71–80 of 161 posts
Why stop at having an office merely "open"? Hot desking is the new thing - it's nothing to do with cost saving, it's all about "flexibility". Except that your organisation might also have a policy against working from home. There's no implicit message that you are simply a replaceable functional unit, not at all. You might even find there's no desk left when you arrive at work - who doesn't love the suspense of arriv…
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The once mandatory "visitors chair" in every workspace and most people had two or three. Folks younger than a certain age miss out knowing the social etiquette relating to visitors chairs, such as stacking "stuff" or coats on your visitor chair is anti-social and very strongly frowned upon. Also it was socially acceptable, standard even, to simply walk into someone's cube and sit down in their (visitor) chair and wai…
Precisely. And that's still the culture in some places (Microsoft being a good example). Generally many devs will establish a rapport with folks on their team and in other parts of the company to a degree where occasional visits won't translate into wondering what needs fixing ASAP. Also, if everyone has an office then you can schedule meetings with other folks in their office, or your office. As long as it's not mor…
90s office work reminded me a lot of dorm room life and culture. Dorm culture probably hasn't changed in the past couple decades, and having dorm rooms with doors hardly eliminates all social activity; if anything it encourages it and military basic training style barracks are not considered a requirement of socialization.
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Depends on the cubicles. They used to be 78" high, but low panel heights are much more popular now. 42" panels don't afford much privacy.
Because... drumroll please: low panels are cheaper!
Big thing I notice -- in the old office, it was pretty noisy, as it was all too easy for people to think they had privacy when they were in a high-walled cubical. The new office is a bit quieter, as people tend to talk in hushed voices more, since they can see everyone around them that would otherwise hear them.
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Hot desking is the new thing I visited a place that was a giant room of ~100 people working. No one had their own computer, instead you just sat down and whatever computer was there and started working. The guy running this insanity said they re-image all the machines all time taking settings from one of the machines that has been in use. His theory was that over time everyones preferences would merge. It was interes…
At my university, 15 years ago, we had network profiles. So you would log to any machine in the university, your home directory would be your own. That worked with dual boot Windows and Linux, so you'd get the same files on either platform. The machines were pretty much stateless. When you booted a machine you could choose between Windows, Linux, or reset the whole machine. The third one was what you did when the mac…
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Hot desking is the new thing I visited a place that was a giant room of ~100 people working. No one had their own computer, instead you just sat down and whatever computer was there and started working. The guy running this insanity said they re-image all the machines all time taking settings from one of the machines that has been in use. His theory was that over time everyones preferences would merge. It was interes…
At my university, 15 years ago, we had network profiles. So you would log to any machine in the university, your home directory would be your own. That worked with dual boot Windows and Linux, so you'd get the same files on either platform. The machines were pretty much stateless. When you booted a machine you could choose between Windows, Linux, or reset the whole machine. The third one was what you did when the mac…
What's funny is that I actually have no idea what a non-open office would look like. I've worked for 15 years and have never even walked in an office that wasn't open. How do you give each person an office without using like 5x the space as a cubicle farm? That's the real reason that companies like open offices - because they can jam a lot more people in the same space. Someone who is ok with a 6x6 cubicle would feel…
But if the cost of office space is an issue, much more efficient than an open plan office would be just letting people work from home.
Open-offices are downright dangerous. We had an Indian colleague who had tuberculoses. After it was diagnosed, every employee had to get an examination. One colleague got infected. Worst of all, the management handled the matter rather unserious and kept jamming everyone in the same office (including the infected colleague!) Gladly, I worked remotely for that company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At my university, 15 years ago, we had network profiles. So you would log to any machine in the university, your home directory would be your own. That worked with dual boot Windows and Linux, so you'd get the same files on either platform. The machines were pretty much stateless. When you booted a machine you could choose between Windows, Linux, or reset the whole machine. The third one was what you did when the mac…
That's not what this was. I was specifically told that over time their settings would all merge together.
Interesting article. My favorite sentence is this though, "Open offices may seem better suited to younger workers, many of whom have been multitasking for the majority of their short careers." Despite what I want to believe and what I have been told (all companies only want to hire multitaskers!), multitasking is neither productive nor really possible. You can really only do one project at a time.