Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction • Hacker News Board

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#131

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 7:53 AM UTC

I used to trade on the largest trading floor in the world. It's the ultimate open office plan - MD next to associate director next to operations analyst next to napping beer cart attendant. Information flowed like quicksilver, and bureaucratic hurdles were resolved in a rapid sequence of huffs and grunts. For pounding through a structured list of tasks, there was no match. For more cerebral work, I hated it.

My most productive and cherished hours were those after the close, when I could snap in headphones and burn through theoretically intense if P&L-vague projects. Incidentally, it was those projects which made the bank's quarter for every quarter I worked there.

There is a personality that thrives on open office plans. I, sometimes, am one of them. But open layouts encourages rapid, myopic collaboration over deep thinking. The ideal solution might be an open office layout with a "library" retreat.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#132

Post by dingaling » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 7:58 AM UTC

5teev wrote: post #92

abalone wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned headphones. Headphones seem to be an essential part of open plans. Not only do they send a don't-bother-me signal, they also drown out the noise. But that's also a really annoying part of it. I don't want to have to put on headphones all the time.

I bet I'm not the only one who sometimes puts headphones on with no music, solely to broadcast that don't-bother-me signal.

> solely to broadcast that don't-bother-me signal.

Current workplace has a no-headphones rule, exactly because of that.

Many people were donning headphones as soon as they arrived in the office and not taking them off until home time, simply to avoid having to interact with anyone else.

So now no-one can avail of shorter periods of non-interruption, but I understand why they banned them.

In-ear earphones seem to be tolerated, so long as they are removed when someone comes to talk.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#133

Post by dingaling » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:07 AM UTC

debt wrote: post #121

thomaslangston wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you answered your own question. If you're saving babies or firing a moonshot, yes work is number one. Otherwise work is a priority, but not the only priority and maybe not the top priority. I love building things my customers love, but that's not the only thing I love. I expect to share some of who I am and learn some about my coworkers during the 9 to 5. The ability for my coworkers and I to click, on multip…

I agree. The problem occurs when the chatter occupies nearly 30% of my working day. I'm okay if it's 10-15% I guess. But not really. Ideally it'd be like 0-5%. I don't like feeling like an unproductive schlub at work. Y'all are paying me all this money to work, not to socialize. Sorry it took so long to get to that point, but ultimately that's it. I'm getting paid a lot of money to work. Not to socialize. And I will…

> I don't like feeling like an unproductive schlub at work.

I am very jealous. Some of us have very boring, unchallenging, crap corporate-drone jobs in which the 30% social distraction is the only way to make it through the day without going mad.

Feeling 'unproductive' doesn't factor into it when one's work seems meaningless.

Quick riposte: 'just leave' doesn't pay the mortgage.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#134

Post by jacoblyles » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:09 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #64

fishtoaster wrote: post #18

I don't think open offices are necessarily bad, but that they're harder to get right. What you need is: - A a decent cultural protocol around it. One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. Another place I worked at strongly respected headphones as the "don't bother me" signal. - A reasonable nu…

You mentioned headphones. Headphones seem to be an essential part of open plans. Not only do they send a don't-bother-me signal, they also drown out the noise. But that's also a really annoying part of it. I don't want to have to put on headphones all the time.

Protip: get earmuffs. The kind that construction workers use. They're about $20 on Amazon. If you combine them with earbuds, you literally can't hear a conversation right next to you.

This is the setup that pro Starcraft tournaments use so that players can't hear the announcers and crowd.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#135

Post by eropple » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:16 AM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #134

abalone wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned headphones. Headphones seem to be an essential part of open plans. Not only do they send a don't-bother-me signal, they also drown out the noise. But that's also a really annoying part of it. I don't want to have to put on headphones all the time.

Protip: get earmuffs. The kind that construction workers use. They're about $20 on Amazon. If you combine them with earbuds, you literally can't hear a conversation right next to you. This is the setup that pro Starcraft tournaments use so that players can't hear the announcers and crowd.

That has the exact same problem as headphones. I do not want to wear giant things on my head for 6-8 hours a day while I try to get into and stay in the flow.

(I don't have a problem with ambient conversation at, say, Starbucks, but I find myself very distracted by people talking about work stuff in the same room as me.)

