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Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

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Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#161

Post by peferron »

smtddr wrote: post #102

Well, I personally love the open plan and would never go back. I like the social atmosphere and I'm surprised so many people don't like it. Wasn't it trendy to take your laptop to Starbucks just for that kind of environment to work in?

I love it too and would hate being confined in a closed office, ugh. I'm currently working from home 3 weeks out of 4 because of external reasons, and I'd gladly go back to the office full-time if I could. At home, I manage to stay motivated and productive, but at a constant effort. At the office I just have to immerse myself in the studious atmosphere, and motivation and productivity come without even thinking about it. Sprinkle on top of that some human interaction, and days are much lighter on the soul than they are grinding alone at home.

That being said, I have to say that I enjoy my colleagues very much and that they definitely don't spend their day doing distracting shit in the office. If I really need to focus extra hard (or just want some music), I'll put my headphones on and that's it. If anyone wants to talk to me, I'll see them coming in my peripheral vision a few seconds in advance and take the headphones off so the conversation starts naturally. I don't get disturbed by drive-bys enough to significantly affect my productivity - at least it's definitely not worse than the productivity drop I get by having to self-motivate myself at home.

I enjoyed a lot too my previous job where I shared an office with 3-5 colleagues. As a whole, all my experience at offices and workplaces have been great so far. All the common tales of workplace hell, with assholish managers, backstabbing colleagues and so on are completely incredible to me. I feel very lucky.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#162

Post by eterm »

aptimpropriety wrote: post #148
jacoblyles wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Small nitpick: my understanding (perhaps moreso in more sound-dependent FPS) is that pro gamers are already sound shielded. The two headsets were 1) voice chat with your team 2) large 'surround sound' headphones that really signaled direction.

Definiately not the case for league tournaments. In the spring split of EU LCS they wore 3M Peltor ear defenders over small in-ear buds for their actual sound.

More recent tournaments they seem to have integrated ear defenders with headphones with Mic's on. (Previously they had 3 headsets, the ear buds for sound, the defenders then their sponsors headsets around their necks for the mic.)

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#163

Post by pietro »

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.

That's the only reason I've ever used headphones.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#164

Post by tetha »

SCdF wrote: post #27
RogerL wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I am in my own office. I've more or less been in a single office since, oh, 95 or so. It's impossible to think in bullpen/cubes. Well, that's hyperbole, but it is both wearying and distracting. I'm sure there are personality types that thrive in that situation, but it is just really hard for me to be in an environment like that for long. There's a reason there's a "no talking" rule at libraries, after all.

That's what my closed cans headphones are for :P

Doesn't help with the visual distraction though. People are walking towards me all the time, or towards the people behind me, or next to me, and they are jumping around and waving their arms around and shooting nerfguns at each other and I don't know what.

Even after rearranging my desk such that I mostly look towards the windows, the hardest part I tend to concentrate on is staying focussed, and by now, maintaining that for more than half a day is extremely hard.

It's also making me sad. I can go long durations with intense focus. Given the right problem and atmosphere, something like 6 - 8 hours of intense focus and progress is possible, my high score is somewhere around 15 hours with minor breaks at a ludum dare. This is just not going to happen in this environment.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#165

Post by bane »

Open plan offices are one of many signals that make me very wary of modern management concepts. In trade publications 20 years ago, you'd read breathless articles about the end of cubicles and the advent of minimalist, modern, open office plans.

gasp! collaboration!

gasp! accountability!

gasp! blah blah

Now years later it's obvious why they took over the world, CEOs everywhere saw the bright open office spaces, with just desks and

gasp! cost savings!

Open office plans are a way for a company to be cheap and that's about it. No investment in offices needed, no investment in fussy cubicles, no interior decorators needed (just expose the brick!). Rent a warehouse, buy desks at IKEA , assemble and voila instant office.

These days management even tries to get strategic about open plans. I'll put this department next to this one and this one so they can talk to each other more freely and voila synergy!

Absolutely the worst environment for thinking jobs possible (the contrapositive is, if it's a good environment for your job it's probably not a thinking job).

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#167

Post by mikevm »

eropple wrote: post #138
twistedpair wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People collaborate on open source projects all the time without uttering a damn word.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#168

Post by njharman »

Working in several at different companies with 15 to 100 people (in the open space) I can attest to at least three kinds of people (and people being are the variable, not furniture not headphones, not culture, not etc.)

1. People who LOATH open spaces, can't handle distractions, work alone.

2. People who like open spaces, feed off the energy and "action", who aren't easily distracted (or can refocus quickly), can tune out noise.

3. People who are ambivalent.

Your success, level of complaints, productivity will depend entirely on mix of these three groups.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#169

Post by hobs »

robryan wrote: post #142
dingaling wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

Sounds like a terrible policy for concentration. On the surface management might think they are getting better results (more interaction) but it is probably at the cost of individual productivity.

Also someone signaling the entire day that they are not available is a big red flag either in terms of their workload, stress level, interpersonal interactions with some people, or some feelings in general at the company.

Either way its something to tap to find out what's going on.

Re: Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

#170

Post by hobs »

quanticle wrote: post #136
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…

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 ha…

Your middle paragraph is exactly what I see of myself.

I go in the morning and everything is ready to go and so am I, but then attempting to load my brain with whatever I am working on, getting a question every 5 minutes or so makes it seem like a running a marathon and the cognitive load is such that I would rather just dedicate the time and work on it at home.

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