271–280 of 409 posts
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…
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…
Part of that early agile movement was Extreme Programming, which I'm pretty sure advocated for office space per-team and a communal working area with private office space around it.
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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…
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Cargo Cult is exactly right. Our organization is selling us this right now. "We're creating a more collaborative atmosphere! Facebook does it, this must be what IT people want." (Any discussion of paying IT staff like FB, though, is "well, we're not an IT company, and besides we're mission driven!") Because they don't think we're mature enough to accept that they want to squeeze more bodies unto a smaller space, for…
I technically work in marketing, and even I don't think that open-offices are better. A private office is way more productive for the 75% of the time we aren't collaborating. It is a lot easier to write and design things when it is quiet. The idea that creative extroverted people work better the more riotous an environment is is absolute nonsense.
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I worked at Sun Microsystems for a while and their private office layout was really nice. I can't ballpark the exact size but the office could hold 3 gigantic CRT monitors, 2 desk phones, and had space for 2 visitors. I feel that a 2 person private office is quite optimal, since we are talking about teams. It's easier to pair program or discuss and even maintain silence when required. Office designers will have to pa…
How would you feel about larger offices that fit ~8, and housed your entire immediate team, but no one else? Your manager would go to another room for their meetings with other parts of the organization, and you all would be free to collaborate as needed, or shut up as needed?
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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 have a proper keyboard[1], thank you very much. It also destroys a Microsoft Sculpt in terms of ergonomics. 1. https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/
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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.
RNs and Nurse Practioners make at least as much as the typical software engineers in SV. The $175-$250K+ that some of the senior guys at Google and FB make is not typical. Most of us in the rest of the country are probably making about $100K, and that's when we start becoming over-priced.
And teachers? I have respect for them, but I don't consider what they do necessarily difficult, especially in lower grades.
What people are complaining about is software engineering - which is supposedly in such high demand we need hundreds of thousands of foreigners to take up the lack of supply - being treated like blue collar labor, essentially another guy on the assembly line to be exchanged for another body if needed.
In contrast, lawyers, doctors, business execs, and most non-software engineers are treated as professionals. They have offices, expense accounts, professional dress codes, ability to attend conferences. Most professionals, after putting in their years, begin to partake in the company's profits, with access to the financials, hiring, and product strategy, and overall direction of the business.
Meanwhile, the typical developer, even at a company where software is the product, are never privy to the business. Instead, their access is limited strictly to a list of monkey-tasks or user stories on Jira. The MBAs, product managers, and execs keep all the interesting info to themselves. They're more likely to ask you for help resetting their password than they are in developing a sales pitch or project proposal.
Do you think a lawyer going to a job interview at some big firm gets to go through 2 days of quizzing over vague topics from 2nd year of law school? Instead, it is a professional discussion with peers about previous work.
Doctors, lawyers, and business people have a smooth, linear salary progression into their late 50s. A software engineer starts out well, but rapidly hits the glass ceiling at about 40. After that, you're an over-paid liability.
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I have a proper keyboard[1], thank you very much. It also destroys a Microsoft Sculpt in terms of ergonomics. 1. https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/advantage2/
How do you like this keyboard?
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I'm not seeing anywhere near the $h!+storm of pointless standups I used to see every morning. I'm also seeing the return of the weekly status meeting. Give it time. Then again, I'm someone who's threatened to enact the 6 mph standup meeting wherein the second anyone drops below 6 mph on foot, the meeting's over because how can we practice Agile if we aren't agile? That wasn't received well.
Very rarely do I actually lol but I just chuckled so hard in a meeting. Yeah, you guessed it. An agile meeting.
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How is it "stealing"?
People often confuse copyright infringement with theft, also thank to the silly Hollywood scare ads.