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Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

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Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#191

Post by theshrike79 »

funcDropShadow wrote: post #162
robertlagrant wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. This is very one-sided. If you can unblock someone now so they don't spend 3 hours searching through the local intranet for some information, then that makes your team faster. There's a balance to be had, of course, but your team's overall delivery is what's important. > I view it…

Of course there is a balance needed. But spending once 3 hours to search something might increase familiarity with the resources the intranet provides. So the next question could be answered way faster. Or it could be the occasion to improve the local intranet with some missing cross reference or some comment.

Or it might be 100% wasted time that could be bypassed with a 5 minute conversation across the room. =)

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#192

Post by otteromkram »

sokoloff wrote: post #178
mratsim wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying programmers' time is not expensive enough?

It's probably closer to the outputs (and differences in output) not being measurable enough. I had a private office setup in one place. It was phenomenal and by far the best work environment (physical and otherwise) I've ever had. The biggest problem was: we couldn't double the size of the team without it being a half-year leasing and construction project. So, we'd sawtooth among "far too much space and lots of pent-…

> but terrible for collaborative whiteboard design work.

Not at all.

If you think so, maybe try switching jobs to non-remote and let someone fine with virtual whiteboarding take your role on.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#193

Post by hackernoteng »

Open floor plan is why I am way more productive working from home. Because of that I go into office about once every three months, just so we have in person white-boarding sessions (no actual coding work is possible). Hard wood floors, sales guys talking loud on phones, people buzzing around the office. It's impossible to focus on any non-trivial coding. And no, I'm not going to wear noise cancelling headphones all day.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#194

Post by mariusor »

robertlagrant wrote: post #131
ath3nd wrote: post #37

People like you are the reason I personally don't want to be in an office. > asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours. Basically like having a toddler around. Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. Or I migh…

> it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. This is very one-sided. If you can unblock someone now so they don't spend 3 hours searching through the local intranet for some information, then that makes your team faster. There's a balance to be had, of course, but your team's overall delivery is what's important. > I view it…

> If you can unblock someone now so they don't spend 3 hours searching through the local intranet for some information, then that makes your team faster.

I'll be blunt here. I have very little interest in how the team I'm part of performs in general. Trying to make one person feel guilty that someone else can't do independent study is very toxic in my opinion, and I usually remove myself from under management that approaches leadership like that.

Asking questions should always be done, in my opinion, _after_ you tried to unblock yourself by RTFM-ing. If people feed you information every time you're stuck, it seldom sticks to your mind as well as going through the motions yourself.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#195

Post by akasakahakada »

Current writing something like BLAS from scratch for 2 years. I admit that my house is a better work place than my lab. Writing loops and let compiler to optimize that for you is easy. But thinking in terms of vector, tensor, broadcasting, parallel and then convert everything into bit operations is hard. Seriously I can't do any low level implementation in office environment.

For high level stuff like architecture design and writing application functions, I appreciate pair programming. I think that is more effective and creative than working alone. But still everyone doing their own stuff in a big room is not my kind in this situation.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#196

Post by damontal »

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #108
ath3nd wrote: post #37

People like you are the reason I personally don't want to be in an office. > asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours. Basically like having a toddler around. Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. Or I migh…

> you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus Surely there must be ways to balance these things? When you want to ask someone a question it shouldn’t be too hard to infer whether it’s a good time to do that now or you should wait (if it is, well it’s exactly a very hard skill to learn if you put in some effort)

I used to work in an open office and one guy had a light mounted to his cube. When it was red it meant do not disturb. Green meant he was available for whatever.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#197

Post by theshrike79 »

scbrg wrote: post #158
cauch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are asking is that OP destroy their own "deep work" a lot just that you don't get a mild distraction in yours. > And in an open office, even if you ask only a single person something, others might hear it too, despite the question not being intended to them. I guess I'm special, because when I'm in a "deep work", I just don't hear people around me. I know it's not the case of everyone, some of my colleagu…

> some of my colleagues just put noise-suppression headphones Great. Now the rest of us have to put up with even more noise. People wearing headphones make a lot more noise themselves. Presumably because they don't hear the noise they make. Suddenly there's heavy breathing, sighs, grunts, moans, inaudible and sometimes disturbingly audible mumbling, humming &c.

You might have Misophonia. It's not normal to be extremely irritated by sounds other people make.

The "normal" state is to be able to tune those out.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#198

Post by ath3nd »

cauch wrote: post #130
Buttons840 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Alice wants to focus on her work uninterrupted, but Bob wants to interrupt and ask a question, what should happen?

That's exactly the question. My solution is: Bob should try to ask with moderation, and Bob and Alice should work together in a situation where Bob does not need to distract Alice. If Bob needs to distract Alice, then Alice just needs to live with it. If Bob has questions but does not need to distract Alice, then Bob should not ask the question and just needs to live with it. What confuse me is that some people here…

I believe we should examine why Bob needs to distract Alice on a regular basis, and attack that problem with the might and fury of 1911 raging bulls and 420 mosquitoes.

> What confuse me is that some people here just answer: obviously Alice is right and Bob is wrong, all the time except exceptional cases.

Joking aside, I do agree with your point. It's not black and white and there shouldn't be fear/hostility connected with simply asking a question. However, 100% being open to questions all the time is simply disruptive for everybody.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#199

Post by otteromkram »

ath3nd wrote: post #37

People like you are the reason I personally don't want to be in an office. > asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours. Basically like having a toddler around. Sorry for the negative take here but how it's written it feels like you don't necessarily realize that some people do need deep work, and prioritize your quick satisfaction to other's focus. Or I migh…

I support this 100%. Programming and most tech work is pretty solitary. If collaboration needs to happen there's nothing wrong with hopping on a call.

People that state what OP said should go into sales or customer service. Want to talk all day? There's your new job.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#200

Post by [deleted] »

robertlagrant wrote: post #172
cevn wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all have access to the exact same information. Sure, for a first time on boarder, I'll point them the right way. But 90% of the time someone taps on my shoulder, they want me to think for them. You can do that by yourself. Just send an email.

> We all have access to the exact same information. We might have the same access, but rather than dig through 20 medical textbooks, I'll go ask a doctor. Access is a really poor way of thinking about things. > But 90% of the time someone taps on my shoulder, they want me to think for them. You can do that by yourself. Just send an email. Why send an email when they're thinking for themselves?

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