“Today we moved into our new Facebook building” • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

kybernetikos wrote: post #305

fsk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office. I have a hard time believing that one. Given how high programmer salaries are, the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings. It seems like an introvert/extrovert thing. The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers), but…

> the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings. Individual productivity isn't the aim. I've seen research that suggests the most predictive factor in the success of a team is how much they communicate. Yes, you might lose out on lines of code productivity, but you might also find that you're writing much more of the right lines of code and your colleagues are too.

100x 0 lines = 0 right lines

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

#422

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:55 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #188

fsk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office. I have a hard time believing that one. Given how high programmer salaries are, the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings. It seems like an introvert/extrovert thing. The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers), but…

I love how $100 billion companies with a hair (~11%) shy pf a billion - a billion users, active, d-a-i-l-y and run by 9,199 employees (for a company value of $1 million per empoyee down to every last employee including someone taking out the trash, and likewise meaning each and every last employee has whole army divisions, a hundred thousand users, they account for --) - suddenly doesn't know as much - to an OFFENSIV…

Facebook wasn't invented in an open office.

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

#423

Post by bluedino » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:00 PM UTC

correctbattery wrote: post #211

correctbattery wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. I work at Facebook, albeit in Seattle. Honestly, I'd prefer private offices too. I prefer complete silence for coding. (Okay, occasionally jazz, classical, or video game music.) I don't get that with our open plan office. BUT! 1) I can work from home as often as I want 2) we get free, very high quality headphones, and 3) there are quiet spaces I can use when necessary. Coming from Microsoft, I miss privat…

One reason I rent a two bedroom apartment is so that I can have an office at home.

As do I, but since I have a laptop I seem to do most of my work at the kitchen table.

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

#424

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

teacup50 wrote: post #223

JohnBooty wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be fine with this, actually. As long as there was someplace quiet and private to go when needed. I wouldn't mind if these spaces were just booths you could grab when needed. As long as there were enough to go around.

How do I use a high-powered desktop with triple heads if I have to grab a booth on demand? I need focus and fast compile times, not a damn booth.

I'm a fan of huge/multiple monitors too. There could easily be monitors in the "booths," that part's easy. As for desktop-level compute horsepower, hmmmm....

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

#425

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

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'…

Jeff Bezos is a trained engineer and analyst that has built one the most successful and beloved companies ever, and made thousands of employees wealthy.

There are plenty of employees who should rightly hate their jobs, but they work in shipping, not corporate.

How did you get through the first two decades of your career without a 4k monitor?

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

#426

Post by itsybitsycoder » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

sukilot wrote: post #411

michaelochurch wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is also fairly easily mitigated with methodologies like Scrum where you are frequently touching base with other team members. Seriously, FUCK THAT SCRUM SHIT . A daily status meeting isn't that bad, but "you can only work on it if it's in the backlog" and "sprints" and backlog grooming meetings and this brand of aggressive micromanagement that has revived itself in the name of "Agile"... all of that nonsense…

There is no manager in a scrum. There are only the developers and a product owner to communicate customer priorities.

Maybe that's how it works if you are doing it "right". But nobody ever seems to do Agile "right". If Agile is so hard to do right, and breaks down so badly when it's done wrong in a small way (like letting your manager in the scrum), then isn't that in itself a problem with Agile?

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

#427

Post by ToastyMallows » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #360

JohnBooty wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people see their teams working hard around them, they > have little excuse not to follow the suit. > In private offices... ...most people are actually fairly > weak against distractions generated from their own computer I think this is true. When left totally to my own with medium-term or long-term deadlines it's hard to resist the pull of distractions on the web. But that is also fairly easily mitigated with…

But that is also fairly easily mitigated with methodologies like Scrum where you are frequently touching base with other team members. Seriously, FUCK THAT SCRUM SHIT . A daily status meeting isn't that bad, but "you can only work on it if it's in the backlog" and "sprints" and backlog grooming meetings and this brand of aggressive micromanagement that has revived itself in the name of "Agile"... all of that nonsense…

What would you prefer?

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

#428

Post by marssaxman » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

electronvolt wrote: post #377

VLM wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"However the "collaboration" that takes place in these types of offices is just wheel spinning and time wasting." I enjoyed how you phrased that. I work at a giant multinational and yes yes I know all about the stereotype that innovation only comes from the tiny little startups on HN, but innovation flows both ways, like it or not, and over the last decade one megacorp major cultural shift I've seen is collaboration…

This is interesting to me, because I work at a large company and I've found it to be orchestrated slightly differently. If you want/need something done here, the fastest way is to set up a face to face appointment and put yourself in someone else's calendar. If you don't, things will drag on for months of email back and forth. If you do, things might last two hours, you'll probably leave with a solid plan, and then u…

I've worked with plenty of people who seem to believe that. It's really frustrating when someone derails an informative, productive, asynchronous email discussion with "let's just have a meeting" or "here, let me just call you" as though dropping everything and sitting around waiting for people to finish their sentences will somehow make the underlying problems easier to reason about.

I guess it must work for them, and I have gathered over the years that I must be something of an outlier in my comfort with and preference for communication via writing, but god I wish we could just cancel all meetings forever and just solve things simply and quickly via email.

This is one of the reasons working for Microsoft was an exercise in misery. People who haven't worked there have trouble believing me when I describe the amount of time people there routinely waste in bullshit status meetings. It was maddening.

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

#429

Post by marssaxman » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:28 PM UTC

27182818284 wrote: post #280

correctbattery wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason I rent a two bedroom apartment is so that I can have an office at home.

A two bedroom in Nebraska runs you $500 per month. Timezone is off by 2 hours. Internet is 30 down 5 up for $60 per month. There is a reason why companies like http://www.hudl.com/ are killing it here. You can fight for years, or have a ranch with basement when you're a 26-year-old developer.

And then you finish up your work day only to find yourself stuck in Nebraska, with nothing but cornfields for hundreds of miles in every direction... so that'd better be one hell of an awesome ranch house.

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

#430

Post by serve_yay » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 5:33 PM UTC

chmullig wrote: post #260

serve_yay wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking how you know where to walk to. Sheesh.

Facebook has Wayfinders that provide an interactive touch screen map all over campus. Type in a name and it shows you where they are, relative to where you are. Super handy.

Ooh, nice!