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CEOs Want Their Offices Back

wsj.com

381–390 of 409 posts

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#381

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.

WSJ thinks that. Not CEOs. ~a CEO

"If you're reading it, it's for you."

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't think it is a cargo cult. My guess is that the focus is to make these engineers replaceable. And "quiet, introverted, methodical folks" are difficult to replace. Dumbed down open office workers and brogrammers are easily replaceable with another recent graduate some place cheaper.

I agree. It seems that Bloomberg "invented" it (there used to be open space offices before, of course, but I don't think they were this style of "all departments and even executives are in the same room without any divisions") and it appears to be content with high turnover.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#383
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect we're reaching peak open floor plans right now I doubt it simply because it's way way cheaper to have open floor plans than rooms. Savings on materials, easier compliance with fire safety, way higher density.

> higher density One day someone will look up and notice that whole unused third dimension in the office.

In many places this has already been done; e.g., I work on the 15th floor of a building.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#384
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>HR is driven by data. This is not my experience. Maybe you've worked with better companies than I have.

I would agree. HR is driven by perceptions

I would argue that HR is largely driven by legal obligation.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#385

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…

[deleted]

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#386
Solution is simple. "Make sure you reply to company wide messenger. Make all open area conversation via messengers. Make any conversations that benefit vocal speaking in a separate room. Give everyone an option to book private rooms for occasions where you need long phone conversation"

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#387
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't been seeing it, either. In fact, I dare say it is nearly impossible to find a software shop in my area that isn't knee-deep in some iteration of "Agile" management - usually some form of Scrum.

Scrum is collectivized micromanagement.

Agile protects the C-level from being fired for poor planning by blame-shifting to developers who get fired for not reacting to poor planning from above fast enough. Agile is Executive Armor.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#388
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used, not new... If someone were to lend me this combo for a couple weeks, I'd be happy to evaluate it, and if it worked, I'd buy a bunch of them. But I have a working solution right now so I'm not really in the market for an upgrade.

No, that is the brand new cost. I just bought one. You may have to be logged in to see it?

Well I'm past the edit period, but apparently it isn't available at this price anymore (although I swear it was this morning when I linked it, huh!)

Cheapest I'm seeing now is $80 :( -- bummer!

(My order: http://imgur.com/fUyKeIC)

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#389

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…

First time I've been softly trolled on HN. Well played.

Yep, that was beautiful.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#390

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…

Noise canceling headphones don't really work that way in my experience. They're good at canceling out droning background sounds to make the overall sound quieter, but they can't "predict" and cancel out less repetitive/droning sounds sounds like conversations and those godawful clacky keyboards some people insist on. In effect, noise canceling headphones make those sounds louder , relatively speaking, because they qu…

I've got a set of ATH-ANC9s and as a programmer I work in an extremely noisy environment (next to the phones); by themselves they do little to drop the noise, but add some music and magic happens.

EDIT: I experimented with the (almost universally approved of) ATH-M50Xs but found I had to use a much louder volume to cancel out the noise, which causing ringing, so using NC is pretty much saving my hearing. Not sure how I could work here without them.

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