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

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

#131

Post by mindcrime »

laxatives wrote: post #63
badmadrad wrote: post #13

Open offices are type A/extroverted personality wet dreams. Everybody they need is within earshot and they can see EVERYTHING so they can properly control everything. However for introverts, people with noise sensitivity, or people with ADD this is an absolute nightmare. I find a lot of engineers tend to be either introverts or have some type of manageable ADD so it doesn't surprise me that many people would be negat…

I don't feel this way at all, and judging from the number of similar comments that popped up while writing this, I don't think I'm in the minority either. Why can't an introvert put on headphones or simply disregard irrelevant conversations in an open office? Why do type A extroverts feel the need to control things they happen to be nearby?

Why can't an introvert put on headphones or simply disregard irrelevant conversations in an open office?

It has nothing to do with introvert / extrovert from what I can see. But I don't understand why people keep thinking that headphones are some magic cure all. Sometimes you need quiet so you can focus, and just replacing one source of noise with another does absolutely nothing. Not to mention that "open plan" allows a constant stream of visual and tactile distractions as well as auditory.

Really, open plan offices have no redeeming qualities at all that I can see. They're optimized to disrupt productivity to the greatest possible degree, while providing a superior illusion of collaboration. In my experience, they're a complete joke.

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

#132

Post by frostmatthew »

wuliwong wrote: post #83
equalarrow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staring at code 8 hours a day.. Maybe that's the problem. As someone who's had to run programming groups and do the programming work, I will say open floor plans are the worst idea ever. If you need/want to get into the zone on a project and actually make progress, the open floor plan will keep you from doing that as much as possible. For breaks, the last thing I would be doing is going on facebook or checking email…

You sound like a really angry person. What do you do on your breaks? And you really think checking emails is useless? Honestly, if the OP is checking his emails on his breaks, he actually sounds like he's being productive. OP also clearly said he looked at cat gifs to clear his head. If you cannot understand the need for a programmer to clear their head from time to time, then you are not a programmer and if you did…

The points you are attempting to make can probably be made in a more mature and respectful manner. Just because someone's opinion differs than yours doesn't mean they are an "angry person" or "awful" at what they do.

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

#133

Post by frostmatthew »

trose wrote: post #44
kyleashipley wrote: post #24

I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…

This needs to be said more. I absolutely love being in an open office layout because it allows for easy collaboration as well as the occasional spontaneous fun interruption. People seem to get hung up on the interruptions as if they lose tons and tons of productivity. I just haven't experienced issues like that personally. I find that the interruptions are a welcome break to the monotony of staring at code for 8 hour…

> I absolutely love being in an open office layout because it allows for easy collaboration

For collaboration nothing beats an open office layout. But collaborative periods make up a very small amount of our [developers] time.

If we spent most of our time collaborating then maybe open office layouts would make some sense (though maybe not, since there's still downsides to consider). It is illogical to choose an office layout based on what you spend a small fraction of your time doing.

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

#134

Post by nilkn »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #114
wuliwong wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever down-voted your comment should have that privilege revoked. trose's comment was completely on topic and well thought out. Down-voting is not to be used when you simply disagree.

Downvoting is for however the user wants to use it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 > pg 2455 days ago | link | parent | flag > I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. > It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a…

This is a pretty big tangent, but I fairly strongly disagree with pg on this.

The fact that upvotes and downvotes are not treated symmetrically seems to imply that they really aren't suitable for merely conveying agreement or disagreement. Somebody's comment shouldn't literally be greyed out, sometimes to the point of being illegible, because a few people disagreed with it. This combination -- using downvotes freely to express disagreement, and hiding or fading out downvoted comments -- is a recipe for groupthink. It's very nearly a form of censoring comments that are maybe contentious but in no way inflammatory or off-topic or poorly written.

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

#135

Post by logfromblammo »

ianphughes wrote: post #116
logfromblammo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm bothered by people who prioritize synchronous communication over asynchronous. On a recent project, I worked with someone who was remote. Every time I sent an e-mail, he picked up the telephone. Then he took a long time to get to the point, and couldn't ever seem to disengage cleanly. Open floor plans would probably work great for people like that. I prefer to not be pre-empted from my current task, and to have a…

The synchronous vs asynchronous communication argument is on par with a “best programming language” debate. The style of communication is just a tool that should fit the need and the tasks at hand. If you are working on a largely engineering driven project with a thorough spec where "heads down" development can be most effective than email/messages between team members probably will probably be effective. However, wh…

Not to wave my banner in the holy war, but that's just, like, your opinion, man.

The thing I like most about async is that there must necessarily be a record of everything that was said. When appropriate, the record may be retransmitted.

