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The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

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Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#141

Post by randcraw »

maxxxxx wrote: post #113
nayuki wrote: post #22

On a related note, I noticed that cubicle offices are hardly better than open offices. The cubicle walls are tall enough to completely obscure the faces and bodies of your neighbors, but do nothing to block the sound. With no eye contact or awareness of your neighbors, it's easy to mistakenly believe that no one else can hear your sounds. As a result, on a typical day at the office I would hear one coworker yap on pe…

Cubicles are terrible. No privacy, a lot of noise and still no good way for talking to people. I also like to see something other than a gray wall the whole day.

Then decorate your cube. Look at art or photos. There was style and personal expression in the workplace before the sterility of the open office factory floor killed it.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#142

Post by joatmon-snoo »

coldcode wrote: post #59
tps5 wrote: post #26

My office is switching to an open design. And none of the people who work there are happy about it. It was decided by the folks who own the company, several thousand miles away. I think the real allure of open offices is how they look. Open offices look modern . They look like the kind of working area a hip, young, collaborative, industry-disrupting company would favor. But that's all bullshit. It's just a fairy tale…

To me open offices remind me of factories or cattle pens, where people are forced into acting like machines. Unlike many you I cannot code while listening to music as being a musician, my brain winds up analyzing what I am hearing instead of concentrating on work. The worst thing of all is having music piped into a huge room making it impossible to even use headphones if you don't like the tunes. You may as well shoo…

Have you tried earplugs?

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#143

Post by randcraw »

mhurron wrote: post #46
user5994461 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense. The non open-offices I had were all much better looking.

But they don't look like the places cool startups do cool startup things and the company wants to foster a cool startup feel so that everyone acts like it's a cool startup and starts doing cool startup things and attracting all that cool startup talent so that all that cool startup money starts flowing in and cool startup vibe permeates the office. /cool startup.

90% of 'cool startups' fail. Is that who we're trying to emulate?

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#144

Post by nitemice »

noir_lord wrote: post #121
rhizome wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in both open-plan offices and cubicle offices I beg to differ. In open-plan, it's by definition that you can hear other people; in cubicles it evolves into the one or a few congenitally loud people doing the noise. "There goes Amy again." The visual limitations of cubicles help here, because you have a little bit of privacy that motivates people to respect personal space. I'm quieter in cubicles, but no…

How about some kind of sound meter that is attached to the wall of every cubicle, if it measures sustained sound over a preset level it notifies the boss. Can shoehorn IoT in there somewhere, then you have metrics for everyone in the place and who is doing the distracting. Could even have a red light on the top that goes off as well. (Clearly I'm joking..but only just.).

I'm sure the boss would love to come round every ten minutes to play school-teacher, and tell the noisy kids to keep it down.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#145

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

enraged_camel wrote: post #120
Ralfp wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may fly if you are single. Otherwise everybody will assume that if you are at home, you are here to go shopping, take care of kids, let in guests, cook meals, do cleaning, take out trash, etc. ect, and lets not start about other household members distracting you with loud noises.

I do all of those things when I work from home. Just like people at the office dick around in a hundred different ways while they work.

I think the point was family would expect that from you, because you're home, not that it takes too much away from work.

I had to have that talk with my roommates when I worked from home. No, I won't be solely responsible for the dishes because I'm "home all day" when Im working 50-60 hours a week and you're working 40.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#146

Post by Someone »

If the thing on the photo accompanying that article is an open office, that doesn't surprise me. In my eyes, it's a factory somebody threw some desks and chairs in.

The open office I work in has 30-ish desks in a room; the room has windows on two sides, uses lots of sound-dampening materials, doesn't do double-duty as a corridor, has good lighting, and has six adjoining rooms to go to to have phone calls or meetings or to work individually. That, to my surprise, works fine.

(It shouldn't surprise anybody, but it isn't in the USA)

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#147

Post by Crito »

obstacle1 wrote: post #136
radicalbyte wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to touch a keyboard that someone has painted with ketchup and knows what else.

Carry Lysol wipes. Or have the employee keep a container of them at each station (if they don't already, which IME many do).

That's a shitty solution for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#148

Post by iamflimflam1 »

rb2k_ wrote: post #23

I seem to be the odd one out in that I actually enjoy an open office setup. I've had both and I feel there's so much more collaboration happening in an open office. I almost see it weekly that there's a LOT of learning through osmosis, listening in to conversations, ... I guess I have a pretty easy time keeping up concentration/flow. So in this case, it "works on my machine" :)

I'm the same, I love being in an open office. I can't imagine anything worse than everyone hiding in their offices.

Having said that I tend to stick to working in small companies. Not sure I would like an open office of 100's of people.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#149

Post by Crito »

I love open offices because in an open office it's easier for me to socialize while pretending to work. I greatly prefer socializing over working, so I prefer any office environment that facilitates this.

Some of my coworkers are a lot less social so they get annoyed with everybody around them chatting. They probably get more work done than me, but thankfully being less social means they get worse peer reviews than the rest of us.

Re: The open-office trend is destroying the workplace (2014)

#150

Post by nilkn »

rm999 wrote: post #32

The best work setup I've ever had by far was not private offices or cubicles (and definitely not an open office); it was a hybrid where our team of 3-5 people sat in a large private office. This increased collaboration while enforcing respect. It allowed our team to create a work culture democratically (how do we arrange seating? what noise levels are ok?) that simply isn't possible in an open seating arrangement. I…

Often, the most important element of my working space is just the abundance of natural light and windows. A few years ago, I turned down a job offer that would have placed me in a 3-5 person office. It would've been an interior office with no windows at all. I chose to stay at my current job, which had me sitting in a cubicle right next to a huge window with a nice view.

The benefits of a shared office are quite nice, but they can be made up for in a variety of ways. There's no way to make up for the lack of natural lighting and windows if you're stuck in an interior room all day long, every day.

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