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Is the open office layout dead?

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111–120 of 373 posts

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about cubicles?

I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#112
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…

Do you allow remote work instead?

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cubicles?

I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?

Why is that? A cubicle is essentially an office without a door.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about cubicles?

I would honestly rather change careers than work in a cubicle. They give me a feeling of deep existential dread. Do some actually prefer them?

Compared to open plan? Absolutely. Even half-walls are better.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#116
post #21
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…

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.

So in addition to hearing people chatter all day I have to hear them rolling desks around?

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#117
post #90
post #86

You mean I have to use the keyboard that some sticky asshole has used? Fuck off.

Could you please comment civilly and substantively or not at all? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

He might have used a naughty word but he's on-topic for the hot-desking the article mentions, and not wrong. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7377002.stm

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#118
post #94
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

I am trying not to cargo cult here but I think if I need to scroll a file with 9 font on a 32"+ screen with 4k display it might be a sign of code smell (again, this should definitely not be a hard rule just saying it might be nice to stop and think why it is so long)?

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

For accountant offices, the Big 4 are starting to roll out hotdesking, unfortunately.

Re: Is the open office layout dead?

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I've happily brought equipment purchased at my own expense to work. How do you make sure that everyone understand that that equipment belongs to you and not The Company? I'm currently resorting to printed labels of my name or initials, but I can't help but consider that that's a tissue defence.

The Company should be putting a property tag on everything that is theirs, or at least recording serial numbers.
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