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

#271

Post by eqdw » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

0x445442 wrote: post #51

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 di…

The reason I slack people who are ten seconds walk from my desk is mostly because, if I walk up to them and talk to them, I'm generating noise which will disrupt the other hundred people in my open plan office

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

#272

Post by jehlakj » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #117

To throw some more anecdotes in with the rest of the comments, I love open offices. I've had my own office and found it lonely and boring. I never got less work done than at that job. Everything took longer because I had to stand up and walk to talk to my team. Instant messaging sort of worked, but if they didn't respond immediately, you didn't know if it was because they missed the message or they weren't actually i…

I personally like open offices because of their casual nature. I used to work at a cubicle like setting, and I was suffocating from the upright and stricter mood they bring.

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

#273

Post by dqpb » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

Disregarding cost, I think the best office plan is to have an open-plan as your base, and enough solitary space for people to go when they need to concentrate.

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

#274

Post by OnlyRepliesToBS » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

RandallBrown wrote: post #117

To throw some more anecdotes in with the rest of the comments, I love open offices. I've had my own office and found it lonely and boring. I never got less work done than at that job. Everything took longer because I had to stand up and walk to talk to my team. Instant messaging sort of worked, but if they didn't respond immediately, you didn't know if it was because they missed the message or they weren't actually i…

Liar.

:)

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

#275

Post by mikestew » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

cimmanom wrote: post #219

aidenn0 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a toddler, but I did take my 4 year old to work for a half day once when childcare fell through. I have my own office though and she was quiet, playing with blocks in a corner.

One of my colleagues brings his 5-y/o to work once a week (open office of course), and let me tell you: a chattering, running, squealing kid is even more distracting than the dogs and televisions put together.

Yeah, had a dev manager that used to bring his daughter, who I'd guess to be around 10. She was so noisy and obnoxious, I seriously thought she had a mental disability, so I cut her some slack (not that it suddenly made it okay to take her to work). And then I figured out that she was just undisciplined...

That same office (which, as I'm sure you have figured out, was an open office) allowed dogs. Mostly fine, I'd take our well-trained, quiet female pit bull into the office. She'd bug me to go play around outside more than I would have liked, but was otherwise inconspicuous. But as someone else in the thread has pointed out, dogs in the office doesn't scale. There's gonna be the one (or more) dog (much like the one child noted above) that doesn't belong in an office. One lady brought her other-dog-hating dog every day. "Bark, bark, bark" every time another dog was in sight. Etc., etc.

I guess my point is, yessh people, what happened to the professional work environment?

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

#276

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

cimmanom wrote: post #216

the_jeremy wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any passive, over-ear firearm hearing protection also works (and most are cheaper than $40).

Finding over-ear gear that works well with glasses can be problematic, tho

Laser eye surgery is a fantastic choice as well, tbh.

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

#277

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #154

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence that open plan spaces are actually cheaper, even just in plain real estate terms? I’ve always read that they end up being less than a few percent cheaper per person after all is said and done. To boot, a lot of companies spend millions on stupid, opulent office features like fountains, coffee stations, roof decks, beer, etc. How do you explain that they are willing to spend so much more on that s…

I guess we come from different backgrounds. Personally, I've never met a person who liked the idea of open-plan offices - and this includes all managers. Of course they choose the best places for themselves to keep the maximum level of privacy possible. As for the CEO - I can't imagine he could say "we're going to squeeze you all against your will to improve the bottom line." He had to say the usual bs, whether he be…

Did you read my comment? How would the CEO be squeezing people for the bottom line? The company already owned the building, and even after the open plan remodel, they put the same number of workers into the same square feet of floor space.

I don’t understand your comment at all. What bottom line were they improving by paying $14MM to take down pre-existing privacy features, while not increasing worker density per square foot at all?

Also “look at any online calculator” is a silly response that tells me you’ve never actually looked into the data on this at all. Open plans don’t save 3x space in a vacuum, because they introduce other costs. And it still doesn’t address why a company would create gourmet coffee stations, roof decks, alcohol-focused meeting spaces, opulent fountains, huge budgets for “sleek” interior decorating, etc.

If they save 3x on space, but then use that extra space anyway for a dipshit coffee station, then your point holds no credibility: they are still paying for the huge space that could have housed all the employees with private offices. They just fill it with dipshit perks and then cram people into the remaining space.

Additionally, cubicles with high walls offer a lot if the privacy and noise blocking that private offices could give, but without taking any additional floor space when compared with open-plan offices.

So again, the answer to this behavior simply cannot be cost savings. That is not consistent with the choices that upper management make regarding offices.

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

#278

Post by yelloweyes » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:31 PM UTC

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…

That's a very simplistic and stupid insight. Guess what else generated a lot of money? Slavery.

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

#279

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:32 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.

This unfortunately doesn’t work because these types of over-ear sound blockers are extremely physically uncomfortable. I can’t get work done while wearing anything like that because it feels like my head is being squeezed.

This is the big problem with headphones as a solution. You just trade sound disergonomy or physical discomfort, and it solves nothing. Like breaking your finger to distract from the pain of a gun shot wound.

Combine it with the fact that managers have repeatedly told me that wearing earplugs is “rude” and it’s just more of the no-win optics that drive open plan offices in the first place.

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

#280

Post by mikestew » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

your-nanny wrote: post #241

rayiner wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, they shed and make your clothes and personal spaces look disgusting. They also try to interact with you and touch you without your consent. Dogs are animals. They belong outside, not in shared people spaces.

on hn it seems to be the norm to down vote opinions you disagree with or facts that you'd like to ignore. some I'm down voting you. also people are animals too.

Though much has been discussed on the topic, I consider down votes to be for those comments that don't contribute to the discussion, even if I might agree. In your case, however, I not only disagree, I don't feel your comment has contributed positively to the discussion. Whereas the parent comment did bring a different viewpoint to the discussion, though I might disagree with them.

In conclusion, have a down vote. Parent: have an upvote.