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

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

#121

Post by your-nanny »

rayiner wrote: post #98
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…

That and dogs in the office. Jesus what’s wrong with people. (The fact you’re being downvoted is proof we are living in the end times.)

we have dogs in the office. they're quiet and most people love them. in any case they are the least of the distractions...and usually only if you made the miserable decision to eat lunch at desk (which in an open office can be even more of a nuisance)

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

#122

Post by nerfhammer »

sotojuan wrote: post #88
geebee wrote: post #87

Here's what I posted three years ago on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760414 Is it time to get depressed yet? This has been a topic for such a long time. It was in peopleware in 1987. I thought I discovered the topic when Joel (On Sofware) wrote about it in 2000. While a few people seem to enjoy open offices, the overwhelming majority of developers I know, or who chime in on HN, value a quiet place…

Reminds me of Dan Luu's take: > This book seemed convincing when I read it in college. It even had all sorts of studies backing up what they said. No deadlines is better than having deadlines. Offices are better than cubicles. Basically all devs I talk to agree with this stuff. > But virtually every successful company is run the opposite way. Even Microsoft is remodeling buildings from individual offices to open plan…

e.g., Google didn't beat Altavista because its employees were 20% more productive with their office time.

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

#123

Post by tomjen3 »

tombert wrote: post #80
watwut wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "grab-ass all over the office"? I tried to google it to find whether it is expression, but got tons of porn as result.

Ah, sorry, it's a bit of local expression from where I grew up. People would say "grab-ass" when people are running/playing around and yelling like children at the office. It's not too uncommon for startups to have Nerf guns or something.

That does sound pretty awesome, but only in a room where you aren't working.

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

#124

Post by s-shellfish »

mwcampbell wrote: post #101
s-shellfish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the most high bandwidth for all of us. More information doesn't always equal better.

What specific drawbacks, or groups of people for whom face-to-face is a problem, do you have in mind? FWIW, I personally don't benefit from the "high bandwidth". I'm legally blind; I can't read facial expressions or body language, or even recognize specific faces. SO for me, face-to-face amounts to little more than audio communication with full frequency range and zero latency or drop-outs. All that to say that I can…

Some people are hyper-reactive to certain types of information. Whether you want to call it a preference or a handicap, I don't know. I personally have PTSD. I will nearly instinctively read things into faces that I can never be sure is there. This is perpetually confusing and often overloading for me, not to mention a useless waste of thinking cycles. It's taken me years to learn how to be less reactive, but it's always a process of reducing information down to a minimal set of what is most consistent, structured, and true with respect to the social environment. Which often does reduce down to pure language, the direct translation of a statement and the direction it aligns with.

It gets labeled many things, like social anxiety, aspergers, many other stigmatized disorders - but this is often my root problem - being overloaded with the amount of information present in social environments.

I have greater clarity when I can think separated from people physically, most often through text. I've gotten better with audio, but in person communication is still something of a struggle.

I'm not being argumentative either. Just people have differences, and they aren't always easy to notice, identity, or correct.

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

#125

Post by rauhl »

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.

In America, people tend to watch any of the games, or at least that’s been my experience.

I don’t begrudge people their entertainment, but surely it’s polite not to foist it on others? I don’t play Minecraft let’s play videos for hours at the office, after all!

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

#126

Post by ghaff »

collinf wrote: post #59
ghaff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It does vary within teams but overall team roles are a reasonable first cut. You probably don't want to sit software developers right next to your recruiters or inside sales groups.

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

#127

Post by magduf »

adrianN wrote: post #34
tomtheelder wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe companies should just be honest about why they run open offices instead of trying to sell it as something they do for the employees.

I work in a place with younger developers, who basically run things themselves with management's blessing. They love the open-plan office layout. I think a lot of this is generational: younger programmers are much more social and like noisy environments where they can chat and banter endlessly.

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

#128

Post by byebyetech »

It is very interesting indeed that tech companies who proud themselves in making decisions that are purely "Data Driven" completely ignores data in this case. Majority of developers hate Open Office and study after study shows that its bad. Yet they can't make decision to have offices. Very strange.

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

#129

Post by Jaruzel »

wafflesraccoon wrote: post #67

Man, reading the comments makes me think I'm the only one who loves open offices. After switching from a cube I never want to go back. I found being locked in a cube all day was depressing and created a culture of working zombies. With an open office in my experience people seem much happier.

Cubes seem to be very much a US led thing. I've worked in and around London (UK) for over 25 years now, and have worked in small offices (~10 people) up to massive 2000+ people trading floors. Not once have I seen an office split into the 'Office Space' or 'Dilbert' style of cube working.

Given the choice, and as a 100% remote worker now, I'm so glad I don't actually have to choose, I think I'd take the cube over an open trading floor environment any day.

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

#130

Post by RandallBrown »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #84
athenot wrote: post #77

I think what's a terrible idea is pegging people to specific locations. That used to be necessary to find someone in the office but nowadays we have other tools to discover each other's locations. Instead of binding people to locations, I'd much rather bind activities/moods to locations, e.g. - the studious space: hushed atmosphere like a library, NO TALKING, for people actively working on brain problems - the collab…

What if a worker needs personalized space, like certain lighting, ergonomic chair & keyboard, works on a special desktop station not with a portable laptop, etc.? Also, in every job I’ve had, the tasks I am asked to complete always require absolute quiet, private concentration time, for most hours on almost all days. The same has been true for most colleagues in each of these businesses, across all different software…

> What if a worker needs personalized space, like certain lighting, ergonomic chair & keyboard, works on a special desktop station not with a portable laptop, etc.?

They would set their stuff up in the space that best fit their needs or even work from home.

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