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The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

mattblodgett.com

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Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#41

Post by rwmj »

bitwarrior wrote: post #5

As someone with the authority to make the necessary changes to our office environment, it frustrates me to read these kind of blog posts. I have read a couple dozen similar posts which merely complain about open offices, but offer absolutely nothing in the way of practical solutions. We don't have the opportunity or space to give everyone their own dedicated office, and cubicles I'm sure would be a living hell. I've…

Let them work at home. With the ones who cannot work at home or remain at the office anyway, you'll have a lot more space per person to implement offices.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#44

Post by bambax »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #40
bambax wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drapes? Are you being facetious? The main problem with open offices is noise, not line-of-sight; specifically, the noise of conversation, because we're always trying to make sense of it, which prevents any other kind of intellectual activity. I think I would prefer working in a sewing factory with the sound of machines, than in a semi-open office where I can hear people talking. (I have worked in factories for short…

> Drapes? Are you being facetious? I'm not sure if you are, yourself, but hanging fabric would actually block a lot of noise - it would cut down on noise reflecting from walls, and reaching you to begin with. It wouldn't make things silent, but it would change the acoustics significantly.

I'm not. It would maybe "change the acoustics" but what is needed is to make your (nearest) neighbors' conversations unintelligible, not reduce the overall amount of "noise" as measured in db.

Noise is not the problem per se -- noise is what people put in their headphones to block out intelligible speech.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#45

Post by collyw »

tempAccount1235 wrote: post #9
bitwarrior wrote: post #5

As someone with the authority to make the necessary changes to our office environment, it frustrates me to read these kind of blog posts. I have read a couple dozen similar posts which merely complain about open offices, but offer absolutely nothing in the way of practical solutions. We don't have the opportunity or space to give everyone their own dedicated office, and cubicles I'm sure would be a living hell. I've…

I have the solution. It's simple, and humanity used it for a few hundred or thousand years. If you want to see it in action, visit the University of Michigan law library. One of the top schools in the country. "Be quiet." A huge building, full of people working, being quiet. For the people who need to talk, put them in their own office(s), open or otherwise, separate from the people who need to be quiet to work.

That makes sense in a library. Usually studying is a single person activity.

However I am sure most software engineering / programming jobs require programming, as well as discussing the problem. That's a fairly essential part of the job, and you can't expect to do that in quiet.

To me the ideal solution would be a library at work. I worked in an academic institute that had one. We had 5 or 6 people in an office. Fine for normal work, but if I needed to concentrate and read up on something new, I would go to the library, and get the silence I required.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#46

Post by scottw »

gklitt wrote: post #38

Every time this debate pops up on HN, I find this quote from Bell Labs scientist Richard Hamming interesting to consider: I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems…

This is not the same thing. Hamming worked with geniuses who knew the difference between "A moment Dick? Have you ever noticed how (some astute observation)?" and "Hey! Good weekend? (some bland filler)." See chapter 3 of said _Quiet_.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#47

Post by kabdib »

bitwarrior wrote: post #5

As someone with the authority to make the necessary changes to our office environment, it frustrates me to read these kind of blog posts. I have read a couple dozen similar posts which merely complain about open offices, but offer absolutely nothing in the way of practical solutions. We don't have the opportunity or space to give everyone their own dedicated office, and cubicles I'm sure would be a living hell. I've…

Increase the budget. It's pretty simple.

The deal is: If you provide a crappy work environment, there had better be other compensations (interesting projects, money, great cow-orkers, etc.) or I'm going to leave. And I have done this, with no regrets other than feeling bad for the people I left behind (some of whom I try to recruit).

And at some point, when a project is done or someone really good bails for a better place, people "wake up" and realize they've been had, and the exodus will start. And you'll be left with cheap digs and the people that haven't left might not be the people that you actually want, and the decline will start.

Being cheap is its own reward. I'm actually okay with cheap, cheap is great stuff when everyone is on board with being cheap, but I'm not okay with people telling me stuff like "This space is designed for collaboration and empowering communication" when the first design goal is actually cheap, and all that other stuff is just post-facto justification for a work environment that is noisy and sucks hard for people who need to think for a living.

It really is simple.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#48

Post by dublinben »

iamdave wrote: post #12

Anecdote: Working IT in an open cubicle environment is absolute pure fucking hell . Nevermind that the last guy left me with cable management that would make a three year old sick to their stomachs, not having an area that I can cordon off and close when I absolutely MUST shut out the world and focus on a task has been a mental and motivational drain. (This is compounded by being 1 IT staff in a company approaching 1…

If your measurement is correct, then your office environment violates OSHA regulations.

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab...

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#49

Post by bryanlarsen »

collyw wrote: post #45
tempAccount1235 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the solution. It's simple, and humanity used it for a few hundred or thousand years. If you want to see it in action, visit the University of Michigan law library. One of the top schools in the country. "Be quiet." A huge building, full of people working, being quiet. For the people who need to talk, put them in their own office(s), open or otherwise, separate from the people who need to be quiet to work.

That makes sense in a library. Usually studying is a single person activity. However I am sure most software engineering / programming jobs require programming, as well as discussing the problem. That's a fairly essential part of the job, and you can't expect to do that in quiet. To me the ideal solution would be a library at work. I worked in an academic institute that had one. We had 5 or 6 people in an office. Fin…

"Usually studying is a single person activity."

Really, what school did you go to? The main reason to go to the library to study was because there would be other people from your class studying there too. So lots of collaboration, working through problem sets together. Yet it managed to stay quiet.

Re: The Open Plan Office and the Extrovert Ideal

#50

Post by falcolas »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #39
bitwarrior wrote: post #5

As someone with the authority to make the necessary changes to our office environment, it frustrates me to read these kind of blog posts. I have read a couple dozen similar posts which merely complain about open offices, but offer absolutely nothing in the way of practical solutions. We don't have the opportunity or space to give everyone their own dedicated office, and cubicles I'm sure would be a living hell. I've…

My practical solution is a nice pair of noise-canceling headphones. I don't know what your office culture is like, but at ours it's 100% acceptable for the developers to wear headphones at pretty much any point when we're at our desks.

The article, and the linked comments, indicate why headphones are not a universal solution.
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