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“Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

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Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#321

Post by atomwaffel »

onewaystreet wrote: post #318
JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

Isn't the notion that private offices are better than open floor plans disproven by reality? Tech companies predominantly use open floor plans and these same companies are some of the most successful in the world. What companies would proponents of private offices point to as counterexamples?

Stack Exchange has private offices for their developers, and it seems to work well enough for them. They wrote an interesting blog post about the how and why: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/01/why-we-still-believe-i...

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#322

Post by 4ydx »

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I currently work in an office space in Japan that is shared with another company and, I have to say, I cannot stand all of the chatter. It has gotten to the point that I often wear earplugs just so that I can get something done.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#323

Post by borplk »

pdkl95 wrote: post #317
kzhahou wrote: post #291

People always talk about the terrible NOISE in open office plans. For me, I hate the feeling of BEING WATCHED. It's just unnerving. There's people all around me with low cube walls... * I want to stare ahead as I focus - someone's looking at me. * I have my big headphones on and am rocking to the music - someone's looking at me. * I wanna put my head down on desk and think - someone's looking at me. * I check gmail -…

Now that you mention it, I wonder if this open-office culture - conditioning employees to accept little privacy in the workplace - was the reason the reprehensible "surveillance as a business model" became popular at so many tech companies.

Bingo! The whole thing is a plot for shoving people together, saving money and letting employees watch each other, and of course to please the management they love seeing a floor full of people click click click typing on their keyboards.

It just get wrapped in a bunch of politically correct fluff about "something something collaboration" ... "something something support and community" to make it difficult for people to oppose it.

God forbid you raise an objection and suddenly you are worse than Hitler and hate people and need therapy.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#324

Post by danpalmer »

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I think this depends on the culture of the place you work in.

I've worked in 4 small offices for companies ranging from 6-60 people, I need a quiet focused atmosphere to work in, and two of the offices provided that, despite being shared spaces.

In one of them, (6-8 people) we always had quietly playing ambient music. Not to everyone's tastes and some people used headphones, but it meant no one tried to talk over desks, and if people needed to speak it set the tone as one a bit like a library.

The office I'm in now (20 people) is much the same. We don't have any music, but through a strong example set by the founders and a culture of being able to ask people to be quiet politely and without repercussions, regardless of who it is, we have a very quiet working space and conduct most conversations over IM or in separate meeting rooms.

Based on my experience in the other offices, I can see why many people would be against open offices, but I believe they can be done well. Whether Facebook's are or not I do not know.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#325

Post by borplk »

threeseed wrote: post #29
noddingham wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and all the research seems to agree. Of course, the anecdotal evidence outliers will disagree, but I don't see how there's a debate anymore when you look at productivity.

I don't know if the research is that crystal clear right now. I have no doubt that developers will write more code whilst in offices free of distraction. But the question is do they miss out on key business knowledge by not being around other people. Especially if they are in Agile feature teams.

No they would miss out on what Crystal did over the weekend and how shit-faced Jenny got.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#327

Post by socksy »

megablast wrote: post #287
Tiksi wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Extrovert here, former introvert (yeah, it's not fixed). Off topic, but how did you "convert"? Was it a conscious effort or did it just seem to happen? I ask mostly because I had a period of a few years where I felt like I leaned closer to extroversion, but now I'm pretty firmly an introvert, and I'd like to be able to push it back to the other side, but can't quite figure out how exactly to do that. As far as offic…

Probably someone just throwing the words introvert and extrovert around.

Unlike all those other people who are using it with the real science backing!

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#328

Post by CrLf »

MCRed wrote: post #45

I will never work in an open office plan. It's one of the items on my "prima donna" list. Despite the name I'm pretty serious, and while some of this list represents things that others might not be able to avoid, or even agree with because they are personal preferences, all of the items are the result of bad experiences or missteps I've experienced directly at a job in the past. I know some may object to these. That'…

I suggest you shorten your list just a bit. Then the interviewer can show you the way out much sooner.

Although some of your "requirements" are perfectly reasonable, I would never hire you. Good engineering is all about compromise and working with reality.

"where my development machine can't be a Mac"? Seriously?

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#329

Post by anon4 »

qq66 wrote: post #300
pyrophane wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked in both a private office and an open floor plan. I do really enjoy working around other people in an open office, and it makes impromptu planning more accessible, which I believe aids productivity for self organizing teams. The downside is, as you mentioned, that it can be really difficult to get focused work done. This is especially true if there are other teams sharing the same open space (project man…

I know of people who wear headphones at work not playing any music, just as a signal to other people not to disturb them.

I actually got so used to the feeling of headphones on my head, that I wear them when I'm alone at home and not listening to anything.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#330

Post by skatenerd »

My gripe with open plan offices is that I spend a lot of the day overhearing a bunch of shit I have zero interest in.

I used to work at a consulting company, and I'd be in an open plan office with 5 other teams, working on 5 other projects. Everyone was working through engineering decisions that were unrelated to my own.

If everyone's on the same team, at least, there is some saving grace to the open plan office - you overhear stuff that you might be able to contribute to.

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