Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 123 posts

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#61

Post by stevesearer »

fsloth wrote: post #51
stevesearer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run an office design website and I hardly ever see team rooms, which is very surprising and they seem like a good balance between collaborative space and privacy. One of the offices I like to show as an example is Ubiquiti Networks, particularly images 3 and 4 (pardon the link to my own website): http://officesnapshots.com/2014/03/12/ubiquiti-networks-san-...

That huge whole wall whiteboard in the teamroom is awesome.

If you navigate to the photos section, there is a collection of photos 'brainstorm rooms' displaying a variety of ways those are installed.

One important thing ton consider is not wasting $$$ on coating the walls above about 7' or below 3' as it is basically unusable without those funny library ladders.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#62

Post by gnaritas »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #41
gnaritas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I work from home what's stopping me from opening up news or playing video games? Being an adult. Really, do you require a baby sitter to keep you busy?

Busywork shouldn't be the goal. Busywork is what is given to children when the adults don't want to deal.

You're projecting, no one said anything about busy-work. Busy does not mean doing unproductive work. Busy != busy-work.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#63

Post by steven2012 »

I'm in my 40's and I thought going from cubes to open office was going to be hard. I couldn't have been more wrong: I love it. I guess I don't need headphones to be productive, and I don't care if someone sees what I'm doing on my screen, because I'm already at the office > 10 hrs a day, plus at home, so they can judge all they want if I have Facebook up in one window.

I do understand that some people need solitude to do there work, which means that if a company goes open-office, they need to also have some spaces allocated for private rooms.

My wife is in finance, and I stopped by her work place the other day, and you could hear a pin drop. It was like a library filled with people, I couldn't believe I used to work in an environment like this.

The only drawback that I agree with the author is the vulnerability to disease. We have suffered throught his as well, and I'm not sure what to do about it besides wearing masks all the time. If a more dangerous disease did flare up in our area, I would probably work from home, and I think the employer should offer this as an alternative, especially if there is something particularly dangerous going around.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#64

Post by gnaritas »

magicalist wrote: post #52
gnaritas wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I work from home what's stopping me from opening up news or playing video games? Being an adult. Really, do you require a baby sitter to keep you busy?

Given the popularity of site-blocking apps like SelfControl, Freedom etc, yes, many people do need help with this. I don't use them, but I go through quite wide swings between ignoring many distractions to get work done to having trouble getting work done because of all the distractions (just plotting my HN comments alone would probably yield a nice sinusoidal wave). And I absolutely use a choice of work space to hel…

If the work can't keep your attention, perhaps you should find better work.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#65

Post by father_of_two »

I started my career working at a team room, which was exclusive for the technical people and had no more than 7 people at its peak. Then progressively went from open-office to open-office.

And man, how I hate those. I can't get focus, which forces me to bring the deep-thinking work home, proceeding on a two-shift day, similar to what Paul Graham describes on the "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule" essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html). Even simple things like sending a page-length email took more time than needed, and were high frustrating.

Yet, recently I've been working on a company which only have team rooms. I'm on a 3 persons' room, but the rooms vary from 1 to 6 persons. Furthermore they have lots of perforated plates on ceilings and rooms are (mostly) sound isolated from adjacent ones by a foam-like thing they stuff between the division separations.

When I started here I just had that -wow- moment. I couldn't believe I was actually doing software design, reading documentation and others immerse thinking tasks during normal work time. No need to carry stuff home no more.

Did I mentioned already how I hate open-offices? :)

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#66

Post by rewqfdsa »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #44
rewqfdsa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deliverable" is one of words that provokes a "nope" reaction from me. I am not a resource that produces deliverables. I am a human being.

you're right, but at some point one needs to describe what a team do - I'm not a native English speaker, and I use what I learned. I accept alternatives, especially if they don't involve a ten word paraphrase of that.

How about "work on the same project"?

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#67

Post by WalterGR »

dba7dba wrote: post #25

I have said it before here, but the best office layout I saw was at Autodesk HQ in mid 1990's. EVERY single engineer (or was it every employee) got an enclosed small office. One office per employee. Full height glass wall between the hallway and the office. Big enough for a desk, chair, 2 chairs for visitors. Oh and one more thing. Maybe because I work in IT but what is it with installing AC related machinery ABOVE/N…

That was bog standard at the Microsoft campus in Redmond as of when I left in 2006.

Microsoft is/was well-known for giving employees their own office.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#68

Post by j-c-m »

Open offices are primarily designed to save money, and they save a ton of money when compared with private offices combined with collaborative working spaces (fancy word for conference rooms/areas). It is very easy to quantify this cost difference, and this cost savings is immediate. It is much more difficult to quantify productivity impact vs costs, and this would not be realized clearly and immediately.

So 10/10 times now companies pick the option that costs 2x-3x less, be dammed with trying to figure out its impact on productivity.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#69

Post by LoSboccacc »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #66
LoSboccacc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're right, but at some point one needs to describe what a team do - I'm not a native English speaker, and I use what I learned. I accept alternatives, especially if they don't involve a ten word paraphrase of that.

How about "work on the same project"?

you can have multiple smaller teams working on different aspect of the same project, I've seen project with 50+ devs and I wouldn't put the full project on a single room. but I see your point, it works for small projects, I'll figure out something on those lines.

Re: Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace

#70

Post by lotsofmangos »

Both is probably the answer here. There is a range of characteristics in people and ideally you need to accommodate them, so if you want to get the best out of your employees you need a range of work environments. The ideal office building would probably be fairly fractal.
Post reply on HN