Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
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Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#2Such a failure to learn. The US school system went through this with "open classrooms". Schools were built to support the idea of no walls between classrooms. For years, teachers trying to maintain sanity erected temporary dividers. These days, most of those schools have been rehabbed to include actual walls, or they've been demo'd. Such a waste.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#3we had a web group to great fan fare had all new work area created for them, open ceilings, glass walled conference rooms, and open-plan in general. I am not sure if anyone like it. from lack of perceived "my space" to simple increase in noise. plus if the computer setups are not well planned out it just looks wrong.
for me, it reminds me of one especially bad contract where we worked on school lunch room tables. five of us in a row facing a wall with one phone at the end. amazing after spending our hourly rate what they thought they could save without realizing the impact on productivity if not turn over.
people deride cubicles now but they are last safe haven, just like dogs and other animals, there is a lot to be said from the subconscious feeling you have from the walls of the cube and single entrance
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#4Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me.
On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How was that supposed to preserve and foster the engineering culture? Apple is the company where walls and secrets are not accident but carefully designed. I could imagine a part of the organization going to open floor but the whole building?
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#5I have a really bad feeling about Apple and this building.
Companies tend to have bad things happen when they build or move HQ anyway, and the fetishization of Apple Park is a level beyond.
Even their product marketing is distracted by talking about how awesome the building is. How much time has been wasted in the company on the topic?
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#6I'm moving my office at work from a nice office next to the production office (noisy, people banging in and out all day) to a much bigger windowless space on the other site across the road just because of the noise.
Boss keeps asking if I'm OK with no windows and I keep saying "Have you ever seen me with the blinds open?", It's amazing how even good managers don't get that for some of us a cave with fast internet is the best environment.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#7I guess, once you're big enough, you can afford to have people quit and let the rest work inefficiently, just for the vanity of a “design” chief.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#8Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me. On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How was that supposed to preserve and foster the enginee…
Who wants to get 3/4 of the way through the construction and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? Easier to just shove everyone in.
Apple is usually a smart company, but it is always a large company, and large companies are prone to making broad one-size-fits-all mistakes.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#9we had a web group to great fan fare had all new work area created for them, open ceilings, glass walled conference rooms, and open-plan in general. I am not sure if anyone like it. from lack of perceived "my space" to simple increase in noise. plus if the computer setups are not well planned out it just looks wrong. for me, it reminds me of one especially bad contract where we worked on school lunch room tables. fiv…
> people deride cubicles now
Yeah, I don't understand where the hate comes from. I suspect it's just about using cubicles as symbols of corporate environment in general. Because from a floor-plan standpoint, they're a fucking great invention. It's a perfect compromise between the need to give everyone their personal space, and the need to fit in lots of people cost-effectively. Today, if a company offered me a cubicle to work in, I'd consider it as hugely positive about them.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#10> "Judging from the private feedback I've gotten from some Apple employees, I'm 100 per cent certain there's going to be some degree of attrition based on the open floor plans, where good employees are going to choose to leave because they don't want to work there," Gruber said.
But where are they going to go? Is there a single company left that hasn't adopted the open floor plan ideology? If so, are they hiring because I'd like to send in my resume. :/