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

Post by s73v3r_ » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

reificator wrote: post #63

ramphastidae wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll gladly face those consequences. I don't drink. You're not going to pressure me into drinking. You're sure as hell not going to threaten my livelihood for not drinking and then act like I'm the one in the wrong.

Post by munificent » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:50 PM UTC

leoc wrote: post #96

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…

There's only going to be one kind of music in my coworking space, bagpipe music https://open.spotify.com/track/1bUM4KAW0426M6uELs43lm?si=ihC... . > Constant generic music is the worst part of retail, and that's saying something. And getting away from the front-of-house area saturated by muzak doesn't promise much relief, because in the employees-only areas of any blue-collar workplace it's a near-certainty you'll fin…

Post by Artemis2 » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

gregmac wrote: post #140

btbuildem wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The kitchen area, despite being an office staffed with supposed professionals, is always a mess. How does this happen? It's a common space, so it's nobody's. Especially in an environment like that, a collection of separated individuals

All it takes is one person to really mess it up. It's kind of like breaking the ice -- the barrier to actually making the area go from "clean" to "not clean" is much higher than just making it go from "messy" to "slightly messier". In an office with a dozen or more people there's a pretty high chance there's at least one person who is lazy, "too important" and/or "too busy" to clean up after themselves.

Post by thatfrenchguy » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

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,…

Post by s73v3r_ » Wed, Feb 21, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #83

kerkeslager wrote: post #48

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 tha…

This is 100% the truth. I don’t know why it’s so hard to recognize different people have different working preferences, there’s no absolute correct arrangement. HN (rightfully) shoots down “anecdata”, but on this issue everyone’s fine with a sample size of 1? don’t just shout your preferences at everyone else, it turns these threads into useless repetitive noise.