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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

#371

Post by hitekker »

mikelevins wrote: post #346

The best office environment I was ever in, in 30 years of working in software development, was on Apple's Newton team in the Bubb Road building in Cupertino. Everyone in the building I was in had a private office with floor-to-ceiling exterior windows and a door that closed. Groups of offices shared a larger open common room with sofas and comfy chairs and coffee tables conveniently arranged for sitting around talkin…

Hate to be that guy, but didn’t the newton product fail?

Or at least fail in the direct sense of the word, and not “inspired something actually successful”.

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

#372

Post by dazc »

sushid wrote: post #360
dazc wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'It also made my tinnitus worse.' I've found any earplug or headphone option will make my tinnitus worse - sometimes days afterwards. I explain my tinnitus to non-sufferers as being on the threshold of noise intolerance 24/7. I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit against any of these companies that expect employees to damage their health just so they can save on floorspace?

I've also wondered about that. I didn't feel like I had tinnitus (I have a very mild one) until after I moved my apartment to a noisier street and wore earplugs for about 2 weeks. Now I have a very faint one that "toggles" once or twice a week and ALWAYS when I wear earplugs.

I had it 'mild' for years.

After ignoring the warning signs and also having an ear infection which I never bothered getting medical help for it got much worse.

It's settled down to a manageable level for me now but heed the warnings, you may save yourself a lot of misery in the long run.

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

#373

Post by hw »

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.

I didn't say that commute was the only factor, but it is a major factor. Give each person a private room and eliminate the commute, people will still work from home. It's comfortable, you don't need to deal with your manager or colleague in person, and everything's async so you can focus without getting interrupted by a knock on your private office door.

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

#375

Post by aphextron »

mikelevins wrote: post #346

The best office environment I was ever in, in 30 years of working in software development, was on Apple's Newton team in the Bubb Road building in Cupertino. Everyone in the building I was in had a private office with floor-to-ceiling exterior windows and a door that closed. Groups of offices shared a larger open common room with sofas and comfy chairs and coffee tables conveniently arranged for sitting around talkin…

>NeXT was laid out somewhat similarly, but with less convenient common areas.

Fascinating. I've always found Conway's Law [0] to hold up incredibly well, and there's a perfect example.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

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

#376

Post by lolsal »

mikelevins wrote: post #346

The best office environment I was ever in, in 30 years of working in software development, was on Apple's Newton team in the Bubb Road building in Cupertino. Everyone in the building I was in had a private office with floor-to-ceiling exterior windows and a door that closed. Groups of offices shared a larger open common room with sofas and comfy chairs and coffee tables conveniently arranged for sitting around talkin…

I share your sentiment. I worked for a company that leased an old Sun building - all of the engineers got a private office. Three solid walls (unfortunately exterior windows were limited) and one entire wall was glass and frosted between knee and shoulder height. The door to the office was a floor-to-ceiling sliding door on this glass wall.

The offices all had whiteboards on two walls and were large enough to comfortably fit 3-4 chairs total. This was great because it meant any useful meeting could happen in anyone's office. There were larger conference rooms on the corner of each hallway which had screens for video conferencing and larger tables to accommodate larger groups of folks.

If you needed privacy to focus, you closed your door. If you were open to watercooler-chit-chat, you left your door open. It was easy to overhear technical conversations if you wanted to, but also easy to ignore since you had 3.5 walls of noise privacy.

At the time I did not realize how good of a work environment that was. It was almost a decade ago. I still consider that my ideal work environment if I have to work in an office.

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

#377

Post by jbronn »

notyourwork wrote: post #223
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…

Very interesting, as someone who is interested in law and currently an SDE I would love to hear more about your transition. Did you all along plan on this, did it come after your engineering career, at what point did you become an attorney. For reference, I am 8 years into a software engineering career and heavily considering going to law school.

Do not go to law school unless it's a passion that you're willing to sacrifice financial and mental well-being for. It's only "worth it" if you're able to attend an elite (top 10) institution -- otherwise, in an industry obsessed with status and prestige, you'll end up on the wrong side of the bimodal salary curve¹ struggling to pay your six figure student debt. BigLaw, IP (patents), and tax attorneys are the only specialties that make decent money. Once laden with debt, 2000 billable hours is standard at most firms, meaning that 50+ hour weeks are the norm. Lawyers are unhappy: alcoholism² and depression³ are rampant in the profession.

Source: Lawyer that hated writing patents and went back to tech.

¹ https://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib

² 20+% of lawyers have alcohol problems: https://www.americanbar.org/publications/youraba/2016/march-...

³ 4x rate of depression and highest suicide rate among occupations: https://www.americanbar.org/publications/gp_solo/2015/march-...

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

#378

Post by hw »

Pica_soO wrote: post #363
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 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.

I've worked with teams big and small, mostly as an individual contributor, and the issue with not having a good team culture is you get churn. You can't have good team culture when half of your teammates are just at home most of the time, or if you're at home and the rest of your team is in the office. People jump around companies too often because they get jaded, bored, enticed by better offers elsewhere, and without team camaraderie and connections that bind the team together personally, you're going to get a high churn rate.

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

#379

Post by maxxxxx »

wizzard wrote: post #317
maxxxxx wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A very casual observation by me is that open office favors shallow work. Things that can get figured out quickly. Same for decisions made in large meetings. It doesn't work well for problems you have to work on for weeks and where there is not a clear path.

Just my personal observation how open office or a cube farm with loud neighbors affects me.

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

#380

Post by llampx »

iamdave wrote: post #344

Anyone else find themselves assessing office space when on interviews? Not things like looking for the pool table or seeing what craft beer they have on tap, or how fancy the giant wallboard behind reception is. I'm talking about going into an interview, taking a look at the space and asking yourself "Could I really stand working in this configuration for more than a month?". I ask, having gone into interview after i…

If more developers would put that line in their feedback to HR, I suspect change might come sooner rather than later.
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