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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)

#201

Post by snuxoll »

tastythrowaway2 wrote: post #195
twothamendment wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working from home with a family can be great - it takes a little training. I'm 100% remote at home in a spare bedroom. My youngest is 5 and even he knows not to burst in the room and start talking without waiting for me to talk to him first. Maybe I'm just in the middle of a thought or more often working with another dev, but family can be taught to respect the work space in a home. "Goodbye, I'm going to work" seems…

this... is solid advice. I don't know that I could pull it off but you make excellent points.

It's a lot easier when you have a spouse/partner willing to be the homemaker while you support the family financially. I would have a hard time working from home if I had to take care of my four year old myself, but since my wife is a stay-at-home mom she's able to take care of the kiddo and making sure the house doesn't fall apart (I won't blame any woman for not wanting to fit the gender stereotype, but I feel kids these days are missing out a lot on not having a parent - dad OR mom - that doesn't have to work and can spend time with them beyond what their work schedule allows).

If you aren't in a situation where you have someone home with you or they can't comprehend that WFH doesn't mean you have to work your 40 a week then sometimes you have no choice but to just put the kids in daycare - which stinks because it robs you of a valuable perk of not having to commute when you have a family.

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

#202

Post by snuxoll »

twothamendment wrote: post #171
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.

Working from home with a family can be great - it takes a little training. I'm 100% remote at home in a spare bedroom. My youngest is 5 and even he knows not to burst in the room and start talking without waiting for me to talk to him first. Maybe I'm just in the middle of a thought or more often working with another dev, but family can be taught to respect the work space in a home. "Goodbye, I'm going to work" seems…

> That doesn't mean I can't take a break to have lunch with the family and take a break for a few laps of racin.

My favorite part of working from home. Take my morning break and cuddle with my daughter on the couch before she heads out to the park/YMCA with mom and play 15 minutes of Minecraft or see what art project she's been working on.

I honestly thought I'd miss having a more defined separation between work and personal life, but being able to blend them together has made me a lot happier, especially getting an extra 40-60 minutes a day with my family from not having to commute.

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

#203

Post by profalseidol »

davidmr wrote: post #55

I think we've lost the war. I was even asked to meet with my company's architects and designers about a new space we were building out. I basically spent an hour telling them in every different form I could that what I wanted was a place I could go where people could find me, but they would have to knock on a door and open it to talk to me, and these people looked at me like I was from fucking Mars. They'd never hear…

We're fighting the symptoms. The right war is against capital.

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

#205

Post by YokoZar »

accountface wrote: post #196
dethswatch wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kitchen will be about 1 meter away from your workspace. You'll enjoy the overly loud conversations, beeping of microwaves, coffee makers, dishwashing, and the delightful smells of bkreafast, brunch, lunch, and the rest.

My office has a kitchen adjacent to a auditorium. No doors. Everyone who gives presentations around lunchtime inevitably has to apologize to the audience for the beeping microwaves and chatty employees. This building is like 3 years old and cost tens of millions of dollars to build.

That happened to a VP giving a presentation at my company on a Friday. By Monday there was a new wall.

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

#206

Post by adrienne »

sidlls wrote: post #191
adrienne wrote: post #182

Women who put up with this aren't "saints", they're just being exploited by their partners.

My wife chooses to have a job that she does full time from home. We are very much of means to provide a full time live-in nanny or day care for our children on our current income. If she chose she could get a much better paying "butt in the seat" job and we'd have even more means. She doesn't "put up" with anything in the pejorative sense you mean, and is most certainly not being exploited by me. Shame on you. Howeve…

If you had a full-time nanny you'd just be exploiting someone else, and that's not really better! (Although at least she'd be getting paid.)

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

#207

Post by adrienne »

adrienne wrote: post #206
sidlls wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife chooses to have a job that she does full time from home. We are very much of means to provide a full time live-in nanny or day care for our children on our current income. If she chose she could get a much better paying "butt in the seat" job and we'd have even more means. She doesn't "put up" with anything in the pejorative sense you mean, and is most certainly not being exploited by me. Shame on you. Howeve…

If you had a full-time nanny you'd just be exploiting someone else , and that's not really better! (Although at least she'd be getting paid.)

More seriously: You complain that your kids bother you any time you try to work from home, and how that's just intolerable. But your wife apparently puts up with it every day. They probably bug the shit out of her too - she's just doing that without whining to you about how haaarrrd it is. Implying that what makes her a "saint" isn't "putting up with her kids" so much as it is "putting up with you".

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

#208

Post by guitarbill »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #167
randcraw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is so sterile. It makes me sad.

I wouldn't have suspected that with your username ;p

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

#209

Post by [deleted] »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #179
davidmr wrote: post #55

I think we've lost the war. I was even asked to meet with my company's architects and designers about a new space we were building out. I basically spent an hour telling them in every different form I could that what I wanted was a place I could go where people could find me, but they would have to knock on a door and open it to talk to me, and these people looked at me like I was from fucking Mars. They'd never hear…

>When I die and get to hell, there will be a Hermann Miller chair in an open office waiting for me. With free snacks and drinks in the kitchen. You'll be allowed to wear headphones, and Hell will have a Slack channel, but instead of using the Slack channel, everyone will just walk over to your desk and talk to you. While you're debugging.

[deleted]

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

VLM wrote: post #118
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.

Depends how close you live to operations / devops / pager rotation. If the boss trusts you not to have both of you drive in at 2am for every little problem (you to work and him to hover over you to make sure you work), they'll trust you to also actually work at 2pm from home on a normal day. You also have to be realistic about slacking. I can let in service people and rotate the laundry and cook dinner in less time t…

[deleted]
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