Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uhh, affording a house in LA/SF/NYC is an absolutely collosal amount of money. You sure ain't middle class anymore.
"uhhh", isn't that what i just said?
You tell me :) I clearly missed the nuance.
Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
111–120 of 177 posts
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#112I'm one of the outliers who likes open floor plans, BUT at densities much lower than what makes economical sense. 1 person per thousand square feet would be my minimum and I'd really like half again as much space.
Problem is the economics of it. Open floor plans I see on blogs are often side by side working stations with less than 200sqft per worker. That's not really open floor plan in my mind, just removing the walls to recoup a couple of inches to cram more people in.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not for those of us who have dreams of going into space someday. (This isn't a joke, by the way.)
Can you elaborate? As someone eyeing (sorry) a Lasik operation in the not-to-distant future, I'm genuinely interested.
You aren't allowed to go into space if you've had laser eye surgery, as there's too much risk of retinal detachment and other unpleasantness in low pressure atmospheres. Hell, you can have issues climbing really tall mountains if you've had Lasik.
I'd definitely look into it if I were you.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#114Steve 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…
For all the loving of open offices, I've never seen an exec that works in an open area themselves. I heard about one, but never saw it with my own eyes. This is in 30+ years of working.
It doesn't matter, those people are in meetings all day anyway.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I enjoy them. It strikes me as extremely odd that the main complaint against open floor plans is that they kill productivity. This is such a complaint that there's people up and down this post moaning in agony as if it were literal torture that they're unable to be as productive as possible. Personally, I don't think that a company is entitled to me working at 100% productivity constantly, because I value my sanity t…
Disclaimer: I'll tell you how it is in my case, so it may not reflect the feelings of other open-plan-haters. It's not about wanting to "be able to produce more for my corporate overlord". It's precisely about preserving sanity. I simply can't focus well with people around me - not just when they're talking (in an open plan, at any given point in time, there is someone that has something interesting to say). The very…
If you subscribe to extro/intro vertedness, I am squarely an extrovert, have great time at random party, will literally walk up and talk to anyone. And feel exactly as you do. When I need to concentrate, it requires solitude.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#116Steve Jobs saw a productivity increase when he was at Pixar according to Ed Catmull's book (Creativity Inc.) The problem is that what Mr. Catmull described as open space for creative people to let them mingle and bounce off creative ideas. That's the whole premise of an open office space. Now, programming can be a creative field, but most of the time when I code I'd like to be quiet around me. If anybody distracts me…
Pixar is "open" only in the sense of having a central atrium and common areas to encourage chance encounters and interaction. The rest of the building where work is done is nooks and crannies, studios and offices.
Creative people doing the grunt work of raw design and animation will need and want isolation from distraction just like programmers do.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back Finally, someone else who gets it. When I've mentioned this, people tend to assume it's just about what's on your screen, but that's really not the heart of it.
For me, a bigger problem is having movement in my field of vision (I can't read text next to animated ads either). And having to stare at another person is especially annoying. We had this at the university computer labs (users facing each other), and it looks like it's the same situation in the lead photo of the linked article. I'm working from home, so I'm spared this, but my employer is also moving to a new buildi…
For whatever reason, things in my field of vision don't distract me nearly as much. So long as they're in front of me and I can see them with my peripheral vision, it's all good. Also, my monitor is big enough that when I'm looking at it I'm not seeing too much else anyway.
How do you end up staring at another person? My monitor would completely block the view of anyone else if they happened to be sitting across from me. Are you using laptops only?
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#118We have open plan, I revolted by never returning to my desk. I work from random location, old unoccupied desks, home, the cafeteria, but never my desk. You just burned that real estate.
At my current job, out of circumstance of the stuff I'm doing, I started going straight to the lab without stopping by my desk. On average, there will be 1-3 people in the lab including myself. At my desk? It's an open-office styled lab-converted loading area where one "wall" is a floor-to-ceiling roller door; loud rattling on windy days is only one perk. The lab is much nicer. Smaller, fewer people, generally quiet,…
Make the space you need by what ever means necessary.
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lasik is totally worth it btw.
Not for those of us who have dreams of going into space someday. (This isn't a joke, by the way.)
It says here that, "As of September 2007, the refractive surgical procedures of the eye, PRK and LASIK, are now allowed, providing at least 1 year has passed since the date of the procedure with no permanent adverse after effects. For those applicants under final consideration, an operative report on the surgical procedure will be requested." https://astronauts.nasa.gov/content/faq.htm
Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just absolutely love what they're doing and have done in terms of personal privacy. Pffft. They're doing it to hurt their enemies, not to help their customers. Apple is the worst company for those who love freedom and they're not on your side. I can't wait until their time is over and the damage that they have done to our industry has been reversed.
> Apple is the worst company for those who love freedom I'm not really pro or anti Apple, but I'm having a tough time coming up with what you might mean by this. Can you elaborate?
Closed source and making it difficult to use non apple products and non apple software limits your freedom.