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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

#311

Post by coldtea »

imroot wrote: post #177

Ever time this gets brought up, everyone agrees with this, but, yet, no matter what, damn near every -- and I mean EVERY -- employer I've worked at, and even interviewed for since -- probably 2002 has gone to open plan offices. I can look at the engineering area at any given day and see every member of the engineering team with headphones/earbuds on. Slack/IRC/Skype for Business gets ignored...why? It allows us to fo…

>Ever time this gets brought up, everyone agrees with this, but, yet, no matter what, damn near every -- and I mean EVERY -- employer I've worked at, and even interviewed for since -- probably 2002 has gone to open plan offices.

That's because employers don't care and employees don't unite to fight them back on such matters.

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

#312

Post by thfuran »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #283
ghaff wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends. I work mostly from home but I do have a cube in the local office. If we got tight for space, it would absolutely make sense to give away my space to someone who would use it more and have me just grab an open chair for those times I have meetings or other reasons to be in the office. If I had a private office, I would still work from home most of the time. A private office doesn't eliminate a commu…

> “If we got tight for space, it would absolutely make sense to give away my space to someone who would use it more and have me just grab an open chair for those times I have meetings or other reasons to be in the office.” Why would this make more sense than moving to a bigger office or building more space for the new employee to have a desk without taking yours? Cost is absolutely not an answer.

Why is cost not an answer?

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

#313

Post by therealdrag0 »

fludlight wrote: post #281
tluyben2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it should be a mix. I get zero coding done in an open office. Networking, sales etc yes, but programming nope. None. So a courtyard office works best for me.

What's a courtyard office?

I worked at a place where everyone had a small office but they were all along the outer walls of a small open square, like 20x30 feet. So your team is right there if you need to chat, but your office is right there if you need enclosure.

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

#314

Post by coldtea »

s3r3nity wrote: post #247

Every time I read these threads against the open-plan office, I think back to two arguments that an old boss put forth for them that I haven't been able to find a good answer for: 1) If it works for some of the most successful tech companies on the planet (Google / Facebook / Amazon,) why can't it work for us? 2) Prove to me that the loss in productivity is higher than the cost / investment necessary to build everyon…

>1) If it works for some of the most successful tech companies on the planet (Google / Facebook / Amazon,) why can't it work for us?

Because it's not about what merely works, it's about what's better.

Keith Richards and others wrote great music even while on heroin. But you can do even better without heroin.

>2) Prove to me that the loss in productivity is higher than the cost / investment necessary to build everyone an office (or a semi-isolated cube) + value gained from collaboration.

There's no extra collaboration, just extra disruption, so you don't have to prove anything.

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

#315

Post by qw »

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 could use rolling desks.

https://gamebridgeu.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/desks/

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

#316

Post by thfuran »

kingbirdy wrote: post #290
telchar wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could go the opposite route: good earplugs with good noise canceling over-ear headphones. The advantage of this over the other setup is that the minimum effective volume from music is lower, protecting against tinnitus. I had the same issues and found this setup works well for me. As an added bonus the obvious rigamarole I have to go through when a coworker taps me on the shoulder makes them more likely to send a…

What's the difference you notice in the "earbuds + noise cancelling headphones" setup vs using the noise cancelling headphones to also play music?

earplugs + noise canceling headphones is better noise suppression than earplugs or noise-canceling headphones alone.

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

#317

Post by wizzard »

maxxxxx wrote: post #162
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 prefer team rooms with 2-4 people. You can chat from time to time and build friendships but you don't have the permanent noise of a big office and also some level of privacy. But the general point is: don't force people into an environment they hate and can't work in. I probably am several times more effective when I work from home in quiet. For others an open office is good.

All my favorite working arrangements have involved sitting in small teams, either in a room or in individual cubicles (such that you're only in really close proximity to a few other people). I've had my own office before; it's seriously lonely.

I'm skeptical of people who say that being in an open office doesn't affect their productivity at all. Really? How can you be sure?

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

#318

Post by mikestew »

dazc wrote: post #305
mikestew wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

'I guess my point is, yessh people, what happened to the professional work environment?' Maybe related to bullshit jobs since these people are obviously not doing any real work, just bringing their homelife to the office in order to make time pass quicker?

Mmm, possibly; I cut down to taking the dog only once or twice a week because she took a non-trivial bit of maintenance and, well, I have work to do.

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

#319

Post by pnw_hazor »

bshoemaker wrote: post #308
pnw_hazor wrote: post #217

Companies treat programmers as costs that should be minimized. They manage programmers like children (toys and treats) or stenographers(typing pools) because it is cheap. Whereas, lawyers in law firms are considered revenue generators and they are treated that way. When I switched from programming to lawyering, one of the biggest differences I noticed was how the law firm staff and office manager were always trying t…

Ah yes, Google & Facebook et. al. really seem to be minimizing their costs by spending hundreds of thousands per developer on salary and millions upon millions in toys and perks. What world are you living in?

They minimize where they can. They would pay $25/hr if they could get away with it.

They used to break the law to do it (anti-poaching agreements).

edit-to-add: Why do you think they ignore the research that says open offices are not healthy or productive? Because they can get devs to stay using less expensive means, such as, increased compensation and treats.

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

#320

Post by RandallBrown »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #286
RandallBrown wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What do you mean? The nature of needing to customize your space is fundamentally incompatible with sitting in a large open plan space. How could you “set [your] stuff up” in an open plan area? For example, suppose there is harsh overhead fluorescent lighting above your desk. But you require soft lighting from a desk lamp for eye comfort. In a private office, you can bring in a lamp. If you bring in a lamp to your ope…

Lighting is certainly trickier, but if it's that big of a deal, work with the people around you and/or your manager to move to a darker part of the office where you can set up your own lighting.

I have worked in multiple open offices where people didn't want harsh fluorescent light and they worked with the team/facilities/whoever to get the lights dimmed/removed/changed to be more compatible with what people wanted.

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