Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs

> when the company asked a diverse group of consultants — including sociologists who study “Generation Z” and how junior high students socialize and learn — to imagine what future workers would want.

Danger Will Robinson Danger!

Why would anyone try and make decisions based on the preference of jr. High students. Making decisions based on youth in the most unstable period of their life when they are incredibly hormonal and still not all that logical seems like a recipe for disaster.

I don't know about you but my jr. High self was an idiot and nothing he said or did was a good idea.

Or is the idea that we don't want to have the next gen adapt to a new way of socializing and interacting in a professional workplace? That too seems like a bad move.

It's not that they only consulted them, it's that they included them. That seems entirely reasonable - these people are going to be entering the workforce. Google wants to be attractive to them, or at the very least prevent being actively unattractive.

Additionally, gen Z is growing up with technology in a way that surpasses even millennials. They may have deep expectations about how technology should work in ways that older people don't.

If the shuttle buses are to be suspended, but they still expect people to come to work, it is a recipe for disaster. When I still worked there, about 60% of my co-workers took the shuttle from San Francisco. About 90% of those who did, did not own a car. Telling them they have to come to the office or quit is equivalent to firing them. I doubt anybody is going to buy a car AND sit an hour in traffic in the morning and an hour and traffic in the evening, to keep a particular job. Xooglers generally have no trouble finding jobs, just having that on their resume.

There's a good alternative to the open floor plans everyone is building: noise insulated "pods" with 10~12 devs and a meeting room.