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Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#41

Post by jlokier »

majewsky wrote: post #23
mFixman wrote: post #13

Working from home for the past 3 months taught me that a lot of my constant tiredness and apathy came from the constant noise you get in an open office. Some people can't handle being productive in a extremely loud, and extremely bright environment. It doesn't matter how much I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones, I always felt tired after ~2 hours of work. Open offices seem to…

> I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones Huh? The point of noise-cancelling headphones (at least to me) is that you can drown out the rest of the noise with fairly quiet music.

Noise-cancelling headphones aren't perfect, and if there's a lot of environmental noise, you'll need to do more than put on quiet music.

I've been in places where I wore in-ear phones (they have some passive noise-cancelling effect due to the silicone seal), _and_ with noise-cancelling headphones around those, in attempt to keep the noise out and be able to hear something.

Your ears have a sort of physical gain control built in, so if you listen to quiet music the environmental sound (that still gets through the noise-cancelling headphones) will sound louder than if you listen to louder music.

I don't recommend actually loud music, as that causes serious damage in the long run. But some modest volume will add some additional masking on top of all the other things done to keep out the environmental sound.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#42

Post by dillonmckay »

jjeaff wrote: post #29
mFixman wrote: post #13

Working from home for the past 3 months taught me that a lot of my constant tiredness and apathy came from the constant noise you get in an open office. Some people can't handle being productive in a extremely loud, and extremely bright environment. It doesn't matter how much I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones, I always felt tired after ~2 hours of work. Open offices seem to…

It's also possible that higher co2 levels could be making you tired. I have been seeing more and more studies on high co2 levels in crowded offices causing measurable effects.

That makes sense, but also seems not too difficult to prove.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#43

Post by matsemann »

huffmsa wrote: post #15

Because it makes it too easy people to ask questions that they could have answered on their own if they'd has to stand up from their desk, walk down the hall to my office, knock on the door and obviously disrupt whatever I'm doing. In an open office all they have to do is vaguely wave their hand in the corner of my vision with "hey just a quick question" that inevitably turns into a 15 minute product revision meeting…

Sounds like that discussion was needed, to me..

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#44

Post by iso1631 »

jlengrand wrote: post #6

I'm not actually against open plan offices....at team level. I'm against open plan offices at large corp level. I have 300 people on my floor, the group closest to us is from business and spends 2/4 hours a day on the phone. It saddens me because the largest openly claimed benefit of Open Plan offices is "increase collaboration". What I literally see is people locking themselves with headphones and trying to hide in…

Hotdesking often means team members can't sit near each other. I find it hilarious that you have people who spend their entire day on zoom calls with collegues in different parts of the buildings, who also claim they can't possibly work from home.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#45

Post by onion2k »

serendipitous & spontaneous conversations with colleagues that solve problems out of the blue

In my experience those "solutions" are usually wrong in the sense that they only solve the immediate problem without giving due consideration to the wider project. If you leave out a lot of people involved most problems are easy to solve, because you're ignoring all the nuance and the things that make it hard. The solutions are also very rarely documented, so after the discussion people walk away with different ideas of what was discussed and different solutions in mind. In short, they might feel good, but they're often quite bad for the project.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#46

Post by gmtx725 »

dillonmckay wrote: post #32

Headphones don’t make things quiet. You are just replacing noises. Think of a library. I have not even brought up the visual or olfactory distractions, either.

Does it need to be completely quiet? I find I work best with low-level relaxing ambient background noise. Find it much easier to work in e.g. a coffee shop than a library

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#47

Post by lnsru »

mFixman wrote: post #13

Working from home for the past 3 months taught me that a lot of my constant tiredness and apathy came from the constant noise you get in an open office. Some people can't handle being productive in a extremely loud, and extremely bright environment. It doesn't matter how much I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones, I always felt tired after ~2 hours of work. Open offices seem to…

I last months I found out, that initial stress started with an early search of parking spot on the street. Only managers and other very important persons had their places in a garage.

Then this open office with bunch of fresh graduates solving problems and organizing meetings at their tables. No words left... and hiding in meeting rooms, labs and kitchen isn’t solution either. After pandemic is over, I’ll start at 100% remote startup. I can sacrifice 10% of my current pay for better working environment. It’s definitely worth it. Maybe even move to cheaper location one driving hour away, so I can still visit occasionally office.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#48

Post by beagle3 »

Most people can share their own experience; some people feel they are equally effective in an open space (compared to private / pair / small team office) but most feel they are not.

I have never heard a worker who requires concentration say they are MORE effective in an open space - only equal or less.

(I have heard sales people say that, and they mostly extol the virtues of being able to ask anyone around any question mid-sale-call and get an immediate answer; I suspect their co workers might have a different perspective)

I highly recommend reading “Peopleware”, which —- among many other subjects — has anecdotes and some real data about open spaces vs private vs small team offices.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#49

Post by _abox »

Why?

Noise, everyone around me talking on different conference calls and trying to concentrate on my own. Constant distractions both audio and visual. People don't respect the "headphones so stop bothering me" rule.

Yeah the collaboration is a plus, but it's just hard when you really need to get some serious work done.

I started working in 2000 and even as an intern I had my own office. It was a lot more productive.

Re: Ask HN: Why are you against open plan offices?

#50

Post by huffmsa »

majewsky wrote: post #23
mFixman wrote: post #13

Working from home for the past 3 months taught me that a lot of my constant tiredness and apathy came from the constant noise you get in an open office. Some people can't handle being productive in a extremely loud, and extremely bright environment. It doesn't matter how much I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones, I always felt tired after ~2 hours of work. Open offices seem to…

> I destroyed my hearing by putting loud music over noise-cancelling headphones Huh? The point of noise-cancelling headphones (at least to me) is that you can drown out the rest of the noise with fairly quiet music.

But the notion that I need to "drown the noise out" is wrong.

Quiet should be the default state. If you want to be loud, go find a room where you can be, instead of forcing everyone else to block you out.

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