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Open offices are a dead end

nytimes.com

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Re: Open offices are a dead end

#171

Post by ryandrake »

scarface74 wrote: post #96
tomp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay is line with the market Presumably pay should / can be lower in a place where you actually want to work for than in a shitty work environment? > up to date with technology and great chances for resume building. What do you mean "up to date with technology"? IMO most "recent" technology is mostly hype and/or vaporware, and as I get more experienced, I see more and more value in old, reliable, well-supported tech…

Presumably pay should / can be lower in a place where you actually want to work for than in a shitty work environment? My major want is to get money deposited into my account. I'm at an age where I need to focus on building wealth. But that's the other dilemma -- I could go into working for a consulting company as a "digital transformation consultant"/"cloud consultant" where I would be travelling or working from hom…

I’ve always considered the technology treadmill to be optional. You can ride it and be successful, or you can become a good generalist on old technologies and be successful too.

I’ve never even thought about messing with Rust or React or Angular or Ember or Node or Haskell. I don’t know what a Kubernet is and I think Docker is what happens when you take “it works for me” and turn it into a software deployment tool. I don’t surf the Blockchain or care about Tensorflow. There are just too many companies (big and small, FAANG and fun) who offer rewarding jobs working on mature, boring tech for me to bother.

Maybe there will come a time when nobody on Earth is using C++ and Java anymore but I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#172

Post by Florin_Andrei »

chomp wrote: post #112
ivl wrote: post #57

I think I'd have a less negative reaction to open offices if it weren't for the attempt to sell it as a productivity booster . The article even mentions how they're "sold to workers as a boon to collaboration — liberated from barriers, stuffed in like sardines, people would chat more and, supposedly, come up with lots of brilliant new ideas". Thankfully the author also quickly refuted that. Yet the insanity remains,…

I think part of the problem is that (in my experience) open offices actually do boost productivity somewhat, but only when the office is a small 2-5 person pod. I lose productivity when I get dropped in a huge floor of people chatting and talking about things not related to what I'm working on.

Also depends on the team.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#173

Post by Someone »

scarface74 wrote: post #150
pmlnr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - up to date with technology and great chances for resume building. Resume driver development is bad for the planet, you, for everything. Java programmers still find jobs; COBOL programmers are still needed; FORTRAN is still alive, so I'd rather find something that will not go away in my lifetime than trying to keep up with trends.

Good Luck With That. In 2008, I was looking for a job after being with one company for close to a decade. I knew C and C++ like the back of my hand and written programs for x86 PCs as well as three mainframes (Stratus VOS, DEC VAX, and one that I cant remember.) When it was time to find a job, after a few months, I found one company and a mid level job (that paid more because salary compression is real) that wanted m…

I’m not disagreeing with your conclusion, but the 2008-2012 comparison is n=1, and the US economy wasn’t exactly booming in 2008 (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...)

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#174

Post by HashThis »

COMPETITION: A company should have some of each. Workers pick which they want.

The problem is when open offices are crammed on workers.

They should make half open offices, and half closed offices. Some places have rooms for 2 to 8 people to work in, which is a good alternative to open offices. See which workers select.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#175

Post by kerkeslager »

unionpivo wrote: post #170
kerkeslager wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is very much up for debate. Let's hypothesize that 60% of people work better in private offices, and 40% work better in open offices. You force everyone to work in a private office, and they perform slightly better than if you force everyone to work in an open office--that perfectly explains the results of the studies. But obviously if this hypothesis is true, then the best solution would be to let the 40%…

If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive. The only way to find out if you are right is to test it. Until that is done, it makes most sense to go with, majority of studies. That said, you suggestion (about having both types) might work in ideal world. In real world you wouldn't really h…

> If you google around, you will find lots of studies on that subject have already been done, and most of them find, that open offices are for the most part are less productive.

If you Google around, you will find lots of studies that tested which office style you should force everyone into, without considering the possibility that forcing everyone into the same office style might be a bad idea. That doesn't address my point at all.

