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CEOs Want Their Offices Back

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Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#231

Post by mindcrime »

jesseryoung wrote: post #103
valuearb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your role on the team? Did your team-members enjoy you turning around and interrupting them? 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? Walking around occasionally in the day is actually good for us. And two person offices are a mild improvement over cubicles, which are a significant improvement over open offices. But…

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…

We regularly got comments from the interns that we hired that they chose to work their because of the open environment.

It's unlikely that many of them had competing offers from a company that offered private offices, given how few companies actually offer private offices. Most likely they were just indoctrinated / brainwashed into drinking the Open Plan Koolaid and are just parroting a stock line.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#232

Post by sfifs »

varelse wrote: post #51
coffeeski wrote: post #8

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…

> I suspect we're reaching peak open floor plans right now

I doubt it simply because it's way way cheaper to have open floor plans than rooms. Savings on materials, easier compliance with fire safety, way higher density.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#233

Post by mark-r »

cdegroot wrote: post #114
jcadam wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm a nice guy, I paid the extra $$ for silent mechanical keys ( http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/ ) ;-)

Thank you! I've been looking for a keyboard like that for years, ever since I had to get rid of my old Zeos mechanical to keep my wife from going insane in our shared office space. The Quiet Pro PC looks absolutely perfect.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#234

Post by mark-r »

busterarm wrote: post #224
cdegroot wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a nice guy, I paid the extra $$ for silent mechanical keys ( http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/ ) ;-)

Yeah, but then you have to have those terrible, bastard ALPS switches. Sorry, strong personal preference here. I use Topre anyway.

The switches are their own, they only use ALPS for the keytops. Unless they contract out to ALPS for manufacturing and I missed it.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#235

Post by Joeri »

blhack wrote: post #143
varelse wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would prefer your coworkers develop RSI symptoms from straining to use a laptop keyboard? Not all of us can use laptops for extended periods of time. Now if I could type with my brain (and I don't mean by smashing my head repeatedly on the keyboard), that's Sam Altman status quo shattering next-level stuff, but I don't think we're there yet. As others have replied, the problem isn't my typing, it's <40 square…

The standard keyboard layout, which every mechanical keyboard I've ever seen (including my beloved model M) is terrible for your wrists. The people using mechanical keyboards are not saving themselves anything. Get a proper ergonomic keyboard like the microsoft sculpt if you actually care about the health of you hands. Mechanical keyboards are cool, which is why I own one, and when I had an office why I used one ever…

I struggled a long time with RSI, and for me both the mechanical and ergonomic keyboards solve the problem. A model M fixed it, and then later a microsoft comfort curve also fixed it. The comfort curve is a lot more quiet, so out of respect for my coworkers I use that one, although I do miss the feel of the model M.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#236

Post by andrewingram »

khazhoux wrote: post #227

We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is t…

The progression of this list is beautiful.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#237

Post by Jach »

evadne wrote: post #155
meddlepal wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can have our cake and eat it too. The all-glass office style at We Work could be adopted. I wish the glass was a bit thicker but the small shared office or bullpen model is ideal IMO.

I am currently working from a WeWork location and can provide a data point, that all-glass offices are terrible with soundproofing. The other downside of having glass partitions is that you could see what your neighbours were doing (and vice versa), which in my opinion is no different from visual pollution.

A lot of engineers discount the impact of visibility and focus too much on the sound distractions. I think visibility is just important. It's all part of a violent transparency theme I think is captured pretty well here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150321053931/https://michaeloc... Even if you don't suffer from more-than-normal anxiety over it to the point of panic attacks, all the studies on normal people show open plans aren't great.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#238

Post by j2bax »

ashark wrote: post #209
kumar785 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is a cargo cult. My guess is that the focus is to make these engineers replaceable. And "quiet, introverted, methodical folks" are difficult to replace. Dumbed down open office workers and brogrammers are easily replaceable with another recent graduate some place cheaper.

Definitely part of it. Businesses are afraid developers will come to regard themselves, and to be regarded, as real professionals, like doctors, lawyers, some categories of engineer (god forbid they stop cowering around the MBAs or start questioning the ethics of... well, anything, really!) Systemically keeping their tastes and station "lower" than that is probably part of what's going on, especially with the bigger…

Cry me a river. I know a lot of nurses and teachers that feel really bad for the poor software engineer class.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#239

Post by mindcrime »

valuearb wrote: post #95
philip1209 wrote: post #24

Individual contributors want private offices. Companies want "openness and collaboration". As I've been at WeWorks lately, I've noticed that they have all glass walls on the offices. This means that everybody has natural light and a sense of openness, but with a locking door and quiet. A more general question to people in such all-glass private offices - is it the best of both worlds? Or, is more privacy needed than…

The "downside" of private offices is that management doesn't know what you are doing in there. Lots of glass is an attempt to keep people connected and restrict the net surfing, game playing and time wasting that management fears will happen with private offices. I think it's a reasonable trade-off. It attempts to give the best of both worlds, incorporating one advantage of open office spaces is there is more team mo…

I think it's a reasonable trade-off.

Meh, I completely disagree. Management doesn't know what you're doing if they're standing behind you the entire work day. That's why they're managers. And more to the point, net-surfing, playing 2048, chatting, etc. are not things that need to be restricted. The reality is, no developer (or probably any creative person) is going to be productive for 8 solid hours a day, straight through. We need idle time to separate the bursts of productivity and give the brain time to reset.

is more team motivation because it's more obvious if you are slacking.

There are much easier ways to tell if someone is slacking. You don't even really need to do anything special. The team will know who is carrying their weight and who isn't.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#240

Post by Jach »

ronnier wrote: post #18
coffeeski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take a 10% paycut to have a small office that fits 2 monitors, a filing cabinet and some pictures, rather then dealing with constant clattering of the guy behind me that decided converting a type writer into a digital keyboard was a good idea.

The mechanical keyboard people in open offices bother me.

"Hey everyone, I'm working!"

Personally I'd rather listen to mechanical keyboards rather than people having meetings at their desks, I can fairly easily tune out non-human sounds... Unfortunately not many people seem to have them despite my office being the 'geekiest' in the Seattle region. sigh

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