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

#361

Post by johnchristopher » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:13 PM UTC

Chris_Jay wrote: post #149

YouKnowBetter wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I share your sentiment, fact is that these trivial savings show up nicely on someone's target and the deteriorating effect shows up somewhere else, if at all. The open office I am in ATM is one such places where a handfull of people (loud, discussing totally not related to work, factually completly idiotic conversations) spoil it for all others. There is nothing to be done about these people since they've…

I don't understand why you can't tell them the reason you're leaving without burning a bridge - "I don't work well in an open-office environment, I found I was constantly distracted and inefficient. It's just not the right environment for me to thrive" isn't untrue or pointing fingers, and it's valuable feedback for your employer.

There's a risk the word gets out that you don't work well in team, can't adapt to a new environment or can't focus under the simple stress of office life.

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

#362

Post by deathanatos » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

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…

Relocate the office somewhere cheaper than the real estate hell that is the Bay Area, pay equal, but geographically adjusted salaries, and keep the non-open-office floor plan levels of productivity while reaping the benefits of the aforementioned points?

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

#363

Post by Pica_soO » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:18 PM UTC

hw wrote: post #234

PietdeVries wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that this working-from-home people significantly impact the efficiency of your office. It's a trend (could be the open-office space started it) but resulted in people easily working 2 or more days from home. That implies that any desk you have is empty about 40% of the time. Or: your entire office is not being used for 40%... So when bosses realised they were throwing money away, they came up with the op…

Too many people work from home who don't need to. Some people have reasonable commutes and don't bother showing up in the office most of the week. While working from home may help your productivity since you don't have to worry about commute time, it has a negative impact on the rest of your team who walks into a half-empty office. It's just unfortunate that the commute here in the Bay Area has gotten so bad that a l…

I have heard that argument before, mostly its by people for whom the office is some sort of social life replacement/ bro club experience. Also there are sun-king-middle-managers who only get that power feeling when a huge crowd of admirers tours the hallways with them.

All of it is completely unrelated with work. And sort of sad, although its a good thing, that no matter what happens, humans will needs humans.

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

#364

Post by finaliteration » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:19 PM UTC

tert45ty54wy wrote: post #168

rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Agreed! Some people are allergic to dogs. Some are afraid of dogs. And some dogs are jerks. Worked in a place where the boss brought their loud dog to work. Barked constantly, disrupted work, growled whenever clients came into the office. The boss acted like she didn't hear anything.

I’m semi-allergic to dogs and deathly allergic to cats. One of my previous jobs started out as people bringing in their dogs (which was always fun when I was on a call and two of them got into a fight), and shortly before I left they started allowing cats, as well. I raised the fact that I’m allergic to both and mostly got ignored with an “apology”. And most people in the office looked at you like you were an animal-hating monster if you even suggested they take away that policy.

I like dogs. I have dogs (they came with my wife). But I don’t want to work in a goddamn kennel.

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

#365

Post by Tharkun » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #155

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.

Every time the topic comes up on HN half a dozen people insist that the only possible reason anyone could ever consider an open plan office is cost. Meanwhile, there's a thriving and growing industry selling desks in trendy open plan offices to self-employed people who for the most part could do their work in the privacy of their own home if they didn't think the atmosphere of an open plan office was worth paying for…

YMMV, but in my neck of the woods the whole office-share thing is having a very hard time. Prices are either very steep and include private offices (hah!), or very cheap for open plan offices. Many of the latter places have devolved into regular cafes because there's no demand.

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

#366

Post by Tharkun » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:22 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #262

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.

Not sure about that. Remote would save so much more on office space! Yet most companies hate remote and don't allow it. I think the real reason is managers want to be able to see everyone at a glance; it's all about control.

Not likely, unless these managers have really keen eyes and are able to look at everyone's monitor at the same time....

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

#367

Post by existencebox » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:24 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…

I am an employee at Microsoft, who has had both offices and open space teams, and who has chatted with Dan about many of these points.

I'd make two statements, both are entirely my own.

1. The impact of these changes often lags the change itself, and status quo takes time to shift. Open spaces were definitely a fad for a while, and a lot of people (broader than MS) certainly started drinking the koolaid, yet it took ~decade for the rollout to really move in force. Conversely, I see far more anti-open-space articles nowadays than a decade ago. On top of this as well, bigCo corporate momentum cannot be underemphesized. IBM is still a behemoth, recent follies and very well-discussed employee-QOL-"hiccups" aside.

2. "success" is not binary. It's especially harder to judge when "product success" is often impacted by so many externalities it becomes very difficult to ask "what really is the impact of X specific factor." It becomes _even harder_ when the entire industry did this shift almost in lockstep, so finding "outliers" that are also viable employers for an individual became less and less an option. In that context, all I can bring is anecdata, and the # of peers I've worked with who dislike open spaces and will make active career choices to avoid them (myself included) seems to be growing.

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

#368

Post by Tharkun » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

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?

Most of us don't work for Google or FB. Most of us aren't even in the US. I can definitely see laywer or banker types getting all the perks the parent mentioned, while devs are treated like overpaid secretaries.

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

#369

Post by devhead » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:26 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…

Slack affords a method of passive communication where waving hands or tapping someone on the shoulder is an invasive method of communication.

Unless there's an urgency, or some complication that should be discussed in person; slack is the preferred method so as to allow the party you are interrupting a chance to change their focus in the least impactful manner.

If I go to someone directly, I am losing 10-15 minutes of my own productivity + the length of the conversation and that's multiplied by the number of people I interrupted.

Some people who I've worked with, love to have to have a face to face for questions or information that is not urgent and could easily be taken care of via slack. They seem to do so because they prefer to small talk, lament, debate or some other personal reason; they don't do it for technical reasons.

If your team can effectively communicate passively, on slack, your on a team that has a foundation from which a remote-work policy can easily be enacted.

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

#370

Post by ohnoesmyscv » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

darth_mastah wrote: post #248

hw wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many people work from home who don't need to. Some people have reasonable commutes and don't bother showing up in the office most of the week. While working from home may help your productivity since you don't have to worry about commute time, it has a negative impact on the rest of your team who walks into a half-empty office. It's just unfortunate that the commute here in the Bay Area has gotten so bad that a l…

I'm sorry, what criterion other than the commute time do you use to determine who "needs to" work from home? Increased productivity while working from home does not simply stem from lack of commute. It's all in the article.

Why bother with offices at all then? Why are companies paying tons of money for office space on prime real estate in SF, or dishing out free lunches and dinners, if people are more productive working from home? Google and Facebook should just mandate that people work from home.