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Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

bizjournals.com

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Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#241

Post by dvhh »

sitkack wrote: post #228
georgemcbay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nah, it's fine." Yeah, I don't see the problem either. In fact, I don't understand why companies don't just install long airplane style seating rows in their open office plans and have everyone work from laptops literally on their laps... that way we'd be able to cram even more people in the same space, and just think about all the useful socializing and spontaneous conversations that would occur as co-workers were…

Just use mothballed planes as offices. A steward could come down the isle every couple hours and give us snacks and drinks. When the build breaks, they can turn off the air as punishment. Hook them into some sort of huge ferris wheel, saves on space and keeps attrition low.

And have a mandatory seat belt rules, and disallow restroom 45 min after work begin and 45 before end of work time.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#242

Post by tiredwired »

quantum_magpie wrote: post #67
JSONwebtoken wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the complaints, that looks very cozy even if you have to share with what looks like a total of 4 engineers per room which is a reasonable number for collaboration. The second picture makes it look greater than 4, however. Assuming the cubicles are walled off, it'll just feel like a college library meeting room.

Ok, just at a glance: 1. No separators -- you see everyone, everyone sees you. All the time. 2. No separators between neighboring desks, thus every flinch your colleague next to you makes distracts you. 3. No shelves and drawers. Where do you put all your papers, books? 4. At least based on the pictures, reflections of light, coming from every single angle. 5. The tables are way too small. There is just no space for…

6. One person gets sick and sneezes, everyone gets sick.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#243

Post by tiredwired »

wlesieutre wrote: post #18
gervase wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the thought process is something like, "Collaboration makes the office more productive. Therefore, if we force the employees to collaborate all the time , we can maximize productivity!"

My company moved engineering into the same open office as sales and customer support, we can collaborate with everyone all the time! Definitely a negative to productivity on my individual work because it's so much noisier in here.

At least that way you can hear the sales staff selling features that have not been developed yet.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#244

Post by [deleted] »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #37
IBM wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WSJ story has some pictures of what it looks like [1]. There seems to be offices with doors, but they look like it seats about 20 people. There are also common areas with long tables between them. https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF776_0817CO_1... https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF775_0817CO_1... https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-UF777_0817CO_1... [1] https://www.wsj.com/art…

I don't get the complaints, that looks very cozy even if you have to share with what looks like a total of 4 engineers per room which is a reasonable number for collaboration. The second picture makes it look greater than 4, however. Assuming the cubicles are walled off, it'll just feel like a college library meeting room.

[deleted]

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#245

Post by jorts »

Putting on headphones and listening to white noise like rainfall blocks out just about everything for me. I don't like open floor plans due to noise when I'm not wearing headphones, but with them on it's fine. When I don't put my headphones on it allows me to engage with my team when I am not hyper focused on something.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#246

Post by idlewords »

extesy wrote: post #159
khazhoux wrote: post #129

(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) 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 ha…

Well played! Just don't forget that there are too many people on the internet (including HN) who don't understand sarcasm if it's not explicitly marked as such.

Sarcasm that's marked is not sarcasm.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#247

Post by virmundi »

manicdee wrote: post #161
notyourwork wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them. Might be the first person to claim engineers are extroverted.

Engineers are also well known for being unable to effectively communicate sarcasm in written prose.

Prose don't communicate sarcasm easily without explicit notice. Check out The Beggar's Opera (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beggar%27s_Opera). It's actually really funny. Reading in college, no idea. Thought it was boring and everyone was bitchy. Seeing it college, lols. It's the play that inspired the play that brought us Mac the Knife and inspired Mac Tonight.

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#248

Post by itomato »

cdkee wrote: post #117
seorphates wrote: post #47

Working in open office plans is simply awful. Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity. Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could actually support that? I think so. The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thou…

I'm a Solutions Engineer and whenever I have to get on a sales call or demo at my desk it's a disaster - it's simply far too loud and too much background noise is heard on the call. This is just one more complaint in a long-list that I have with this arrangement. Makes me miss my cube!

Can you use a conference room?

Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan

#250

Post by aetherson »

loeg wrote: post #171
aetherson wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: Working from home is awful. In contrast, open office plans are pleasant. It's fine that lots of people here have the opposite opinion, but they shouldn't assume that their opinion is objective truth.

Doesn't hurt to try it and find out for yourself. I never said it was a panacea.

That's fair.
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