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Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

thewalrus.ca

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Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#41

Post by collyw »

ramphastidae wrote: post #36
ryandrake wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also alcohol flowing at work? I’m no teetotaler but isn’t that a recipe for trouble? Assuming we’re not just talking about sharing a few beers after hours. I’ve worked with people who drank on the job to the point where they were working totally shitfaced, and it’s not pretty. If they’re meeting with other teams or customers, they’re going to be an embarrassment, and if they’re checking in code... let’s not even go t…

Drinking at work is one of the absolutely worst traits of tech. Not only is it totally unprofessional, but things like ‘Friday beers’ are actually presented by companies as a benefit, and you face major social and professional consequences for not participating. It’s obscene.

Boring farts.

I enjoy being able to wind down and have beers the last couple of hours on a friday (in companies that have allowed it). I organise my workload so there is nothing difficult to do then anyway.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#42

Post by verall »

reificator wrote: post #9
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…

> If this is the future of tech work, then I guess I'd better find another career--perhaps gardening or wood-working? Exactly. I can't imagine working in an environment like that. You don't want to hear me playing Smooth by Neil Cicierega[1], and I don't want to hear you playing rap. A work environment is not the place to be playing music for everyone around you. Constant generic music is the worst part of retail, an…

This is totally tangent to the coworking discussion - but honestly mouth moods is a work of art and Neil is a genius. If anyone hasn't heard it, play T.I.M.E.[0] its really unexpectedly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsoCe7C4Kmk

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#43

Post by LandR »

sputknick wrote: post #38
LandR wrote: post #27

I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…

> No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness. Can you share what part of the US/world you are in? I'm curious if this is cultural.

I'm in the UK (Scotland)

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#45

Post by bajablast »

ryandrake wrote: post #19
reificator wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is the future of tech work, then I guess I'd better find another career--perhaps gardening or wood-working? Exactly. I can't imagine working in an environment like that. You don't want to hear me playing Smooth by Neil Cicierega[1], and I don't want to hear you playing rap. A work environment is not the place to be playing music for everyone around you. Constant generic music is the worst part of retail, an…

Also alcohol flowing at work? I’m no teetotaler but isn’t that a recipe for trouble? Assuming we’re not just talking about sharing a few beers after hours. I’ve worked with people who drank on the job to the point where they were working totally shitfaced, and it’s not pretty. If they’re meeting with other teams or customers, they’re going to be an embarrassment, and if they’re checking in code... let’s not even go t…

Drinking Beer takes the edge off the massive amounts of adderall pumping through my veins after working 15 hours straight

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#46

Post by maccard »

collyw wrote: post #40
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…

I always wonder what Apple Mac coffee shop workers are actually working on. The closest I got to seeing someone working, it looked like cutting some parts out of a photo using something like photoshop. (Not exactly rocket science.)

I wrote my masters thesis in coffee shops on a MacBook. I proofread it in the library, but 95% of the writing wsd done in a local cafe.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#47

Post by bajablast »

matte_black wrote: post #35
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…

I know you may have meant it sarcastically, but woodworking has a lot of traits that appeal to a software developer. I do it as a hobby and if I wasn’t a software engineer I would probably have a woodworking business of some sort. Better to be a programmer in a woodworking shop than woodworker in a WeWork.

I'd prefer to be a blacksmith personally

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#48

Post by kerkeslager »

There's a bias toward the negative in writing, which I think comes from the fact that people write as an attempt to solve problems. So you're always going to see more negative reporting on shared offices than positive.

But I'm old enough to remember when private offices were still common, and there was a lot of negative writing about those too. As someone about to enter the software industry, I was very concerned that I'd be lonely and depressed from working alone in front of a screen all day.

I think the truth behind all this is that the people writing this negative writing are all mismatched with the offices they're in. If you put a bunch of introverts in a shared office, they're going to be distracted and stressed. And if you stick a bunch of extroverts in private offices, they're going to be lonely and depressed.

The answer for employers is to create mixed workspaces that are conducive to both forms of work, and make explicit the fact that nobody should be pressured to work in one space or another.

The answer for individuals is to know yourself and where you work best, and work at jobs that will allow you to work in a work environment that works for you.

Complaining about shared workspaces or private workspaces is counterproductive--it's just trying to force the kind of workspace that works for you onto a diverse industry that doesn't necessarily work the same as you.

Personally, I get a lot done in shared offices. I can relate to a lot of what the author complains about, but a lot of the problems he brings up are problems with startup culture, not with shared workspaces. We extroverts aren't idiots, we know that stuff like "the common themes of rap are in tune with the company’s mission" is ridiculous.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#49

Post by nimbius »

Because Hollywood and overzealous architectural design firms dont understand acoustics...many of them have only recently come to realize the hubris of their ideas.

I once worked for a $web_company in a cubeless open office with hard flooring and lots of glass. It was so bad you could hear a fart in the bathroom from the kitchen. Developers routinely recommended brands of noise cancelling headphones. In the sysadmin pool we were virtually un-addressable unless you talked to us on IRC. The office was just too damned loud.

and thats not all, things dropped on the floor never survived. they didnt just break, they went off like a bomb. I remember a tech-support coworker dropped her novelty coffee mug and someone thought it was gunfire.

We hired a sound control company to fix most of the problems when an executive was overheard in his office addressing our devops lead by a homophobic slur.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#50

Post by josephjrobison »

LandR wrote: post #27

I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…

100% agree that there is a lot less of the cross-pollination of companies as they kind of advertise.

At the WeWork I'm at, it's a mix. You can be friendly and talk to other people if you try. If you don't try it's not going to happen.

As far as productivity, I'm a full 50%+ more productive at the coworking space vs being at home. And compared to a coffee shop, it's about the same price and a lot more convenient to have the dedicated desk and guaranteed seat!

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