Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

m.signalvnoise.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 461 posts

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#41

Post by ghosterrific »

corpMaverick wrote: post #28
zeveb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering Is there anything less professional than watching a game at work? I really don't get why people do this, and why they think it's okay. Granted, I don't like sports — but I like TV, and I wouldn't watch TV at work. I like computer games, but I wouldn't play…

People have been waiting for it for four years. And your national team only plays 4 or 5 games. Give'm a break.

And I've been waiting for years for a bunch of new Anime releases and other shows.

Should they just give me a break to watch TV at work?

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#42

Post by ghosterrific »

mcherm wrote: post #2

> And for what? Because a minority of people kinda like that configuration? Because it’ll look good in a few photos? Because it’ll impress strangers who visit the office? Somehow the author missed the primary reason for the open office configuration: "Because it cuts the costs of office space by a HUGE amount (certainly more than half)." I suppose "Because it makes it easier for managers to keep an eye on their emplo…

I'm going to argue that nothing cuts real estate costs nearly as much as a 100% remote company.

The real reason for open office layout is this:

- we do not trust ourselves and our employees to do what we say

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#43

Post by tephra »

tombert wrote: post #6

The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering, which is my current situation. Even when soccer is over, you have to contend with people playing grab-ass all over the office, or jerks (like me) with annoyingly loud keyboards. The modicum of utility of me "jumping into a conversation" really goes out the w…

Here's a recent story from our open office.

We have a couple of mobprogramming stations with big televisions, each team has 1 or 2 of these so there are about 5 in a 20m radius from where I sit. When the first game that Sweden played all of a sudden 3 of the televisions are turned on and of course they are _not(!)_ in sync.

So here I am trying to do some work with three TVs games all slightly delayed from each other, meaning one cheer turns into three.

Now I work at a large newspaper and we sit 40m from the editorial staff so that adds to the background noise. To top it all of someone in the sports department thought it would be a good idea to @channel (usually reserved for "OMG the website is down what do we do!?") when some of the TVs stopped working (not really a job for the developers..).

That just killed whatever positive things I used to think about open offices.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#44

Post by ghosterrific »

EADGBE wrote: post #24

I don't know. I was in open offices thrice in 2.5 years before joining a cubical cult for nearly three more years now. I literally jumped at the opportunity to move my cube to share a window, and an entrance. Give me remote; or give me death at this point. There's not much natural light and a set of nice headphones can't overshadow.

This.

After doing 100% remote developer, I would rather drive for Uber and make $7 bucks an hour than ever work in a physical office again.

I'm easily 2-3x mpre productive remote without even considering the savings in time not having to drive to/from work

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#45

Post by Androider »

tomtheelder wrote: post #23
mcherm wrote: post #2

> And for what? Because a minority of people kinda like that configuration? Because it’ll look good in a few photos? Because it’ll impress strangers who visit the office? Somehow the author missed the primary reason for the open office configuration: "Because it cuts the costs of office space by a HUGE amount (certainly more than half)." I suppose "Because it makes it easier for managers to keep an eye on their emplo…

Yeah this is one of HN's favorite topics to bash on while completely ignoring the primary reason why the open office exists and persists. It's not about collaboration, it's not about socializing, it's about money. Just like all other business related decisions.

It's a penny wise, pound foolish decision though, considering engineering salaries. It's hard to quantify, and often an externalized cost to the facilities management and decision makers, but my own experience suggests open offices are incredibly expensive as a negative multiplier on the engineering output. The "actual work" starts getting done in the evenings, on planes, and on weekends, while the business hours are a circus of meetings and "grab-ass" as the top comment in this thread so eloquently put it.

I'm building my own company now, fully remote, and from an engineering output point of view I've never seen such productivity. No ass-in-seat supervision, no assigned hours, just straight throughput of engineering tasks being closed and features being shipped every day.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#47

Post by rhizome »

tomtheelder wrote: post #23
mcherm wrote: post #2

> And for what? Because a minority of people kinda like that configuration? Because it’ll look good in a few photos? Because it’ll impress strangers who visit the office? Somehow the author missed the primary reason for the open office configuration: "Because it cuts the costs of office space by a HUGE amount (certainly more than half)." I suppose "Because it makes it easier for managers to keep an eye on their emplo…

Yeah this is one of HN's favorite topics to bash on while completely ignoring the primary reason why the open office exists and persists. It's not about collaboration, it's not about socializing, it's about money. Just like all other business related decisions.

Productivity is also about money.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#48

Post by ghosterrific »

vonmoltke wrote: post #22
andrewfromx wrote: post #7

You really can just put in the headphones and ignore distractions for a few hours. And then, leave. You don’t have to sit there for 8+ hours. Go in in the morning, talk to a few people face to face, sit there with headphones for ~2 hours, and then maybe after lunch, go elsewhere and work from another location you like.

You realize there are large numbers of people who cannot "go elsewhere and work from another location [they] like".

What do you mean "cannot".

Are they in prison, North Korea or something like that?

Or do you mean that they Choose not to.... or that their paat choices makes it hard to change?

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#49

Post by WorkLifeBalance »

commandlinefan wrote: post #32
tombert wrote: post #6

The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering, which is my current situation. Even when soccer is over, you have to contend with people playing grab-ass all over the office, or jerks (like me) with annoyingly loud keyboards. The modicum of utility of me "jumping into a conversation" really goes out the w…

> bombarded with constant cheering At least it ends. I work in a gigantic "airplane hangar" open office with no noise barriers of any kind stretching out to infinity. Everybody around me is on conference calls all day, every day. They put their phones on speaker and then yell louder and louder to be heard over each other. One of them is even one of the Important People with an office with a door that closes... which…

Get any generic in-ear earphones and thread those under a pair of 3M peltor optime III ear defenders.

You can listen to even fairly quiet music and you won't hear any conversations around you.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#50

Post by rhizome »

jSully24 wrote: post #40
collinf wrote: post #19

My biggest issue with my open floor office is that it seems like everyone just takes calls at their seats. We have private spaces and enclaves for that, but I am just bombarded with 4 people within 10 feet of my workspace on their phone. To counteract I throw on some Ambient music on my headphones, which sort of works but I still find I prefer to work in silence. Does it not seem like open-office etiquette to take a…

Why can't the team agree on some norms of behavior for this very situation? We're supposed to be collaborating, so how about we all collaborate on where to take a phone call, what is and is not acceptable for noice in our work space? If we can or can not microwave fish leftovers and eat our desk? The important stuff. A critical piece of making the open space work is people being open with another. For watching big ev…

Why can't the team agree on some norms of behavior for this very situation

Who is going to assume the authority when a company is promoted as having a flat hierarchy, or holocracy, etc.? If the CEO is speakerphoning or fomenting adhoc floor meetings in an open-plan, nobody is going to say it's bad.

Post reply on HN