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CEOs Want Their Offices Back

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211–220 of 409 posts

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Sun Microsystems for a while and their private office layout was really nice. I can't ballpark the exact size but the office could hold 3 gigantic CRT monitors, 2 desk phones, and had space for 2 visitors. I feel that a 2 person private office is quite optimal, since we are talking about teams. It's easier to pair program or discuss and even maintain silence when required. Office designers will have to pa…

The irony is that we (FB) came in and demolished all those awesome Sun offices to create "open space". No "Duke" mascots were harmed in the process, though :-)

It's even worse in the new building I think.

Lovely park on the roof, great amenities, but cluttered open-plan hell at every desk area.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#212
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been down this route many times. And after Dvorak, Kinesis, and a wide assortment of supposedly ergonomic keyboards, El-cheapo $15 Kensington USB keyboards and $20 Logitech trac-balls turn out to work best with my wrists, occasionally aided by Imax smartgloves. I have a veritable museum of failed keyboards and pointing devices in my closet. IMO there is no silver bullet here. Also to extend your automotive metap…

Have you tried the sculpt? I was having wrist pain that was preventing me from working up until about a week after mine arrived.

Its predecessors, yes, many times. The brand new shiny $100 Sculpt? No.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#213
post #51

Why do CEO's think they're alone in the need for quiet spaces where they can focus? Sure some people can work in the noisy space where interruptions abound. The only thing in my office that works well with interruptions is my CPU. I'd rather have a Cube farm, but better yet, a small tiny phone booth as an office.

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…

[deleted]

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#214
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…

I worked at Sun Microsystems for a while and their private office layout was really nice. I can't ballpark the exact size but the office could hold 3 gigantic CRT monitors, 2 desk phones, and had space for 2 visitors. I feel that a 2 person private office is quite optimal, since we are talking about teams. It's easier to pair program or discuss and even maintain silence when required. Office designers will have to pa…

How would you feel about larger offices that fit ~8, and housed your entire immediate team, but no one else? Your manager would go to another room for their meetings with other parts of the organization, and you all would be free to collaborate as needed, or shut up as needed?

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#215
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…

>We're all adults in a capitalist economy; we know the score.

This is mostly false, and to the extent that it is true, it turns out that people much prefer to have the ability to retreat into ambiguity around management's thought process and incentives when it suits them, rather than for the executives to be explicit about it.

The most infamous example of an executive revealing something everyone already knew to be true is Gerald Ratner [0]. After jokingly stating that his company was able to sell things for such low prices because it was "total crap", they plummeted to the brink of collapse. The company was saved only after firing Ratner and changing its name.

Companies where ill-advised executive candor has turned fortunes downward are now said to be experiencing the "Ratner Effect".

Executives are, first and foremost, performers. Dropping the illusion is offensive to the audience. We like pretending.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#216

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." Wait, that peaked? That hasn't been my perception. I'm curious where you are seeing that.

I haven't been seeing it, either. In fact, I dare say it is nearly impossible to find a software shop in my area that isn't knee-deep in some iteration of "Agile" management - usually some form of Scrum.

That's because it works. There's a reason it's popular.

That said: a lot of places don't do it correctly and really do deserve being called cargo cults.

Still, some process is better than no process.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#217
post #158

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…

Sounds like you haven't been on the other side often enough. Most of a programmer's added value to a company happens in the 4 hours (give or take) that they are "zoned in" to what they're doing. As tech lead, when you knock them out of the zone early, you cost your company a lot of money because it's usually going to be a while before things ramp up again. Lots (most?) of developers don't like having their focus inte…

You made me think of something interesting. My 4 hours NEVER happens and I'm in a cube-farm/closed space. Interruptions happen all the damn time. Sure we don't like our focus interrupted, but that's what work is. It's dealing with the managers and leads that need to ask you something urgent while managing your deadlines and dealing with noise which is still very much present in a closed-office area unless you are the board members that get to work remote.

I have one cool little experience which was an open office that switched to a closed office space during my stay. Productivity went down regardless of the boundaries put in place because now the leads and managers have their offices closed for meetings and therefore engineering staff is next in line to handle emergencies/data requests. Granted this is due to our workflow as well, however the point I'm making isn't that one setup is always better than the other but that it probably depends on multiple things and if you think you're gonna get 4 hours of golden time in a real, moving business then that's very naive or you have been very lucky yourself.

I think the reason I liked open offices is because when I needed to rethink an algorithm and analyze it I had at least 3 people that could offer their commentary. And while study groups may not work for reading a book, they damn sure work on designing algorithms when you need to openly discuss the tradeoffs and goals. Just my 0.02 on the whole thing but TL;DR sounds like open offices don't work for some places, but work great for others.

EDIT: to add to this, the open office we had was not noisey. There weren't massive conversations happening all the time and it was normally just inside voice levels of noise. I haven't experienced what I am imagining as the restaurant equivalent of an office.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#218

Theory: open space fosters communication, because you can easily engage in discussion with others. Reality: everybody is sitting with their headphones on. The only way to get their attention is via Slack or by throwing objects at them.

In the academia, where good communication and idea sharing are essential, there are no open offices. Said communication happens where it ought to be: in rec room or cafeteria.

I'm a PhD student, and I am in an open office floor plan at the moment. Albeit smaller than I have seen at tech companies, offices in my program have 8-10 people in them.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#219
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the open office, not the mechanical keyboards (which are awesome, btw).

The noise is from bottoming out. Put spacers on the keycap stems, and it stops being a problem, no matter what kind of switch you use. This is easy to do and only a little time-consuming. It's easier and faster when you take a cheap Bic pen, pull out the tip and ink tube, and use the body tube to press the spacers down on the stems - it's just the right diameter, and makes the job much faster. The spacers are cheap,…

Or people could just type with less force?

I'm not sure where the cultural norm of beating up a keyboard comes from but it's a very inefficient way to type.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every mechanical keyboard will be loud. I use a board with Cherry Red switches at work, and while it's much quieter than my board with Cherry Blue switches that I use at home, it is still louder than the rubber dome keyboard it replaced. It doesn't bother my coworkers, but I also have an actual cube, so there's at least a little bit of fabric-covered foam inbetween us.

If someone is complaining about Cherry Reds, I think they're asking for too much. Perhaps they should look for work in the library sciences.

Cherry Reds are quiet for mechanical keyboards but they're still louder than most decent non-mechanical.

Also way louder than a MBP keyboard, for example.

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