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Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

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Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#121

Post by sverige »

classybull wrote: post #42
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great idea - as there are very few these companies, their ads would stand out. Honestly, I don't know one single developer who loves open-plan places and wouldn't like to have a quiet room to work in. Most just wear headphones and try to eliminate cognitive noise in every way they can.

I enjoy them. It strikes me as extremely odd that the main complaint against open floor plans is that they kill productivity. This is such a complaint that there's people up and down this post moaning in agony as if it were literal torture that they're unable to be as productive as possible. Personally, I don't think that a company is entitled to me working at 100% productivity constantly, because I value my sanity t…

> Occasionally I chat with my coworkers about stupid shit to keep my mind loose and give it a break. If I absolutely need to be in the zone for a couple hours, I put on headphones, find a private room, or work from home. I'm completely ok with open floor plans.

What if your coworkers don't want to chat about stupid shit? Or what if some of them do, but your other coworkers who are trying to get something done under a deadline have to now endure your conversation about stupid shit? What if putting on headphones, finding a private room, or working from home isn't an option for them? What if it isn't about "working at 100% productivity constantly" but just about getting something done that needs to be done?

Having worked in solo offices, shared offices, in cube farms, and (once, briefly) in an open office plan, the main problem with interruptions is that the person being interrupted cannot choose when those occur. It might be just at the moment when some series of thoughts was converging on a conclusion that would produce a real solution with big effects. But meanwhile, some dumbass coworker decides it's time for his mental break, and in the process decides it's also time for everyone else's break.

That's the problem. It has nothing to do with prestige or ownership. It has everything to do with getting shit done. Otherwise, why work at all?

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#122

Post by andrewflnr »

piquadrat wrote: post #95
CydeWeys wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for those of us who have dreams of going into space someday. (This isn't a joke, by the way.)

Can you elaborate? As someone eyeing (sorry) a Lasik operation in the not-to-distant future, I'm genuinely interested.

It looks like it used to banned for NASA astronauts. That's the best I can find in a few minutes. It's hard for me to imagine an issue for commercial space travel.

Edit: forgot my link: https://www.wired.com/2007/09/nasa-approves-a/

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#123

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

dunham wrote: post #103
andrewflnr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back Finally, someone else who gets it. When I've mentioned this, people tend to assume it's just about what's on your screen, but that's really not the heart of it.

For me, a bigger problem is having movement in my field of vision (I can't read text next to animated ads either). And having to stare at another person is especially annoying. We had this at the university computer labs (users facing each other), and it looks like it's the same situation in the lead photo of the linked article. I'm working from home, so I'm spared this, but my employer is also moving to a new buildi…

Its just the new silicon valley trend, I think. Somewhere, someone decided, this is what cool, hip, successful tech companies do, and now it seems to be popping up all over the place.

But yea, to me they tend to feel a bit like a college computer lab, or working in a loud library. Its nice sometimes, but not all the time, IMHO.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#124

Post by drkstr »

sitkack wrote: post #94

We have open plan, I revolted by never returning to my desk. I work from random location, old unoccupied desks, home, the cafeteria, but never my desk. You just burned that real estate.

YMMV. I ended up losing my job of 7 years after proving incapable of sitting in a high-traffic area cubicle. Had a single unit office up until they decided to hand those out to the new hires in sales/marketing. They even complimented me on the quality of my work on the way out. Go figure.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#125

Post by madengr »

tomohawk wrote: post #2

Such a failure to learn. The US school system went through this with "open classrooms". Schools were built to support the idea of no walls between classrooms. For years, teachers trying to maintain sanity erected temporary dividers. These days, most of those schools have been rehabbed to include actual walls, or they've been demo'd. Such a waste.

Ugh, I went to a horrible elementary school like that, in the 70's, in rural VA. When my parents complained, she was told "these kids were destined for factory work, so the noise was not an issue". That shithole of a school is still there. I wonder if they added interior walls?

http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us

They pulled me out of 2nd grade and put me in private school where we had an orderly array of desks facing a black board. Had to start over again in 1st grade, since they were much ahead. The teacher kept our class in order; it was peaceful and quiet. I really excelled in that environment.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#126

Post by petilon »

CydeWeys wrote: post #66

At work, I currently sit in an enclosed room that fits eight SWEs, all of whom are on my team. We have sliding glass doors on the room that we only use when we're having our stand-ups so as to not disturb the people outside the room. Incoming noise never seems to be a problem. All of the conversations I overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me. I also have my back facing a wall. I consider this…

>> All of the conversations I overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me.