Things like internal wiki entries, message boards, e-mail chains, instant message groups, and issue-tracker tickets are all asynchronous. If you conduct most of your business with ephemeral synchronous conversations, you're going to end up repeating yourself a lot, and there's going to be a larger "hit by a bus" risk. I consider it to be irresponsible business practice.

There's good reason why human development was very slow during oral tradition, and experienced exponential growth after writing.

Some use of synchronous is always appropriate. But using it instead of asynchronous rather than in addition to it is, in my opinion, pure folly. At best, the synchronous communication is what you use to make your asynchronous communication more efficient.

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

#136

Post by kyleashipley »

bad_user wrote: post #54
kyleashipley wrote: post #24

I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…

Your advice is on the same level as "eat healthy" and "exercise more". It's nice, we should all do it, however for some people it never happens. And here's the problem - some people just cannot be respectful of other people's time or flow and also you can find a lot of variation between communication styles (e.g. synchronous vs asynchronous) or noise tolerance of people. For example, some people only want to work fro…

From what I've read about Google, they optimized for flexibility in their space. We tried to do the same, although it became difficult when the company grew faster than the office space (at least until we moved again). Not sure this would be any different in a private offices scenario, though. We had a few people who were less than enthusiastic about the open layout, and we tried to give them the space to break out when needed.

We also communicated our preferences directly. If someone was interrupting us, we would let them know that it was better to send an email or grab us before or after a known distraction (arriving at work, lunch, coffee break, end of day). We tried to schedule meetings on Mondays and Fridays to give us largely uninterrupted time during the week. People respected our preferences and tried to accommodate the "Maker's Schedule."

I'm not sure every company could or should work this way, but I worry that backlash around poor implementations of the open layout will cause us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's up to each company to evaluate the compromises necessary to create a productive workspace, open or otherwise. I worked with great people and the open office concept worked for us.

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

#137

Post by kyleashipley »

analog31 wrote: post #104
kyleashipley wrote: post #24

I'll play contrarian for a moment: the most productive office I've ever worked in was an open office layout. What worked for us: * Separate clusters by function / noise level -- We didn't put sales people and developers next to one another. People who spent all day on the phone were near other people who spent all day on the phone. * Keep clusters small -- We had 4 person "pods" of desks for most of our early lifecyc…

The measures that you mention seem like ways to mitigate the obvious effects of open offices by making them more like closed offices -- including increasing the amount of floor space per worker. >>> Maybe the reason is because you're doing it wrong. That can be said of any failed ideology.

That's probably true, but our goal wasn't to optimize floor space. And that's the problem with most open office layouts -- they're optimizing for the wrong thing. Open offices are not a magical panacea that makes workers happy and productive, but neither are they the reason your environment is unproductive. The way your team interacts is a bigger factor.

Viewing your office layout as an ideology is part of the problem. It's not about us-versus-them. It's about identifying your team's work styles and building a space to support them as best as you can.

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

#138

Post by ryandvm »

jackmaney wrote: post #127
logfromblammo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm bothered by people who prioritize synchronous communication over asynchronous. On a recent project, I worked with someone who was remote. Every time I sent an e-mail, he picked up the telephone. Then he took a long time to get to the point, and couldn't ever seem to disengage cleanly. Open floor plans would probably work great for people like that. I prefer to not be pre-empted from my current task, and to have a…

> I'm bothered by people who prioritize synchronous communication over asynchronous. Amen. My voicemail greeting for my work phone is "Hi, you've reached the voicemail box of Jack Maney. Instead of leaving me a voicemail, please leave me an email. Thank you."

I don't get it. They're both async.

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

#139

Post by ryandvm »

Fuzzwah wrote: post #114
wuliwong wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever down-voted your comment should have that privilege revoked. trose's comment was completely on topic and well thought out. Down-voting is not to be used when you simply disagree.

Downvoting is for however the user wants to use it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 > pg 2455 days ago | link | parent | flag > I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. > It only becomes abuse when people resort to karma bombing: downvoting a…

Meh. Maybe if you think Paul Graham is a god.

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

#140

Post by bad_user »

kyleashipley wrote: post #136
bad_user wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your advice is on the same level as "eat healthy" and "exercise more". It's nice, we should all do it, however for some people it never happens. And here's the problem - some people just cannot be respectful of other people's time or flow and also you can find a lot of variation between communication styles (e.g. synchronous vs asynchronous) or noise tolerance of people. For example, some people only want to work fro…

From what I've read about Google, they optimized for flexibility in their space. We tried to do the same, although it became difficult when the company grew faster than the office space (at least until we moved again). Not sure this would be any different in a private offices scenario, though. We had a few people who were less than enthusiastic about the open layout, and we tried to give them the space to break out w…

> We had a few people who were less than enthusiastic about the open layout, and we tried to give them the space to break out when needed.

OK, so I believe that this is a good strategy - the ones that prefer more privacy, should get it, the ones that prefer the open space should get an open space.

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