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Open offices are bad for us

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Re: Open offices are bad for us

#231

Post by rotten »

relaytheurgency wrote: post #192
rotten wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one place I worked we went in on a weekend and rearranged all of the cubicles in our work area to better suit our work style and needs. (moved openings, created a central collaboration area, etc) Our boss was ok with it because he said he was responsible for the budget for that floor (including real estate) and if we felt it would make us more productive he was all for it. Unfortunately the corporate bureaucrats g…

Was there some complaint from another team or something? That is just so illogical.

I have no idea if someone complained or not. There were regular visits by senior management and remote team members. Some of whom were jealous that we had cubes at all.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#232

Post by [deleted] »

kbart wrote: post #17
jMyles wrote: post #4

Am I the only one left on HN who prefers open plan? I've done some of my best work for open plan companies. I have a particularly fond memory of when Reelio rented space at Blueprint (healthcare incubator in NYC). We stayed up very late, listened to loud music, and did some of the best work of our lives. I remember one night in particular, listening to the soundtrack from "O Brother Where Art Thou," when asynchrony a…

"We stayed up very late, listened to loud music, and did some of the best work of our lives." No offense, but that sounds like some kind of boys club, not professional working environment. Staying up late = no respect for private life (unless you've signed for it), loud arbitrary music = forced culture implications (why do I have to listen to the music you like?). Yes, probably our work place expectations differs imm…

[deleted]

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#233

Post by droopyEyelids »

eropple wrote: post #205
sjclemmy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I just bought some of those Bose noise cancelling cans. Listen at a safe volume and block out noise. They're great.

That you have to block out noise by strapping things to your head for six hours a day is the problem that you are steadfastly not solving, though. You can't get around needing to strap things to your head when you're operating a jackhammer. Nerd at a desk? At the least we should fight for a little dignity.

Additionally, it's not a universal work-around. Noise canceling gives a significant fraction of us nausea

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#234

Post by Arizhel »

cmdrfred wrote: post #201
Arizhel wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noise-canceling headphones do not cancel out conversations, so you must listen at high volume to drown out that other noise. The only thing noise-canceling headphones are really good for is canceling out constant drone, for things such as fan noise and jet engine drone. That's why they're so popular for frequent airplane travelers. They do absolutely nothing if you're in an office surrounded by yapping coworkers (at…

Your right. When you consider it there has been a few million years of iteration of the human ear to attune it to the sound of the human voice. A difficult problem to overcome to say the least.

It's not just that, it has to do with the way noise cancellation circuits work. They work great on constant white-noise-like hums within a certain frequency band; they don't work on transients that cross a wide range of frequencies (as does human voice). They especially don't work well at higher frequencies because of the shorter wavelengths and the distance between the drivers and your eardrums (which can vary), and human voice has a lot of higher-frequency components. If you could stick the drivers right next to your eardrums with custom-fitted in-ear plugs, you could get far better performance, but that's neither economical nor desirable to most people for comfort reasons.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#235

Post by bobochan »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #198
bobochan wrote: post #91

I have a traditional office, but every day part of me misses being back in the giant cube farm that I used to work in. I still remember counting six rows down, then three blocks over, to get to the section of identical grey cubes where I sat. I had a computer just powerful enough to run a 3270 terminal emulator, a small bookcase, and a chair. What do I miss about that? Any time that someone was not deep into a progra…

Why not walk around the office, sit in the commons with a laptop, collaborate in a conference room, etc? The office with a door is for when you need to focus, not meant to be a jail.

Because then people say, "I stopped by your office and you were not there!" It is a big campus so there is a benefit to people being able to track me down.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#236

Post by taftster »

chrisbennet wrote: post #113
logfromblammo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once interviewed over a video call. I asked, "I notice you have an open office there. Where do the developers sit in relation to the sales and customer service teams?" They cut the interview short, and I never heard from them again. They know we don't like sitting next to someone yapping on the phone all day. They just don't care .

Bingo. They know it reduces productivity but apparently the productivity hit is worth the cost savings. And frankly, from a business perspective, they could be right. Just don't tell me its "to enhance collaboration" [don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining]. Perhaps I was too harsh, there probably are some businesses that actually don't know that developers are much different from customers support, accountants…

Somewhat meta and not being contradictory to your message; but accountants are very much like programmers and need their quiet spaces. Managing complex Excel spreadsheets is about as close to programming as other office work.

Ironically, speaking of accountants, I at least have found that in most businesses, the accounting staff do in fact have their own isolated working space. They justify it because of the "sensitivity" of their data, which is true. But the cynic in me thinks it's because they know developers tend to make more money (on average) and so they influence the situation and pitch to the CxO's to "reduce costs" by moving everyone (except themselves) into public spaces.

Your first point is correct -- it's because of the cost savings. But cost savings only applies to those critters who dwell at the bottom of the org chart.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#237

Post by Arizhel »

user5994461 wrote: post #213
Arizhel wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends entirely on the employer and what they provide for in the office. Yes, if they provide special "collaboration rooms", that's going to add to the cost. But if they don't, then it's not a factor. If your employer just gives you one big open room with a bunch of tables, and that's it, that really doesn't cost much. And there's a bunch of employers these days that do exactly this. (As for coats and boots, yo…

The open office is terrible for having meetings, calls and conferences. All the companies I've seen had to allocate about half the building space to meeting rooms only. That totally ruins the alleged space savings from having a single cheap hangar full of people. There wouldn't be need for that many rooms if there were proper offices.

I don't disagree, but I'll also point out that it isn't much better with cubicles. When I worked in a giant company that had cubicles in the 2000s, it was the same: a significant part (not half though) of the floor space was dedicated to meeting rooms, because you can't have meetings in a cubicle easily, and for privacy, serious discussion, etc., you really need a meeting room. So a company like that, which is already set up with the 1990s standard of cubicles and meeting rooms, could easily see an open-office plan as a way to save money and pack even more people into the office buildings they already have. All they have to do is take out the cubicles and stick a bunch of tables in, and leave the meeting rooms as-is.

But yes, if they had proper offices, they wouldn't need many of those meeting rooms, only some larger ones for meetings that are too big for the offices (more than 3-4 people perhaps).

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#239

Post by maxxxxx »

garrettdimon wrote: post #149

A lot of the comments here seem to focus on socialization and feeling like you're in a community, but closed offices don't preclude this. I work at Wildbit (the company referenced in the article), and we have family-style lunches around a big table and plenty of common areas where socialization happens in the mornings, during lunch, when people make coffee, and plenty of other times. The key is that when folks are wo…

That's the way to go. I work in a cube farm and I get a ton of noise from neighbors and most people eat lunch at their desk. Nothing social at all.

Re: Open offices are bad for us

#240

Post by greglindahl »

levelist_com wrote: post #54
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely, open offices with cubicles can be more expensive than building drywall walls to make closed offices. And the much-vaunted flexibility of cubicles is way, way overrated. In my experience, cubicles sit in the same place for years. Any benefit of re-using them is lost. Also if the company is growing, new ones get bought all the time, so old ones aren't re-used anyway. Its obvious on the face of it: re-usable…

I agree. I used to design voice and data networks for call centers and I would always be part of the planning phase. A lot of times I would have to go with call center owners when they would go inspect cubicles they found and potentially wanted to buy, so as to answer any questions about how they will be connected to power, network, etc.. I was always amazed at just how expensive cubicles were. I mean, for what they…

Last time I wanted cubes in the Silicon Valley, used ones in excellent condition were available for cheap. Thank you, Internet Bubble!
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