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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

#401

Post by loco5niner »

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…

Assessing the office space will be high on my list next time I interview. Especially if they have a pool table. Am I going to have to listen to that all day???

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

#402

Post by Mistredo »

magduf wrote: post #136
dreamcompiler wrote: post #102

I wonder how much of this is introvert vs extrovert? All sales people are extroverts and most managers are. Most programmers are introverts. Guess which group likes open offices?

>All sales people are extroverts and most managers are. Most programmers are introverts. Guess which group likes open offices? This is not my experience at all. From what I see, most programmers these days are definitely extroverts, if they're under the age of ~35.

What happened to introverts?

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

#403

Post by loco5niner »

Marazan wrote: post #166
tribune wrote: post #46

I wish everyone would give up on the "increases collaboration" thing and just admit that open-plan offices are about shoving as many people as possible into a given space

I like open plan offices. The increased collaboration is a plain and albviius benefit for me as a developer. A site crushing issue was solved in 30 seconds due to me overhearing a conversation in ouropen plan office. Without that it would have been at least 3 hours of pass the parcel to work out what incredibly obscure thing with timezones had happened.

... and the issue was probably initially caused by a programmer being distracted in their open office.

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

#404

Post by loco5niner »

Mistredo wrote: post #400
frogperson wrote: post #387

If open floor plans are as beneficial as managent says, then why do they always get to keep their private offices?

They deal with confidential information.

Not all of them. And programmers deal with confidential information too.

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

#405

Post by tluyben2 »

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?

Ah, I always heard it being called that, but indeed cannot find the term on Google. I mean an open office surrounded by private offices. So you gather in the ‘courtyard’ and then people who want to can sit in their own closed offices surrounding it. I was in a company a while ago that had multiple of those and it was a pleasure.

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

#406

Post by iamdave »

loco5niner wrote: post #401
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…

Assessing the office space will be high on my list next time I interview. Especially if they have a pool table. Am I going to have to listen to that all day???

Admittedly a pool table is probably on the extreme end of examples I could have given; been fortunate enough that in both places that actually did have a billiards table-they had dedicated game rooms so the clatter of a cue-ball breaking and scattering balls against each other was well contained.

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

#407

Post by Florin_Andrei »

fsloth wrote: post #359
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't really have an opinion what consitutes a good working space but open offices seem to be trendy ("It's what the big boys are doing") and a consultant made you an offer to redesign your office space, so, why not. I'm pretty sure the lemming see, lemming do explanation is one of the top actual reasons.

Considering the high regard for fiduciary duty towards stock holders among corporate officers I would imagine it's stratified - company officers accept the financial rationale since it's explicitly affecting profits positively, while lower rung troopers might accept the political explanation of increased something something interaction as at least a plausible one.

Sure. Just don't forget that corporate officers are also people, and no amount of fiduciary magic will enable them to exceed the typical limitations of human nature. And that includes falling victim to trends, gossip, and me-too.

In general, let's not elevate anybody to superhuman status, no matter what Ayn Rand wants you to believe. It's never true, and it never ends well.

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

#408

Post by loco5niner »

iamdave wrote: post #406
loco5niner wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assessing the office space will be high on my list next time I interview. Especially if they have a pool table. Am I going to have to listen to that all day???

Admittedly a pool table is probably on the extreme end of examples I could have given; been fortunate enough that in both places that actually did have a billiards table-they had dedicated game rooms so the clatter of a cue-ball breaking and scattering balls against each other was well contained.

At my open office, the CEO announced in a company-wide meeting that they would be putting a ping-pong table in the breakroom (very open, could be heard everywhere). Instant "No's" coming from everywhere. Just one example of the kind of and amount of thinking that went into designing this place. Well, the real problem is that this office was a last-minute rush-job :-( They ended up getting one that could go outside, but that was just to save face.

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

#409

Post by deathanatos »

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…

Everyone is different, but studies continually show that the net overall effect of open offices across people is hugely negative: productivity goes down, stress goes up, disease transmission goes up…

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

#410

Post by eneveu »

mbrameld wrote: post #358
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“flexdesks” or “hot desking” is just about the most juvenile reaction to working from home I can imagine. If a company believes it will gain more from “saving money” on open plan offices or hot desking than it will from just paying more to facilitate more and better work from employees through buying the best tools (a private office is a tool like a keyboard or ergonomic chair), it’s self-evidently a company to get f…

By your logic, the flight school I'm currently attending should have one helicopter per student/instructor pair since we could get more flying done without having to schedule helicopters. From the point of view of the instructor and student this is a fantastic idea. From a business standpoint it really doesn't make much sense. They do, however, give each student their own headset and view-limiting devices. We could s…

The cost of an helicopter seems like an obvious reason.
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