Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CEOs Want Their Offices Back

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 409 posts

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#161

Post by Antrikshy »

jdc0589 wrote: post #87
jesseryoung wrote: post #50

It seems like when "Open Office" articles come out there seem to be quite a few people talking ill of them. I recently switched jobs and with it switched from an open concept (large room with whiteboards separating teams) to an office (shared with one other coworker.) Maybe I was conditioned to like it (I certainly didn't like it at first) but I really did prefer the open concept when working on a team of 8 or 9 peop…

This is why I actually like cubicles. you are physically close to your team, if your space is organized well you are on a common isle with people you work with, but you still have at least a little bit of isolation in your personal workspace. I DO NOT understand why cubes get so much hate.

Cubicles really are the best IMO too. They block off visual distractions, which is equally as important as minimizing noise.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#162

Post by varelse »

koolba wrote: post #153
varelse wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR is driven by data. To kill open floor plans, start citing the floor plan as the primary reason for leaving. If that becomes a theme, IMO open floor plans will become cancer. It just takes time.

That violates rule number one of dealing with HR: Don't talk to HR. It doesn't matter how innocuous the comment is. It can come back to bite you. Example: You: "I don't like open floor plans." HR: "Add a note to his file that he's anti-social. If he ever comes back here it'll be recorded already."

Yeah, I've got one of those "non-regretted depature" notes on my record at Google. So what? Google lost out, not me.

Jobs aren't scarce, but talent is. I've never gone for want of employment and Google blind-allocated me into a boring gig I hated. And yes, I'm very anti-social when I'm coding. I wouldn't want to work for a company that considered that a negative trait.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#163

Post by Antrikshy »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #49
avemg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to find a loophole in their paywall to view their content on their site. It seems to me that it's quite another to scrape their content and serve it up somewhere else in its entirety.

Outline is just the new readability. I'm not sure they're even aware that they're serving paywalled content. To me, the end user, the effect is the same. They're both just loopholes.

My question is: How are they even doing it? WSJ doesn't even vend the entire article from the server if the user is not inside their paywall.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#164

Post by Declanomous »

hotsauceror wrote: post #156
varelse wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like the cargo cult Agile pandemic peaked a few years ago, I suspect we're reaching peak open floor plans right now. The overall negative effects of an open floor plan for a significant fraction of engineers (though not all) is self-evident and backed up by reams of data stretching back nearly 40 years: http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-book/web/work... TLDR: 100 square feet of personal space is opt…

Cargo Cult is exactly right. Our organization is selling us this right now. "We're creating a more collaborative atmosphere! Facebook does it, this must be what IT people want." (Any discussion of paying IT staff like FB, though, is "well, we're not an IT company, and besides we're mission driven!") Because they don't think we're mature enough to accept that they want to squeeze more bodies unto a smaller space, for…

I technically work in marketing, and even I don't think that open-offices are better. A private office is way more productive for the 75% of the time we aren't collaborating. It is a lot easier to write and design things when it is quiet. The idea that creative extroverted people work better the more riotous an environment is is absolute nonsense.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#165

Post by strictnein »

arkitaip wrote: post #144
strictnein wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I have a mechanical keyboard at home (Corsair Gaming K95 RGB), but at work I use a Mac wired keyboard (on a PC). Super quiet and probably the best performing scissor switch keyboard. edit: proper Mac keyboard type

Hey, I have the same keyboard! Do you actually use all the extra G keys or macros? I thought I would but the cognitive load of memorizing what each G key stands for is too much.

I've tried to, but I'm in the same boat as you I think.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#166

Post by tradesmanhelix »

For over a year, our dev team has been begging management to fix our open-office. It's loud, distracting, and negatively impacts our productivity. The team wants 1/2 height cloth cubicles that would provide a limited measure of privacy and personal space while also helping to dampen the noise. Their response: Buy on-desk semi-transparent plastic partitions that just provide another noise-amplifying hard surface...

Thankfully, I was recently hired onto a 100% remote development team and put in my 2 weeks. I'm done with open office floor plans and hope to never again work at a company that uses them for developers.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#167

Post by daemin »

NTripleOne wrote: post #120
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have brown keys and bottoming out is definitely the noisy part.

Buy some o-rings, they really do help with the bottoming out noise. Alternatively, train yourself not to bottom out.

After some coworkers complained I bought some o-rings for my brown-switch keyboard. It's much quieter although there are now other keyboards in the room that aren't quietened.

Still I like the newer quietened version, so I'm considering buying some more for my home keyboard (it is an identical model).

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#168

Post by gdulli »

philip1209 wrote: post #24

Individual contributors want private offices. Companies want "openness and collaboration". As I've been at WeWorks lately, I've noticed that they have all glass walls on the offices. This means that everybody has natural light and a sense of openness, but with a locking door and quiet. A more general question to people in such all-glass private offices - is it the best of both worlds? Or, is more privacy needed than…

Personally, I care about privacy more than I care about keeping out noise. I like the feel of an enclosed space and glass walls don't give me that.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#169

Post by MichaelGG »

sidlls wrote: post #134
jesseryoung wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a team lead/solutions architect. > Did your team-members enjoy you turning around and interrupting them? I don't think it's fair to call all conversations "interruptions" and my co-workers were all very conscious of causing any unwanted interruptions. > Is it really that hard to get up and walk to another office so you don't disturb 8 other people with a question they don't care about? It wasn't, and I often di…

You don't consider that your position of authority affected a different dynamic than if you were a lower ranked individual contributor? > As a side note, this workplace was comprised of mostly men and women under the age of 35 with quite a few right out of college. I'm not sure how this is relevant. One might as easily conclude that these folks don't know any better due to youth and inexperience as that "it's just a…

I had this exact thing happen. I was consulting for a team that just acquired a small company. They had this huge building, but got most people into a large open area. The lead was certain it was so useful, he was tuned in, everyone loved it. Plus "they can go into offices if they need it". In personal interviews with employees, nearly everyone hated it and wished they could just permanently have an office and only come out at times, but didn't want to say anything.
Post reply on HN