The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by 0x445442 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:52 PM UTC

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…

Yeah and what kills me is how ubiquitous tellocomms are for multi-site corps. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where everyone was at their desk, headphones on and each was playing the mute/unmute game in order to not blast everyone else on the meeting with the surrounding noise.

Then, given all that, you get the coworker two seats down Slacking you. If you're Slacking folks within 10 seconds walking distance then what's the point of being in the office at all.

I think the ideal would be commuting to the office one day a week to take care of meetings which are more productive in person such as sprint planning, grooming etc.

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

#52

Post by ghaff » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

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…

For a lot of people, "taking calls" is a major part of their job. I usually work remotely but, when I am in the office, hunting for a free enclave every time I need to have a phone conversation isn't practical and certainly doesn't scale if everyone were to do it.

I do think that it's on management to try to segregate groups that don't talk much and prefer quiet from groups whose jobs involve a lot of phone conversations but it's not practical for many roles to avoid talking on their desk phone. That's why they have one.

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

#53

Post by massenburger » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:53 PM UTC

I'm sure this is just anecdotal, but we all kind of like our open office layout. We're not just at desks sitting shoulder to shoulder. They're more of these horseshoe-esque things, and you have plenty of room between you and the next person. We have an open ceiling, so the A/C provides some good, loud background noise to drown out conversations. And lastly, we're pretty strict about having people IM you before they come to your desk, so interruptions aren't as intrusive.

I really think open office layouts can be implemented correctly, it's just that managers don't take the time to really tailor them for their development teams. We all wanted the lights off to work in? Lights are off. We wanted standing desks? We got standing desks. We wanted 2 monitors? We got 2 monitors that have adjustable heights. I think the problem with open offices is that managers are just using them as a way to save money on office space. If you really want a good office area for your developers, I think you can accomplish that with an open office layout if you really try.

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

#54

Post by falcolas » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

tomtheelder wrote: post #39

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…

> I assume that labor is the most expensive part of any big-ish company, so it feels like the "offices are cheaper" argument shouldn't work. This probably depends where you are. An open office plan might well let you use less than half of the square footage per employee, which in somewhere like Manhattan would potentially be saving you on the order of $5-10k per employee. Depending on how significant the productivity…

$5-10k saved yearly to produce an unproductive $150,000+ employee... I don't think the scales are balanced even then.

And, from personal experience, companies do it even when the cost per square foot is 1/10th of that of NY.

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

#55

Post by magduf » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #13

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…

> 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…

Or, as Androider said, put it in the break room. Where I work, that's exactly what they did: there's a TV in the break room that's on all the time, so for world cup it was tuned to that. No problem: if you want to watch it for a few minutes, go do it in the break room. If you want to not be bothered while you work, don't hang out in the break room.

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

#56

Post by tzahola » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

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…

>I'm forced to wear headphones all day.

Didn't you know that you shouldn't use headphones in an open-plan office, because it prevents you from collaborating with others? /s

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

#57

Post by pc86 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

flax wrote: post #12

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.

Maybe that works for you, but headphones do nothing for me for the stress caused by having my back exposed to people walking around.

All things considered you have a pretty amazing life if someone walking behind you constitutes "stress."

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

#58

Post by thomk » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #49

commandlinefan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thank you! I'm going to hunt for some 3M peltor optime III ear defenders on Amazon right now.

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

#59

Post by collinf » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #52

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…

For a lot of people, "taking calls" is a major part of their job. I usually work remotely but, when I am in the office, hunting for a free enclave every time I need to have a phone conversation isn't practical and certainly doesn't scale if everyone were to do it. I do think that it's on management to try to segregate groups that don't talk much and prefer quiet from groups whose jobs involve a lot of phone conversat…

This is certainly a good point and part of the reason why I just deal with the noise. Desk segregation based on noise levels rather than teams is actually a pretty good idea. Not sure of the implementation of something like that.

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

#60

Post by phkahler » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:00 PM UTC

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…

>> The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated...

Yeah, they say it promotes more collaboration because you may overhear something where your input is relevant and join in. Or something like that. While that may be true, the increase in UNwanted distraction completely overwhelms any benefit. So then they tell us to be respectful of people around us and keep things quiet - we don't want people to overhear you. Wait wasn't that the point?