sure I can see the photo-op image appeal for PR purposes "Oh look at our dynamic startup, working in…

It's because the large tech companies' offices have expensive real estate and just don't have the square footage to give everyone an office. I actually think that in some cases they could pull off micro-offices if they engineered ventilation and virtual windows or something, but basically it comes down to space and without some high-tech micro-offices which is not actually a thing, there is just not enough space. I m…

It can actually be harder to hire people to work in the east bay at union city or fremont than palo alto sometimes.

Tesla recently had a problem with it when they were trying to transfer eng offices from PA to fremont for example.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#94

Post by sundvor »

cm2187 wrote: post #61
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of PPI, not so great.

For development I take screen real estate over PPI. The idea is to run it at native resolution while being very readable, and to be able to work on multiple documents side by side. (And for coding you actually need height more than width, if you think of a typical layout of a code file)

I agree with you. I'd love to try a 4k screen, and was even considering it - however in the end I took my home U3415W to work and bought the X34 for home (I might game 30 minutes a week or something; the extra hz are certainly nice for that, otherwise they are pretty much identical).

I value actual real estate over PPI, preferring to run at 100% / unscaled which looks much nicer in Win10. The 109PPI (3440x1440) is decent enough, and I don't have to squint. Furthermore the DPI matches those of the surrounding 16:10 24s (1920x1200) well enough for it not to be an issue.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#95

Post by dewiz »

Unrealistic suggestions for a dev with 2+ monitors or a desktop. Managers might be able to leverage focus rooms because they are more mobile, but average devs are not.

Often it's the average manager who has time to talk and likes to talk loud, so a more reasonable middle ground is to avoid cross-functional rooms/clusters.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#96

Post by rdtsc »

barrkel wrote: post #56
rdtsc wrote: post #14

I hope so. I didn't work in in one, but worked in a cubicle as an intern, then in an office with 3 other people focusing on the same project, then in my own office with a door, now at home. But I can only imagine the sensory distraction and just can't see why anyone thought it was a good idea for software development. Sure I can see the photo-op image appeal for PR purposes "Oh look at our dynamic startup, working in…

If you're a newbie and need to get up to speed, having an experienced person you can ask questions of every 5 to 10 minutes is a big help. And if you can design your software so that the team members are replaceable, being able to easily replacing engineers is more important than keeping them happy. IMO it only works on a certain complexity level of software, and up to a particular skill level of engineer. Beyond tha…

> having an experienced person you can ask questions of every 5 to 10 minutes is a big help

That is orthogonal (independent) of the office layout.

I have been both the person who needed to be brought up to speed and the one who helped others get up to speed and I can't think in either case how an open office layout would have made it better.

Just randomly interrupting people every 5 to 10 minutes is not the best approach and that's exactly the what's one of the problems with the open office layout -- they invite those kind of interruptions.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#97

Post by seanp2k2 »

giaour wrote: post #45
lj3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they gave everybody a desk with wheels? Then you can wheel your desk with your tools wherever you want to work that day.

You'll also need movers on staff or on call for employees who can't move their own desks. It's a cute idea, but making it OSHA-compliant sounds expensive.

Would it really not work to just be able to ask a coworker to help with your desk if you needed that? It seems like even having a small group of volunteers be on-call for such a thing wouldn't be much of a hassle, assuming the right pieces were in place (everything plugs in through 1 power plug, desk and chair only (mount storage to desk etc))

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#98

Post by chairmanwow »

jasonjei wrote: post #4

How open is Dropbox to remote work? A lot of places of work "allow" or "tolerate it," but it feels hard to use this working mode for a consistent period. Working from home often has the same stigma as unlimited vacation days--you can do it, but it's often frowned upon...

I think that stems from the many people that "work from home" only to take their cat to the vet, get their car washed, go to the dentist, and pick up their dry-cleaning. Most of the time whenever I hear the term "working from home" I immediately assume they will not be home and will not be working.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#99

Post by JCharante »

vacri wrote: post #55
davb wrote: post #7

> No designated desks I hate hot desking. I know it's very subjective but when I come into an office for eight hours a day, five days a week, I like to personalise my workspace. I don't drive, I take public transport and walk, and hate carting my laptop and charger around with me. I want my own space, with meeting rooms and collaboration spaces for when I need those things. I may be alone in saying so, but I'd happil…

A colleague had another problem with hot desks - a visitor would arrive at his floor and ask "Is Bob here?" => "I don't know". Without hot desks, you know where Bob sits and have a good chance of finding him. With hot desks, the visitor now has to work to find Bob, as does the person receiving the visitor.

They could take the valve approach

  The fact that everyone is always moving around within the company
  makes people hard to find. That’s why we have http://user—check it
  out. We know where you are based on where your machine is plugged
  in, so use this site to see a map of where everyone is right now.
http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#100

Post by mgkimsal »

Roritharr wrote: post #64
davb wrote: post #7

> No designated desks I hate hot desking. I know it's very subjective but when I come into an office for eight hours a day, five days a week, I like to personalise my workspace. I don't drive, I take public transport and walk, and hate carting my laptop and charger around with me. I want my own space, with meeting rooms and collaboration spaces for when I need those things. I may be alone in saying so, but I'd happil…

We've recently moved into new offices in Frankfurt/Germany and being the CTO of our 40 Person Startup gave me an in-depth look at all the calculations involved. It's simply horrible how expensive it would be to give private offices even to >3 people in our company. I've fought tooth and nail to keep everyone in small team offices( We've got two small rooms set aside as flex-desks(complete with 2 4K Monitors & Gigabit…

> This seems to be a result of different design goals of other professions that need to maximise for the most amount of butts in seat per square meter, without factoring in the losses that distractions can cause.

Many other professions factor in distractions in their office space set up. I don't think I've been to a decent attorney or CPA office setup where they were in a shared space or hotdesk situation. Offices layouts can definitely be built for this approach - perhaps you're just noting that nothing's available? Or nothing's available at a price management wants to pay?

> If you want to redraw the floorplan, you have to sign rental contracts upwards of 5 years, something no sensible startup would do ...

If it was a nicely done space, I've little doubt the space owner would have trouble leasing it out again, either to one large org, or to smaller orgs who all want private space. I run a coworking space, and most people who contact me are still really just looking for individual office space.

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