221–230 of 593 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The “6” is coming from the original comment in the thread.
there are 6 people in the room, but as I said, it does not mean that the 6 persons are all distracted. (by the way, the initial comment was implying that the question is coming from one of the 6 persons in the room, so at worst, it's 5 persons distracted) the question can also be useful for one other person in the room, so instead of being distracted, the person has been helped.
Some do, not all do. I do much better in a room with ~6 people that are working on the same project. Much better than working at home. Much better than a private office (which I've had). Having people around me working on the same project is invaluable for me for * asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours. * running ideas by others. This doesn't happen on c…
There would be a large room off of a hallway, divided into 8 offices, arranged like this:
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+-----+ -+- +-----+
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+-----+ +-----+
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The larger offices at the top can be used for more senior people, or the group manager, or for a lab, or a library, or a break room.
You could extend this to two teams working on different projects but under a common manager or senior engineer by putting them in separate clusters side by side, and merging the adjacent top offices so that the common manager or senior engineer's office is part of both clusters:
+---------+---------+---------+---------+
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+-----+ -+- +-----+-----+ -+- +-----+
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+-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+
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+-----+ +-----+-----+ +-----+
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+-------| |-------+-------| |-------+
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> 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 ap…
In a lot of situations that would be considered fairly toxic itself. :(
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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?
You get an appointment. Here noone is against appointments, here people discuss the notion of going to ask a doctor in the middle of a surgery a "quick question".
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If I am a doctor in this situation, then you can create a JIRA ticket and I will see it .. eventually. Do you have instant access to all of your doctors?
But why would you see it if we have access to the same information? That's the point you made that I'm disagreeing with. Are you now saying that yes, even though I and my doctor might have access to the same information, that doesn't mean I should never ask my doctor things?
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…
> 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 ap…
Don't be surprised when others show the same level of empathy towards you, then. It's not about making you feel guilty, it's about making you do you effing job. Unless you're in a very junior position, your job is not to pump out code day in and day out.
It has to be said, if you're employing programmers and making them sit in an openplan office you're willingly and knowingly making their job significantly harder, and their day worse. Open plan might work great for some types of work, but for highly technical and mentally taxing work it's quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing. There's a reason that many programmers prefer to w…
Who would win: - literally 100s of publications showing how disruptive and destructive to focus it is to be working in an open office work and how much distractions it brings: https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-workplace-heres... https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices https://www.businessdit.com/distraction-work-statistics/ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/eve... https:…
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>Basically like having a toddler around. Unnecessarily condescending response to the OP, to be honest.
Fair take. I am not trying to be condescending here, but it's hard to view this behavior as anything but overly disruptive. https://www.businessdit.com/distraction-work-statistics/ Instead of "just a quick question", the OP could prepare a list of their questions, and ask them all at the allocated time. A scheduled deep dive into the questions the OP has might even be more productive than multiple unscheduled disrupt…
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Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…
I’ve seen this work tolerably well in an open space that’s entirely engineers or similar roles, assuming there are enough conference rooms for people to peel off to for meetings and calls, and you can establish the culture of the main room having a library-esque hush. As soon as people start having multi party conversations in the main space because the conference rooms are booked 100% of the time, or people whose jo…
It's funny how Office Space is still relevant almost 25 years later.
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 think I would be fine not having you in the office, given your condescending response.. > Basically like having a toddler around. I changed jobs during lockdown. When I've joined other companies earlier, everyone knew to step in to help the new guy. So people would constantly ask me how I was doing, see if I were struggling and ask to help me, or I could just poke someone in the room. But getting onboarded remotely…
At the very least they should have assigned someone to be your mentor for coming up to speed.
That way you have someone you can ask (and you're aware you should) and you're not just forgotten about and left to you own devices, which is rarely successful.