131–140 of 316 posts
They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…
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Probably because research dating back to 1980s (see Peopleware) shows that shared offices are objectively less productive and result in less happy workforce?
So the fact that I'd prefer an open plan office over private offices is? What? I'm lying?
- You're mixing up the difference between personal preferences of an individual and emergent results of groups of people.
- The fact that you prefer something doesn't mean it's best for general productivity (or even your productivity for that matter).Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s been awhile since I read it, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought peopleware was advocating for the same as the GP - mixed spaces that suit the individual preferences of teams/individuals.
It was advocating for more old Microsoft-style layout, with a few smallish private offices (2-4 people IIRC) and common spaces for debates/planning/socializing between them.
I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…
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Drinking at work is one of the absolutely worst traits of tech. Not only is it totally unprofessional, but things like ‘Friday beers’ are actually presented by companies as a benefit, and you face major social and professional consequences for not participating. It’s obscene.
I'll gladly face those consequences. I don't drink. You're not going to pressure me into drinking. You're sure as hell not going to threaten my livelihood for not drinking and then act like I'm the one in the wrong.
Luckily the companies I've worked at have all been non-drinker friendly as well as drinker friendly. There's always a non-alcoholic option and they've usually tried to make sure people knock off a little early so that anyone with kids etc can join in before they have to leave.
They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…
I always wonder what Apple Mac coffee shop workers are actually working on. The closest I got to seeing someone working, it looked like cutting some parts out of a photo using something like photoshop. (Not exactly rocket science.)
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My office has multiple kitchens that are always pretty clean. Everyone washes what they use and clean up after themselves. I don’t see why it should be different anywhere else. Some people just aren’t good at being responsible.
I've had this problem in almost every office I've worked at. It shouldn't be different but for whatever reason, people seem to think it beneath them. I often wondered what state some of my co-worker's houses were in.
That said, I've worked in an office where the company took a nagging/shaming/signs/emails approach instead of upping the cleaning budget as the team grew, which was frustrating and ineffective. Encouraging people to clean up after themselves is good, but if it's not immediately effective the rest of us shouldn't have to live in filth while we try to get the worst offenders in line.
I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…
Ugh, you clearly don't get some people.
It's probably one of the reasons why they have the coworking space to begin with: they don't want to interact with people! Ain't nothing wrong with that!
They want to get their shit done and go home and do other shit.
Also, if they're halfway competent at their business, why do they need to know what everyone else is doing?
I've done the coworking thing for a while, and the social interaction/collaboration thing literally doesn't come close to working the way you think it would.
If you're hoping for some serendipitous interaction where you magically find that big project or cool new collaborator or etc. you'll be sorely disappointed. Because, many people at coworking spaces have literally been there since it first opened which can be years.
I was at one with a tax attorney. I'm not going to like collab on anything with the tax attorney. Seemed like a nice guy, but I'm a developer and he has no money to spend on software so...
Now multiply that story by nearly everyone in the coworking space and you'll see it quickly becomes...a place to do work and that's it. Which is awesome and exactly what we needed!
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I can't imagine worse environment for a tech job than the one where you have music playing out of speakers. Also - working on your laptop? Without proper monitors and upright sitting position? Nope, thank you.
Two of the most productive times in my life were when I had a tiny office to myself and was able to play music on speakers instead of through headphones. I got a lot less ear fatigue that way, and the ambient background music really helped me get in the zone. Having a space to myself certainly helped too. Of course, this only worked because the work I was doing during those times also required very little coordinatio…
The best people on a project should be on the least important parts. The second best people lead the important projects, and thus grow to the best. In the mean time the best people are on something that isn't that important anyway, so if someone has a question there is no reason not to interrupt them and ask. This also leaves your best people free for when marketing has another "great idea" so they can ask before promising the impossible (and in some cases they can get something now instead of waiting for the entire project cycle)
I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…
> The kitchen area, despite being an office staffed with supposed professionals, is always a mess. How does this happen? It's a common space, so it's nobody's. Especially in an environment like that, a collection of separated individuals
In an office with a dozen or more people there's a pretty high chance there's at least one person who is lazy, "too important" and/or "too busy" to clean up after themselves.