241–250 of 409 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CYX54C0/ref=oh_aui_deta...
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HR is driven by data. To kill open floor plans, start citing the floor plan as the primary reason for leaving. If that becomes a theme, IMO open floor plans will become cancer. It just takes time.
>HR is driven by data. This is not my experience. Maybe you've worked with better companies than I have.
HR is driven by perceptions
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It really isn't normal to be constantly interrupted. I'm a developer managing 2 other devs and dealing with stakeholders and still manage to go many hours without interruptions. It's all about respect and being organized. Most urgent things only become urgent because somebody dropped the ball. Improve the way people work and organize that work, and the urgencies go away. You do need to retrain some people a bit to be respectful of your time, but mostly it works out because mostly people mean to do right by each other.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience semi-open layouts are the best. A handful people working in the same room on the same project generally seems to work well at encourage pair programming and exchange of information while having an actual room isolates from other distractions. That said, I think in the programming world, remote work will eventually become the new office because it's the ultimate cost cutter and greatly opens up the po…
I agree. My most productive environment was either 2 or 4 person offices. The weakness was the common space. IMO a dorm suite like layout would be great... have a pod of offices supporting 20 people with a shared common area.