> The only way to find out if you are right is to test it.

My entire career has been a test showing that I can't get much done in isolation. Open offices work great for me, and at this point, I will not take a job that requires me to work in isolation.

Again I'm going to ask: why are we forcing everyone into one style of office?

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#176

Post by kerkeslager »

nemetroid wrote: post #156
kerkeslager wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the point many people are trying to make is that open offices decrease productivity for most people. I don't think people stop there, however. Many people, including the author of the article, go the extra step to say that open offices are bad. I don't think you can argue against the fact that a significant portion of the population works well in open offices, so when you say stuff like "open offices are a…

> I don't think you can argue against the fact that a significant portion of the population works well in open offices Can you cite a study which asserts this fact ?

You've got numerous people on this page saying they work better in open offices. Do you have some reason for disbelieving them?

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#177

Post by erik_seaberg »

ping_pong wrote: post #135
utf985 wrote: post #123

I get a bit bewildered every time I see someone complaining about open offices as it always begs the question - what kind of alternative do they demand exactly? I have addressed this on many threads and comments but somehow I never gen an answer. Only thing I can think of are cubicles but to me they seem a lot worse than the open office and they're definitely not a thing here in Europe. Out of all the companies and i…

> The other thing I suppose is where literally every employee gets their own office. But is that really a thing? Because I've never heard of something like that. This used to be the case. Companies like Microsoft gave everyone their own office (I'm not sure what the current policy is, I would assume they kept it the same). I for one hate cubicles the most. They have none of the privacy but also none of the social col…

An entry-level job gave me an office in 1992. Microsoft gave me half an office in 2005. Nobody else.

> lean over and talk to your coworker

There are no quick questions when you were concentrating. If we need to talk about the project, first we should step away from the desks, because everyone else is still trying to code.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#178

Post by unionpivo »

utf985 wrote: post #123

I get a bit bewildered every time I see someone complaining about open offices as it always begs the question - what kind of alternative do they demand exactly? I have addressed this on many threads and comments but somehow I never gen an answer. Only thing I can think of are cubicles but to me they seem a lot worse than the open office and they're definitely not a thing here in Europe. Out of all the companies and i…

If you cant go individual offices than go, small offices, with 2 - 3 people inside.

If that doesn't work try going bigger, I'd prefer three separate 10 people offices that, one open.

And if you cant do that, and are stuck with one big place, put desks at sides, and put some kind of separator (whiteboards, message boards, kids pictures, self standing walls whatever) in the middle, and every few desks.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#179

Post by panopticon »

pojzon wrote: post #159
dawg- wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey! I actually have all of the things on your list. But with one catch: I work for a community nonprofit in a small town of 15,000 people in the deep south, and make probably a very small fraction of what you do. I guess life is all about compromise :)

You said "all", but its not really all without "payment up to date with the market" ;). Ps. I would not care so much for payment if I was born 5-10 years earlier. I would already have a big house with nice big garden and few cars. Now to get the same - have to pay 15x as much as my brother who is older than me :) Great times we live in..

I suppose it depends if you're defining the market locally or globally. A fraction of a FAANG salary in a small town can go a long way in the local market.

Re: Open offices are a dead end

#180

Post by scarface74 »

Someone wrote: post #173
scarface74 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good Luck With That. In 2008, I was looking for a job after being with one company for close to a decade. I knew C and C++ like the back of my hand and written programs for x86 PCs as well as three mainframes (Stratus VOS, DEC VAX, and one that I cant remember.) When it was time to find a job, after a few months, I found one company and a mid level job (that paid more because salary compression is real) that wanted m…

I’m not disagreeing with your conclusion, but the 2008-2012 comparison is n=1, and the US economy wasn’t exactly booming in 2008 ( https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-... )

And I was looking for a job between 2008-2012, even though I had one, the direction my company was going was obvious. Employers looking for employees or contractors could be picky and find someone with just the right skills and didn't have to compromise. Having the right skill fit is even more important in a down turn. What are the chances that their won't be another downturn in the next 20 years?
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