The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea • Hacker News Board

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#101

Post by mwcampbell » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

s-shellfish wrote: post #94

mwcampbell wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm building my own company now, fully remote How do you counter the common argument that face-to-face communication is the most high-bandwidth and one shouldn't throw away that competitive advantage unnecessarily? I'm not a proponent of that position; on the contrary, I don't want to accept it. But a lot of people think that way.

It's not the most high bandwidth for all of us. More information doesn't always equal better.

What specific drawbacks, or groups of people for whom face-to-face is a problem, do you have in mind?

FWIW, I personally don't benefit from the "high bandwidth". I'm legally blind; I can't read facial expressions or body language, or even recognize specific faces. SO for me, face-to-face amounts to little more than audio communication with full frequency range and zero latency or drop-outs. All that to say that I can only understand face-to-face communication (edit: as it works for most people) second-hand, so I'm curious, not being argumentative.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#102

Post by dreamcompiler » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

I wonder how much of this is introvert vs extrovert? All sales people are extroverts and most managers are. Most programmers are introverts. Guess which group likes open offices?

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#103

Post by senectus1 » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

flax wrote: post #12

andrewfromx wrote: post #7

You really can just put in the headphones and ignore distractions for a few hours. And then, leave. You don’t have to sit there for 8+ hours. Go in in the morning, talk to a few people face to face, sit there with headphones for ~2 hours, and then maybe after lunch, go elsewhere and work from another location you like.

Maybe that works for you, but headphones do nothing for me for the stress caused by having my back exposed to people walking around.

I've worked in open plan for the last 14 years, I've gotten used to it. headphones and zoning out just makes me the only one there...

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#104

Post by YouKnowBetter » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #76

PietdeVries wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that this working-from-home people significantly impact the efficiency of your office. It's a trend (could be the open-office space started it) but resulted in people easily working 2 or more days from home. That implies that any desk you have is empty about 40% of the time. Or: your entire office is not being used for 40%... So when bosses realised they were throwing money away, they came up with the op…

“flexdesks” or “hot desking” is just about the most juvenile reaction to working from home I can imagine. If a company believes it will gain more from “saving money” on open plan offices or hot desking than it will from just paying more to facilitate more and better work from employees through buying the best tools (a private office is a tool like a keyboard or ergonomic chair), it’s self-evidently a company to get f…

As much as I share your sentiment, fact is that these trivial savings show up nicely on someone's target and the deteriorating effect shows up somewhere else, if at all.

The open office I am in ATM is one such places where a handfull of people (loud, discussing totally not related to work, factually completly idiotic conversations) spoil it for all others. There is nothing to be done about these people since they've been with the company forever and a day and are thus basically exempt from all rules (be it noice or dresscode).

5 Years ago I have actively stoped working from home to segrate work from family. Now I have found myself to do at least 1, often 2 days from home again and planning to change employer. No I will not tell them the reason since I can not affort to burn that bridge.

TL;DR Manager A makes a good impression by saving some office space, Manager B looses employees but will never find out why.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#105

Post by ionised » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

corpMaverick wrote: post #28

zeveb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering Is there anything less professional than watching a game at work? I really don't get why people do this, and why they think it's okay. Granted, I don't like sports — but I like TV, and I wouldn't watch TV at work. I like computer games, but I wouldn't play…

People have been waiting for it for four years. And your national team only plays 4 or 5 games. Give'm a break.

How does that change anything whatsoever?

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#106

Post by Jaruzel » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

thomk wrote: post #58

WorkLifeBalance wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get any generic in-ear earphones and thread those under a pair of 3M peltor optime III ear defenders. You can listen to even fairly quiet music and you won't hear any conversations around you.

Thank you! I'm going to hunt for some 3M peltor optime III ear defenders on Amazon right now.

Tbh, a good pair of 'closed back' full size headphones with noise cancellation would do just a good job (if not better musically) as wearing ear defenders over earphones.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#107

Post by commandlinefan » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

tribune wrote: post #46

I wish everyone would give up on the "increases collaboration" thing and just admit that open-plan offices are about shoving as many people as possible into a given space

I suffer in an open office, but everybody on my team that I might collaborate with is actually in a different time zone, so there's absolutely no chance that the "open-ness" of the office will help me in any way.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#108

Post by YouKnowBetter » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

stult wrote: post #70

falcolas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5-10k saved yearly to produce an unproductive $150,000+ employee... I don't think the scales are balanced even then. And, from personal experience, companies do it even when the cost per square foot is 1/10th of that of NY.

Yeah, I'm on my phone so I can't do a full break even on this easily, but here's my rough estimate. If you're losing 1.5 hours of productive work per day, five days per week, and employees are otherwise productive 30 hours per week for 50 weeks out of the year, that's 375 hours per year out of a 1500 hour work year. That means for a $10k per employee rent savings, you lose more in wasted wages for anyone making over…

Thing is, it is different deparments that save and loose. The link will never be made in an organisation > 1000 people.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#109

Post by Jaruzel » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #98

zeveb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering Is there anything less professional than watching a game at work? I really don't get why people do this, and why they think it's okay. Granted, I don't like sports — but I like TV, and I wouldn't watch TV at work. I like computer games, but I wouldn't play…

That and dogs in the office. Jesus what’s wrong with people. (The fact you’re being downvoted is proof we are living in the end times.)

I did a recent stint in a central government office (London, UK) and having your dog with you in the office seemed quite normal... to them. To me, as a seasoned IT contractor... not so much.

Re: The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea

#110

Post by bluedino » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

tomtheelder wrote: post #39

tombert wrote: post #6

The argument of "increased collaboration" that I keep hearing is kind of negated when people have the soccer game on and you're bombarded with constant cheering, which is my current situation. Even when soccer is over, you have to contend with people playing grab-ass all over the office, or jerks (like me) with annoyingly loud keyboards. The modicum of utility of me "jumping into a conversation" really goes out the w…

> I assume that labor is the most expensive part of any big-ish company, so it feels like the "offices are cheaper" argument shouldn't work. This probably depends where you are. An open office plan might well let you use less than half of the square footage per employee, which in somewhere like Manhattan would potentially be saving you on the order of $5-10k per employee. Depending on how significant the productivity…

Real offices would have more furniture and such than a bunch of tables or even cubicles.

Faster to deploy, wire, etc.