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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

#421

Post by pertymcpert »

hitekker wrote: post #371
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”.

What's the relevance?

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

#422

Post by green7ea »

mwcampbell wrote: post #101
s-shellfish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the most high bandwidth for all of us. More information doesn't always equal better.

What specific drawbacks, or groups of people for whom face-to-face is a problem, do you have in mind? FWIW, I personally don't benefit from the "high bandwidth". I'm legally blind; I can't read facial expressions or body language, or even recognize specific faces. SO for me, face-to-face amounts to little more than audio communication with full frequency range and zero latency or drop-outs. All that to say that I can…

For me it's hard to describe but I get a feeling of knowing how the other person feels from a face to face meeting. Keep in mind, this only works for people I know well and in person (close coworkers, girlfriend, etc.). I still get this over a video chat but it's at a 10% level so I feel like I'm operating without one of my senses.

I often express myself poorly and this extra feeling helps me realize it and take some corrective measures. Really helpful when trying to communicate a difficult technical concept.

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

#423

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

jrs235 wrote: post #328
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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.

Because moving to a bigger office has a whole bunch of costs beyond rent. Costs which negatively affect revenue!

But the original hypothetical situation has the baked-in presumption that the company wants to and is able to hire more people. If they can afford to do this via space expansion, they should (for purposes of the bottom line).

If they can afford to hire more but not to expand and give each worker adequate space, it suggests the company is just wrong. They actually can’t afford to hire more and would be creating problems if they do. Rather, reinvest what would have been spent on crammed headcount into the ability to expand spatially and later increase headcount with adequate space.

If a company, even a sink-or-swim growth mode start-up, believes it needs to hire people faster than it can provide minimally adequate space for them, then the company is just wrong. That is just not a thing.

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

#424

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

ghaff wrote: post #323
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “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.

Cost is absolutely an answer. If I'm not really using space and am completely indifferent to whether I have a permanent desk or not, why on earth would it be rational for the company to spend the money, time, and disruption associated with adding additional real estate? I'm not arguing for hot-desking as a standard approach, which indeed likely negates any benefits to teams being co-located. But for people who are al…

See my other comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17519080 >.

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

#425

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE »

anxiouspete wrote: post #356
eqdw wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which when you think about it is absurd really. Here we are in this open plan office that is meant to encourage communication and collaboration and yet we're communicating over Slack because we don't want to disturb our other colleagues.

As a manger who has had to support moves to these environments, I can share that it is also about money. Higher density offices, cheaper to furnish and easier reconfigure. Less fixed wiring. No desk phone, no pabx.....and collaboration.

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

#426

Post by hinkley »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #425
anxiouspete wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which when you think about it is absurd really. Here we are in this open plan office that is meant to encourage communication and collaboration and yet we're communicating over Slack because we don't want to disturb our other colleagues.

As a manger who has had to support moves to these environments, I can share that it is also about money. Higher density offices, cheaper to furnish and easier reconfigure. Less fixed wiring. No desk phone, no pabx.....and collaboration.

Aren’t you comparing apples and plums here? Fully wired cubes versus loosely and insubstantially wired desks.

If you’re not going to give people phones just take the phones away, not pack people in like sardines.

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

#427

Post by convolvatron »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #425
anxiouspete wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which when you think about it is absurd really. Here we are in this open plan office that is meant to encourage communication and collaboration and yet we're communicating over Slack because we don't want to disturb our other colleagues.

As a manger who has had to support moves to these environments, I can share that it is also about money. Higher density offices, cheaper to furnish and easier reconfigure. Less fixed wiring. No desk phone, no pabx.....and collaboration.

i miss having an office. and lately i've started to miss having a desk, as it seems they are always shuffling people around, or someone is trying to have a bullpen meeting over your head. or as someone mentioned those awful group video conferences which make me resent having even bothered to commute.

seriously, lets just give up on the notion of assigned spaces, idk what value there is when we cant even collaborate because the 4 tiny meeting rooms for 100 people are sitting at the margins of the giant open office. and there aren't any other whiteboards or projectors to use to have conversations. everyone is already wearing headphones so they can try to have a thought to themselves.

there are lots of alternatives. assign rooms to projects and have the principals mostly hang out there. couch areas and pub areas and cubby areas...rooms where you really aren't supposed to talk or hum or do anything out loud.

we've given up any actual utility of the office and are just hanging on to the barest trapping.

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

#428

Post by hinkley »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #204
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…

I don't think any manager who chooses and open office plan because it's cheaper (and I'm betting that that is almost all of them) has considered, or cares about, the cost of reduced productivity. Otherwise it wouldn't be so common. But that's just my experience. I've found it's difficult to underestimate management.

Sabotage your employees and you don’t have to give them a raise. Win win!

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

#429

Post by jamaicahest »

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #65
0x445442 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I slack and email co-workers who are within spitting distance of me. More often than not they are busy and I don't want to interrupt their flow with something that does not require immediate attention. So I'll shoot a Slack or email their way and let them get to it when they get to it.

That's a nice sentiment, however a lot of people have notifications turned on in both their email client and in Slack, so you end up interrupting them anyway.

There was a study done on the interruption effect of e-mail https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/1328726018000...

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

#430

Post by jamaicahest »

convolvatron wrote: post #427
DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manger who has had to support moves to these environments, I can share that it is also about money. Higher density offices, cheaper to furnish and easier reconfigure. Less fixed wiring. No desk phone, no pabx.....and collaboration.

i miss having an office. and lately i've started to miss having a desk, as it seems they are always shuffling people around, or someone is trying to have a bullpen meeting over your head. or as someone mentioned those awful group video conferences which make me resent having even bothered to commute. seriously, lets just give up on the notion of assigned spaces, idk what value there is when we cant even collaborate b…

>there are lots of alternatives. assign rooms to projects and have the principals mostly hang out there. couch areas and pub areas and cubby areas...rooms where you really aren't supposed to talk or hum or do anything out loud.

Having worked at a company, where they had couch areas: Management will place the couch areas in the middle or adjacent to the desks and it will all be done in an open floor. A couch area with no walls is an invitation to have loud conversations/phone calls in the middle of the office.

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