Why do programmers need private offices with doors? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#291

Post by d3w4s9 » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:51 PM UTC

definitelyauser wrote: post #232

gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

Sorry that's just you. As an amateur musician myself, music helps me concentrate. Actually, if I have been writing code for a while without music, I would notice that "something is missing" and turn on my music. I know a number of colleagues who use their headphones all the time as well.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#292

Post by musicale » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #236

I worked for a Japanese corporation. The Tokyo offices had enormous rooms, with long rows of desks, arranged by section/department. The section manager's desk was at the end of each row. VPs, with billion-dollar budgets, had small, schoolteacher-style desks, in the corner of the room. These enormous rooms, with hundreds of engineers, were quiet as a library. They had carpeting, people wore "office slippers," and ther…

I would hate that due to the visual distractions and lack of privacy, but "quiet as a library" is absolutely essential.

It does sound like that office layout (as with most US office layouts) is designed to clearly reinforce the status hierarchy.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#293

Post by pseudalopex » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

hattmall wrote: post #240

Senior programmer on management side. Personally when I'm coding, yeah, isolated, distraction free environment is my demand. I'm knocking stuff out, achieving flow state. Anything else I feel frustrated that I'm not performing at my peak. I liken it to brain surgery. You wouldn't expect to be well received if you just pop into the OR to discuss getting new scalpels in the middle of an operation. That being said, it's…

> If the distractions truly cut productivity in half we can double the number of seats.

Usually salaries cost more than offices.

> Going too far and too fast without focused guidance results in deadtime and technical debt.

Focused guidance requires intentional communication. Not hoping people will overhear the right conversations.

> It's also not like we haven't tried to make remote work and other options be successful. The reality is that it's something we can pretty effectively A/B test. The results have been fairly consistent across fields and even companies. Physically collaborative environments yield better and faster results.

Show the data.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#294

Post by i_am_a_peasant » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

I find working in shared office of up to 2-3 people to be doable. 2-3 people can learn and agree to be quiet most of the time. If you have a meeting, do it in a meeting room, respect each other's privacy, etc.

But it highly depends on who you're getting as an office mate. I've had mostly good experiences, but I've had one very bad experience too.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#295

Post by musicale » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

definitelyauser wrote: post #232

gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

Sometimes I like music, most often not.

However I definitely get ear + head + hearing fatigue from wearing any kind of headphones for more than an hour or two.

Noise canceling is nice, but it seems to be hard on my ears somehow.

In a private (or home) office, I can play music through speakers and it seems to be better than headphones for me.

One thing that is both good and bad about offices is the loud air conditioning/ventilation (which of course is largely a good thing given covid, etc.) The white noise drowns out sound, but it is also fatiguing to my ears. I have been in offices during power outages when the AC/computers/etc. shut down, it's amazing how quiet it is.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#296

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

omnicognate wrote: post #211

As I read some of the aggressive, cynical and unpleasant responses here to any suggestion there might be some benefits to an open plan arrangement, it's dawning on me that one possible benefit is that it tends to filter out people with attitudes like these. I prefer open plan setups and am glad that working in trading environments has ensured my career has been spent in them, so my natural reaction to the title here…

There is no “filtering out” when open plans are the de facto standard in an industry and there aren’t alternative workplaces for those who don’t prefer it to go to.

> I enjoy helping my colleagues with things, and doing so helps me build a positive reputation in a way that has helped my career. I enjoy camaraderie and conversations about my colleagues' lives outside work.

This can be achieved with all manner of offices!

> Humans are diverse.

Yes, but there are still distributions of opinions. It seems like there are many thinkpieces on why people don’t like open plans and why they’re bad for productivity, but never any in defense of them. Perhaps you should write one to give voice to that contingent and then we can see how many others have the same opinion.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#297

Post by shadowtree » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

Has office with door - but 15 Slack channels with notifications on. Plus a twitch stream for some game plus a endless youtube of a "relax/study" channel.

You think nobody sees what's on engineers desktops?

Of course they're all Carmack-level geniuses...

Literally sandwiched between breathless "How Github CoPilot produces 80% of our code" articles from the likes of Shopify and "How laying off a thousand more fixed my stock" from the Spotifys.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#298

Post by 2devnull » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #249

esskay wrote: post #106

It has to be said, if you're employing programmers and making them sit in an openplan office you're willingly and knowingly making their job significantly harder, and their day worse. Open plan might work great for some types of work, but for highly technical and mentally taxing work it's quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing. There's a reason that many programmers prefer to w…

The work was done by IBM in 1975. You need lots of space to keep the noise down and you need offices with doors that close. Why are we still having this discussion fifty years later?

Because we work in different ways now than we did in 1975? The work people do is also different. And, the people themselves have also changed. A person born in 1980s may be more used to 24/7 noise from tv and devices. A 30 year old worker in 1975 grew up in a quieter home.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#299

Post by i_am_a_peasant » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

eadmund wrote: post #231

otteromkram wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but terrible for collaborative whiteboard design work. Not at all. If you think so, maybe try switching jobs to non-remote and let someone fine with virtual whiteboarding take your role on.

In my experience, there is nothing like being in a room with a team. There is something about the physicality of presence, the way the communication has both lower latency (because it is not intermediated by electronics) and higher bandwidth (because in person even things like the way someone shifts in his shoes or his eyelid quivers is information). I have worked remotely for a significant portion of the past few de…

My new year resolution is to never do remote work at my next job. I wanna be that guy known for being always there, at his job, doing what he's paid to do.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#300

Post by dylan604 » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #207

gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

A coworker repeatedly ignored a person’s headphones and would interrupt them anyway. One day I put a bright post-it note on my headphones: “Joe, don’t bother me”. I was in middle of flow, making some huge changes, when I noticed Joe standing next to me, laughing. “Hahaha, someone put a post-it note on your headphones!” I coulda killed him. “In startup land did CFO A stately office plan decree: Through EDM, the coders…

I printed out the infamous quote "Go away, or I will replace you with a small shell script." It was primarily meant for one specific employee known to have the gift of gab. Seeing how my job was to automate the most mundane/error prone tasks, it seemed to be pretty effective. I heard murmurings about how some thought it was rather rude, but I never had to speak to HR about it.