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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?

#361

Post by JAlexoid »

nextaccountic wrote: post #261
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private rooms are not cheap and it would be hard to justify for junior programmers. And having private space just for middle level folks is bad for morale and learning of junior folks. But yeah for companies which just employs senior folks this should be the norm.

how do you justify the salary of a junior programmer if you can't justify giving them the space they need to perform? isn't this just throwing money away? note that private office rooms aren't the first or only option, but rather work from home

Junior dev left to his own devices will start reimplementing Linux kernel.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#362

Post by JohnFen »

2devnull wrote: post #298
neilwilson wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work was done by IBM in 1975. You need lots of space to keep the noise down and you need offices with doors that close. Why are we still having this discussion fifty years later?

Because we work in different ways now than we did in 1975? The work people do is also different. And, the people themselves have also changed. A person born in 1980s may be more used to 24/7 noise from tv and devices. A 30 year old worker in 1975 grew up in a quieter home.

I don't think people and how they work are much different now than in 1975. I have no data, though. That would be an interesting study. Do you have data?

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#363

Post by cauch »

ath3nd wrote: post #330
cauch wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I (and most other people in this thread) am fed up with them and trying to actively remove them from my life. And OP does that too, but suddenly, when OP does that, they are a toddler, but when you do it, it's fine. > There are people who put their soda cans on the ground, there are people who ... and there are people who will call "toddler" people who have just a different way of working and are not imposing n…

> Again, we are talking about tapping someone on the shoulder _once_, and not doing it again if you explain you don't like it. I don't think I should be touched in the first place. I have put a clear signal that I am deeply working: headphones. The accepted social norm is NOT to bother somebody when they have indicated they don't want to be bothered. I am, of course, going to answer the questions, but can't you simpl…

What are you talking about?

OP said "asking quick questions and getting an instant answer. vs chat where I may not get an answer for hours"

It's ALL they have said.

They did NOT said they will "touch your shoulder", they did NOT said they will "interrupt you when you clearly don't want to be interrupted", they did NOT said they will "interrupt you after you made clear you don't like working like that", they did NOT said they will "ask incessant questions that are easily found in the doc", they did NOT said they will "ask you to answer day in day out", they did NOT said they will "guilt trip you to do something obviously unreasonable", ...

And, YOU, YOU called them "toddler". YOU DID THAT. If now you are changing the goal post to "people who guilt trip other people are not nice", yeah, everyone agrees with that, but WHY DID YOU CALL OP TODDLER?

WHY

DID

YOU

CALL

OP

TODDLER?

What is the thing that OP have said (really said, not something in your mind) that according to you is not compatible with a respectful and sane work relationship?

> who doesn't like being said "NO" to and who throws a fit ever time when somebody expresses a boundary?

Yep.

Me: your colleague needs to work, if they are blocked by something that can be easily solved with a simple quick question and that they are being reasonable with their requests, they should be authorized to just ask you. They should not have to walk on egg shells to cater for ath3nd social inabilities, it's not their work, it's not their mental charge on their shoulders, there are boundaries.

You: NO, they should just submit to MY way of being asked a question.

The situation is EXTREMELY SIMPLE: just don't be a prick. You and everyone else.

Don't ask incessant questions.

But also, don't ask people to care for your fragile person who is not able to get one or two questions a day that will help everyone progress.

Not liking question is fine. Just act like an adult about it: discuss and tell them. Don't jump on the first person who passes and says "I find quick question convenient" and yield "well then you are a toddler" without even knowing if this person is a prick or not.

ALL your explanations, ALL OF THEM, they are ALL about YOU, YOU, YOU. You only present situation when you are reasonable and when the interlocutor is a prick. Yes, we know, incessant questions are disruptive (daaaah, it's obvious). But there is more than one way to be a prick. One other way is to be a self-centered idiot who is incapable to help the team because they view everything into distorting glasses (like when you call OP "toddler" for behavior they never had) or because they view their work relationship in a competitive way instead of collaborative (like when you say that the person who ask the question "owns" something to the person who has the knowledge)

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#365

Post by ike2792 »

IKantRead wrote: post #316
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…

Recent experience at a fairly young startup has shown me that open office culture has also started to breed a very different type of programmer. People will often be pairing nearly all day long, any claim that you need a moment to focus and think about a problem is met with perplexity, every idea should be shipped to prod asap, while tests exist the idea of performing basic QA/manual testing on your own work is only…

As a former programmer and now EM, I agree with this. Open offices definitely felt a lot more productive since everyone was always frantically working and communicating. I think people actually have gotten more done since WFH started, though.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#366

Post by JohnFen »

The_Colonel wrote: post #307
throw0101c wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> People often argue this can be fixed by just not needing to communicate.

They do? I don't think I've ever heard someone make this argument.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#367

Post by incomingpain »

We don't, we can work from home instead.

I'll talk personally. I'm autistic(like what 75% of programmers?). Interruptions can potentially ruin my day.

If I'm working in an open concept or cube office, there needs to be perfect silence the entire day. If not, I basically can't work.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#368

Post by JohnFen »

dragonelite wrote: post #186
joshjje wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cubicles are OK as long as there isn't a lot of chatter, people being on the phone all the time, talking loud, etc. Though of course id rather be in my own room no doubt.

Cancelling sound distractions with NC headsets isn't that bad. Cubicles will most likely help with visual distraction i have in an open floor plan.

> Cancelling sound distractions with NC headsets isn't that bad

For you. For many others (myself included), using NC headphones is even worse than putting up with the noise.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#369

Post by Towaway69 »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #243
Towaway69 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing? Where ideas and concepts need a lot of input and discussion. Basically anything that is very human and not zero or one. Customer support via telephone support where not one agent knows everything. I.e., you tell customer to hold the line and then ask some other agent for a solution.

I used to be in marketing (but now developer) and not really (of course depends on the specific role). Sure, parts of marketing is meetings and discussions stuff but so is software development (need to discuss requirements, architecture, etc) - the rest of the job is deep work and execution on ideas (just like coding).

The best mix imho is to have spaces where people can individualise their time - to focus.

Small booths or mini meeting rooms or even large kitchens area with tables - alone amongst people.

Because it's not black and white, everyone needs focus but also communication with others.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#370

Post by closeparen »

nitely wrote: post #251
ath3nd wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would win: - literally 100s of publications showing how disruptive and destructive to focus it is to be working in an open office work and how much distractions it brings: https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-workplace-heres... https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices https://www.businessdit.com/distraction-work-statistics/ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/eve... https:…

idk who wins, but I'd assume extroverts need a quiet environment to be able to focus as much as anyone else.

The extroverts are always struggling to get conference room bookings. They'd be able to converse a lot more freely by just inviting people to their always-available offices.
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