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Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

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Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#301

Post by sedivy94 »

d3w4s9 wrote: post #291
definitelyauser wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

Sorry that's just you. As an amateur musician myself, music helps me concentrate. Actually, if I have been writing code for a while without music, I would notice that "something is missing" and turn on my music. I know a number of colleagues who use their headphones all the time as well.

I’m not not a developer, I work in the IT space and require deep focus for a myriad of other tasks (like anyone else, I presume). I’m no longer a musician but consider myself to have a rich musical background. Music does wonders for my focus, but it also generates fatigue. So I’m often alternating between music and silence. Have you noticed the same thing or is this less common?

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#302

Post by dylan604 »

definitelyauser wrote: post #232
gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

The type of music is very important on whether it works in this manner as well as individual personality types. I personally find anything with lyrics no different than listening to the chatter of the space you're trying to avoid.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#303

Post by marcus0x62 »

cevn wrote: post #217
marcus0x62 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was Alice's employer and valued her (and other employees) being able to do deep work, I'd have a policy whereby employees could schedule do-not-disturb time (large blocks of it, depending on their needs) where they could shut their doors and turn off IM. Have a red light on the outside of the door, like a film production booth. Book end the day. First 1-2 hours are disturb time. Middle of the day is DND time. La…

Email

…Don’t check it during your DND time…

…Set an expectation that the turnaround time for an email response is 24 hours…

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#305

Post by kevinmershon »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #236

I worked for a Japanese corporation. The Tokyo offices had enormous rooms, with long rows of desks, arranged by section/department. The section manager's desk was at the end of each row. VPs, with billion-dollar budgets, had small, schoolteacher-style desks, in the corner of the room. These enormous rooms, with hundreds of engineers, were quiet as a library. They had carpeting, people wore "office slippers," and ther…

Rakuten was the first and only bigger corp I've worked at (my life has been startups and boutique shops) and so I have had a hard time understanding why people don't like open office floorplans. Thank you for making me realize why I enjoyed it and might not, at another org.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#307

Post by The_Colonel »

throw0101c wrote: post #119
esskay wrote: post #106

It has to be said, if you're employing programmers and making them sit in an openplan office you're willingly and knowingly making their job significantly harder, and their day worse. Open plan might work great for some types of work, but for highly technical and mentally taxing work it's quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing. There's a reason that many programmers prefer to w…

> Open plan might work great for some types of work […] I'm curious to know: why types are, or people consider to be, good for open plan? Generally, office type jobs tends to be one where people need to use their brains to concentrate on something, and open plans tend to be able to create / not block distractions, they would be antithetical to being able to concentrate.

Open plan is good for collaboration/communication heavy types of jobs. In this kind of jobs, disruptions is a way to propagate "just in time" information through the organization. You can still eliminate disruptions in such setting, and it superficially leads to a high "productivity" in terms of LOC produced, but you act on outdated/misleading information (or you deny that information to others), which often leads to working on wrong things in wrong ways.

People often argue this can be fixed by just not needing to communicate. Like all user stories have all necessary information prepared. All the (functional, non-functional) acceptance criteria are defined, all the design documents are perfectly specified etc. But that's a pipe dream, which leads to other kinds of productivity losses.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#308

Post by em-bee »

mariusor wrote: post #254
justinclift wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have very little interest in how the team I'm part of performs in general In a lot of situations that would be considered fairly toxic itself. :(

How so? The camaraderie that companies try to enforce on their low lever employees with this kind of manipulation is nothing but a ruse. Why do you think that a whole team of people should be responsible for the inability of some? I have empathy for individual people that start their careers and struggle, but I also believe that if you apply for a job, you should be qualified to do it independently.

camaraderie in a team is a job requirement for me. without it i'll be out of there in no time. i simply do not want to work with people who can't be bothered to be nice and helpful to each other.

i do not want to be just a cog in a machine that grinds out work without any consideration for the project as a whole.

it is also needed to allow new team members to get onboarded faster.

as a hiring manager i find your attitude unwelcome.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#309

Post by schnable »

definitelyauser wrote: post #232
gorgoiler wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open plan worked for me when there was a very clear contract between every stakeholder. Firstly, everyone had free, good quality, sound blocking headphones. Not just free as in standard equipment on your first day free. There were buckets of the things lying around and if you needed a new set you just grabbed some, no questions asked. VC funded opulence, yay! Secondly, there was an understanding amongst everyone on t…

I've often run into the "just wear headphones" argument and never been a fan of it. Do you code with noise cancellation in a sort of sensory deprivation mode? Or do you listen to music? Listening to music while coding severely reduces my concentration, and I find it in no way to be a substitute for silence.

When I worked in an open office that required headphones for focus, I would put on white noise when music was too distracting.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#310

Post by falcor84 »

esskay wrote: post #106

It has to be said, if you're employing programmers and making them sit in an openplan office you're willingly and knowingly making their job significantly harder, and their day worse. Open plan might work great for some types of work, but for highly technical and mentally taxing work it's quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing. There's a reason that many programmers prefer to w…

> quite litterally the worst possible working environment you could be providing

Just for fun, let me try to one-up that: working outside, in a scorching desert, hung upside down, just barely reaching your laptop on the sand, with scorpions crawling over the keyboard.

But thinking about it, even in that situation, I guess I would still prefer not to have to deal with people having unrelated conversations around me.

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