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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)

#221

Post by tbyehl »

randcraw wrote: post #138
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 doesn't work for us singles either. I don't want to spend my days working alone. What fun is that? And for those of us who aren't married, that solitude extends to being solo 24x7. That's even worse that the nightmare of an open office. There has to be a balance somewhere between the isolation of Home Alone and open office chaos. But if those are my only choices, after 30 years in the biz, I'll give…

The same week my job went from mostly to fully remote, I split up with my ex-wife-to-be and a large chunk of my social network went with her. I'm an introverted person who enjoys a fair amount of alone time but being alone 24x7 quickly had me craving social interaction.

The cure for that was pretty straightforward: Leave the damned house.

All those annoying chatty people you encounter during everyday errands? Far less annoying when you're starved for social interaction, engage them. Have interests? Turns out there are meetups for all sorts of interests. I walk into one, find a small cluster of people, and introduce myself. "Hi, I'm tbyehl, crowds of strangers are about my least favorite thing so I need to make a couple of fast friends" is quite effective.

Need more, uh, intimate social encounters? Treat yourself to a couple nice outfits, find a nice barber, and read up on /r/seduction. I'm obese and my personality is something of an acquired taste but I've hardly spent any days alone that I didn't want to.

There are +/- 72 waking hours a week that you aren't scheduled to work. That's plenty of time to build a social life that isn't dependent on commuting to a crappy office environment 5 days a week.

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

#222

Post by romanovcode »

x1798DE wrote: post #137
romanovcode wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it's unfair to the others :)

If you're worried about fairness why pay the developers $300k and pay the other people some much smaller fraction of that?

Others might not know you're getting 300k man

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

#223

Post by wtbob »

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…

> 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.

I had to check your username to see if a) you're me or b) you're one of my co-workers. This exact same thing happened to me. I'll admit that our new office looks quite nice, but it is more-or-less impossible to actually get any work done there. Every conversation destroys the entire focus of the entire team; every personal tic annoys dozens of people and destroys their focus. There's no peace, no quiet and precious little productivity.

I honestly don't know why they bothered having those meetings. Did other folks say, 'I'd love something pretty, but I don't want to ever complete any actual work'? Did someone request an office which looks great in a brochure? Did someone say, 'I want something which makes an awesome gallery — don't worry about making it an office'? Enquiring minds want to know.

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

#224

Post by wtbob »

tps5 wrote: post #26

My office is switching to an open design. And none of the people who work there are happy about it. It was decided by the folks who own the company, several thousand miles away. I think the real allure of open offices is how they look. Open offices look modern . They look like the kind of working area a hip, young, collaborative, industry-disrupting company would favor. But that's all bullshit. It's just a fairy tale…

> I'll have headphones on all day, instead of 10-20% of the day.

I worry about the damage that my office headphones have on my hearing. I wonder if there's some sort of OSHA regulation regarding it, and if I have recourse against my employer because I am forced to don headphones are be distracted.

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

#225

Post by oneshot908 »

profalseidol wrote: post #203
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.

Absolutely, the increase in productivity away from an open office is intangible and uncertain. In contrast, the decrease in office space expense from switching to open office is very tangible.

Also, some people cough mostly millennials cough really do thrive in these spaces, and some truly enjoy a social dimension like this for their engineering. I don't thrive in it, I loathe it, and I spew profanity like a WWII sailor trying to work in that environment.

So I try to work from home the most I can. I acknowledge some people cannot motivate themselves to do so and I recognize that's why they're resistant to letting people work from home.

But since open office isn't a 100% harmful thing to do, I agree the war is over and we lost. Start your own shop or go do something that doesn't make you miserable like this does.

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

#226

Post by noir_lord »

nitemice wrote: post #144
noir_lord wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about some kind of sound meter that is attached to the wall of every cubicle, if it measures sustained sound over a preset level it notifies the boss. Can shoehorn IoT in there somewhere, then you have metrics for everyone in the place and who is doing the distracting. Could even have a red light on the top that goes off as well. (Clearly I'm joking..but only just.).

I'm sure the boss would love to come round every ten minutes to play school-teacher, and tell the noisy kids to keep it down.

Well that's what the IoT aspect is for, so many noise events in a defined period and you just send an automated email with a disciplinary notice (again, I'm joking).

Though actually a distributed noise sensor that reports via a simple interface might actually be a useful thing for businesses.

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

#227

Post by user5994461 »

mhurron wrote: post #155
randcraw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

90% of 'cool startups' fail. Is that who we're trying to emulate?

Stop bringing logic and data into this discussion.

That makes no sense. Data driven is cool.

/cool decision process

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

#228

Post by rifung »

randcraw wrote: post #154
rifung wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine most are not making 300k. Also, like many things Google does, I'm guessing it's partially because scaling is becoming an issue. It takes a while to get a space ready, and it's also not easy to just expand around existing offices when they're already quite large. Admittedly, much of this would probably be solved if they were more OK with remote working, as there's a high emphasis on in person collaboration.…

The standard corporate cost estimate for an employee is to double their salary. Thus someone paid $150k costs the company $300k

Ah I appreciate the correction.

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

#229

Post by rhizome »

noir_lord wrote: post #121
rhizome wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in both open-plan offices and cubicle offices I beg to differ. In open-plan, it's by definition that you can hear other people; in cubicles it evolves into the one or a few congenitally loud people doing the noise. "There goes Amy again." The visual limitations of cubicles help here, because you have a little bit of privacy that motivates people to respect personal space. I'm quieter in cubicles, but no…

How about some kind of sound meter that is attached to the wall of every cubicle, if it measures sustained sound over a preset level it notifies the boss. Can shoehorn IoT in there somewhere, then you have metrics for everyone in the place and who is doing the distracting. Could even have a red light on the top that goes off as well. (Clearly I'm joking..but only just.).

Beats hiring managers who know how to run a team, I suppose.

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

#230

Post by danm07 »

user5994461 wrote: post #47
danm07 wrote: post #27

I've been in a couple of co-working spaces uses the open-office concept. It's generally pretty good when everyone is a developer, but then there's the occasional sales/customer service person, which is what this article seems to allude to. I think open-office is a great concept that just needs to be refined a little: i.e. stricter enforcement of phone/loudness etiquette.

And what to do with people who have to grab the phone or talk? They have nowhere to isolate because it's a f------- open office.

I have to agree. I wish open offices comes with their own bathroom-stall like cubbies for people who need to jump on a call.

... or hire Terry Tate, office linebacker: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ar83_terry-tate-office-li...

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