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#136

Post by quanticle » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:19 AM UTC

aimhb wrote: post #33

fishtoaster wrote: post #18

I don't think open offices are necessarily bad, but that they're harder to get right. What you need is: - A a decent cultural protocol around it. One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. Another place I worked at strongly respected headphones as the "don't bother me" signal. - A reasonable nu…

> One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. A little bit off topic, but I too have experienced this, and I have to say, it's awful for productivity, team building, and team assimilation. As a new hire, I would send my mentor a question and it might be ten minutes to fifty minutes before I woul…

It depends on the social norms. In my office, thankfully, there is a norm that you only go to ask another person after you've looked through the documentation and attempted to understand the code or error message yourself. I don't mind being interrupted in my current work environment, because I know that 90% of the time, the interruption is a worthwhile one - that there is a non-stupid question for me to answer.

I have worked at offices where this norm did not exist. I would strongly challenge your assertion in that case. My productivity definitely was adversely affected. What I think a lot of people lose sight of is that interruptions are additive. If you get interrupted once or twice, that's fine. You can recover and get on with whatever you're working on. But if the interruptions are a regular feature (especially when they're for little things that take two to five minutes to solve, but require you to drop all your current context) it takes longer and longer to recover. At some point (usually around lunchtime in my case) I'd just give up and hop on IRC or Hacker News, knowing that it was unlikely I'd get much work done that day.

It got to the point where I'd come in at 6:30am and leave at 3:30pm just so that I could have a few hours of uninterrupted coding time at the beginning of the day. And this was in an office where it was just other developers I had to deal with. I would probably last less than a week in an office that I had to share with non-developers (especially sales, who have to be constantly on the phone).

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#137

Post by eropple » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:22 AM UTC

aimhb wrote: post #33

fishtoaster wrote: post #18

I don't think open offices are necessarily bad, but that they're harder to get right. What you need is: - A a decent cultural protocol around it. One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. Another place I worked at strongly respected headphones as the "don't bother me" signal. - A reasonable nu…

> One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. A little bit off topic, but I too have experienced this, and I have to say, it's awful for productivity, team building, and team assimilation. As a new hire, I would send my mentor a question and it might be ten minutes to fifty minutes before I woul…

> As a new hire, I would send my mentor a question and it might be ten minutes to fifty minutes before I would get a reply.

This is a weaird problem to me. At my last job, we had the "ask async first" thing--but, yeah, if they're not responding and it's urgent, then of course you go ask them, that's just obvious. But the point is that this behavior should be rare because it's not "momentarily" losing their flow, it's often losing it for ten to fifteen minutes. A two-second IM is less likely to make them lose it than you walking over, so start there.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#138

Post by eropple » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:23 AM UTC

twistedpair wrote: post #78

aimhb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One place I worked had the very strong rule that you start all non-emergency communication asynchronously (usually text chat), even if the person is right next to you. A little bit off topic, but I too have experienced this, and I have to say, it's awful for productivity, team building, and team assimilation. As a new hire, I would send my mentor a question and it might be ten minutes to fifty minutes before I woul…

Amen. Worked in an open floor plan (30ft long rows with 8 people at each) and now work in an office of cubes (6'x7'), so actual desk space is the same. I found the developer collaboration and communication far better in the open plan than the closed plan. People were always communicating the the former and almost never pop their heads up for air in the later. Today a coworker was IM'ing me and I then I realized that…

> Collaborate damn it!

Do they want to hear you talking to him? I sure wouldn't want people talking while I'm trying to concentrate.

"Collaboration" doesn't have to mean annoying your coworkers. If you need to do things aloud, that's fine--I sometimes find it better too--but it's vastly better go somewhere private for it.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#139

Post by oyvindeh » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:26 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #29

jyrkesh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you implement all of that perfectly, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having an open office? (I.e. to stimulate more spontaneous collaboration)

The actual purpose of open offices is to save money. The collaboration stuff is marketing nonsense managers tell themselves to try and ease the cognitive dissonance of lying about it.

Then the question comes: Do they really save money, or does it just appear like they do?

Saving money on office space is money saved. People being distracted and doing poor work is money lost. I wonder how it sums up.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#140

Post by eropple » Thu, Sep 19, 2013, 8:27 AM UTC

djillionsmix wrote: post #103

Domenic_S wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat next to my very first technical mentor for a few years, and he had no compunction about holding up a finger and saying "hang on" curtly when I'd start to ask something. If you all agree that it isn't rude in this context, I think that reaction can help. I do it myself occasionally and usually can keep about 80-90% of my flow. Try doing that to your wife on work-from-home days at your own peril.

Wife nothing, try doing it to the exact same mentor who felt entitled to do it to you. If my experience / observation is any guide, the result is utterly epic shitfit.

Work with better people?

At my last job (less applicable now as I WFH), it was acceptable practice to give a "hold on" to everyone you'd run into on a daily basis. Maybe not the CEO, but the VP of Engineering would wait a sec if you needed to get something done Right There.