That's a problem for me. When I know conversations are not relevant I can tune out. When I know the conversations may be relevant I can't tune out. This is fine if all I need to do is listen in on possibly-relevant conversations all day. But when I have to write code that requires deep thinking and concentration then all the conversations going on around me is a huge distraction and my productivity plummets.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#127

Post by codyb »

alangpierce wrote: post #77
codyb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. Maybe I'm nuts but I have literally no idea what desiring a private and quiet space for concentration does to ruin a persons ability to work as a teammate. My coworkers love their noise canceling ear phones. That's great. What I'd love is to not hear their ratatat as they drum to their music. And I do not fault them for that, because I love to ratatat to my own music when I'm listening to it as well. A place to b…

Some examples: Wanting a private and quiet space means you won't be there to provide help for the new person who has spent all day fighting with their dev environment or trying to understand an area of code that you wrote. And if two people who sit near you are trying to solve a difficult problem that you've already solved, then you won't be able to overhear and chime in with your solution. Focus is certainly importa…

If someone pings me I'll be right there for them. Setting up development environments absolutely sucks but it's usually a one time thing.

Pair programming is great and I'd never advocate a development environment where senior engineers weren't available to mentor junior engineers.

But I also think tenacity is a huge part of our job. My first job as a junior engineer had me working with a fellow in Israel, I'd get two hours with him in the morning and then he'd cut out due to the timezone difference. My colleagues were consistently impressed that I'd produce despite this. One time my code didn't work, I sat there for eight hours until I realized I was missing a space in my jquery selector. It was simultaneously a moment of relief and a more existential questioning of "what the hell did I get myself into?".

At the end of the day, if you're paying a premium salary for a senior software engineer, while you shoukd encourage mentorships, you should make sure that individual has the environment they need to produce high quality, maintainable software.

Putting them in an environment where people are talking about football is not the way to accomplish that.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#130

Post by rndmswethrwawy »

flachsechs wrote: post #92
acty1 wrote: post #87

Once you work remotely (and you have your own office, in your own house) you feel bad, terribly sorry for anyone that stays in an open office "cultured" tech company making 200k+ per year. The quality of life and lack of freedom you exchange for the "next 100k" above and beyond a 100k base Salary is never worth it. Time and health is your most precious resource and asset. And many are deluded into thinking it's ok to…

> (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into account) this is important to keep in mind. the people who are the true high earners are making 500k+, sometimes married to someone else who also does. the real outliers make millions. they are the ones buying multi-$million houses in the bay area, LA, NY, etc. it's not mysterious overseas chinese and arab buyers. it's high earning americans taking ho…

As a software engineer, a moderate amount of luck (passing the bar at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) combined with an aggressive stance toward your comp can absolutely take you from the $100k to $500k+ range. You will have to work for it, AND you'll have to ask for it, but it can be done.

I am the typical "leaned to program as a kid in the 80s/90s" engineer. Knew C when starting college, went to a state school for a bachelor's and master's[0], had a mediocre programming job immediately after. I joined Amazon at $100k base ($120k total) in my mid-20s. Left that after my signing bonus penalty expired for one of the other big players at 28 for $220k. Our stock has done well, but I've also made it clear to my managers that comp matters more to me than most other things when it comes to my job, and my refresh equity grants have been generous. Four and a half years later, my total compensation is just over $500k/year, and accelerating (my career has also gone well -- more luck there).

I work hard, but mostly within a 40-50 hour week (I WORK during those hours, though -- no visits to social media, no ping pong breaks, and I take my meals alone). I spend my nights and weekends with my family, and enjoy never having to budget despite somewhat extravagant spending.

I don't think I'm atypical for my peers at work. There are a lot of similar stories at the big players, so I'd say that $200k can be a step on the way to $500k+, although almost certainly not to millions (unless you save and invest well, plus even more luck).

[0]: Skip the MS. I stayed on because my undergraduate GPA was absolutely terrible.

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