41–50 of 65 posts
As for closed doors: just leave them open, problem solved. Or, these days, just send a message via some chat application to your colleague and walk over once they invite you via chat.
Also looks strangely reminiscent of the industrial revolution. http://3219a2.medialib.glogster.com/jayytyler97/media/c6/c60...
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For startups, it's not just about the cost, it's about flexibility. It's easier to have a decent open-plan low density and 3x the people in it overall, or particularly, to 10x a certain department while 1.1xing the other departments temporarily, into a crowded shitty open plan, than it is to have a bunch of 1-2 person sized offices and somehow put 30 into a single office while keeping the others at 1-2. That's the on…
That's a great point. It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. Many open plans reserve the prime areas for shared spaces, and there's obviously no reason an office space couldn't (or shouldn't) do that too. In fact, that jogs a faint memory of another post on HN some months back of an office like that; all the actual offices were on the interior, and the windo…
Yikes. The push to eliminate any sense of personal space is, I think, reflective of the new dynamic between employers and employees - don't set down any roots, you may not be here long enough to matter. Don't expect me to commit to the company, I may not be here long enough to care. Ideologically and aesthetically, my reaction to this space was that it feels like a reduction of the workforce to interchangeable factor…
I don't think it's about not caring or mattering, actually, the open space environment originated to fight that feeling of being nobody, alone in your cubicle. What open space is trying to achieve is showing that everyone is, at least theoretically, on the same level.
Ultimately, I like it, but I don't think it's perfect and it will probably change. The thing to remember is that this whole big companies are a relatively new thing and nobody has the perfect formula yet, people/companies are experimenting and doing an effort to improve working conditions. I think that matters and I look forward to the future. We are iterating and as long as we don't start to regress I can do nothing but be happy.
> Before, people would close their door and you’d feel this real barrier to talking to them Completely correct. I fail to understand how this is a bad thing, though. It sounds a like a good reason for doors to exist. It is well known that even short interruptions break flow and thus decrease productivity.
Maybe it matters less for non-programmers, but even a brief unexpected distraction can undo multiple minutes of mental effort for me. When I need to focus, the headphones go on, the door gets closed, and I intentionally erect barriers to interaction because it's important that I not be distracted. That closed door is a feature, not a bug.
Sure you can use headphones but I am most productive in absolute quiet. I can just imagine having headphones on with a low level of annoying white noise and I am deep into a difficult problem and then someone taps me on the shoulder.
I'd leap up pulling the laptop with me until my headphones jerked off. Somebody would ask me do you know where they put the coffee? I'd answer that I don't drink it and then spend another hour getting back to where I was before only to have someone else tap me on the shoulder, arrrgghhh.
I am willing to bet that the best programmers Facebook has got are hunched in the stairwell or a janitors closet getting work done.
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That's a great point. It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. Many open plans reserve the prime areas for shared spaces, and there's obviously no reason an office space couldn't (or shouldn't) do that too. In fact, that jogs a faint memory of another post on HN some months back of an office like that; all the actual offices were on the interior, and the windo…
>It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. IIRC this is Microsoft right?
I've worked in both private offices and big open floorplans like this. Prefer the former. However my favorite work environment was a smaller company where we all had two-person shared offices (most with no windows), and large coworking spaces where one could camp in the sunlight and be more social.
The two-person offices kept people from feeling totally isolated and encouraged some level of watercooler conversation, plus gave everyone a sense of privacy and control over their immediate environment. I thought it was the best of both worlds.
Yikes. The push to eliminate any sense of personal space is, I think, reflective of the new dynamic between employers and employees - don't set down any roots, you may not be here long enough to matter. Don't expect me to commit to the company, I may not be here long enough to care. Ideologically and aesthetically, my reaction to this space was that it feels like a reduction of the workforce to interchangeable factor…
That's a personal opinion and I fully respect it. But I would like to share mine too, which is pretty opposite to yours. I worked for 3 companies as a dev in about 6 years of experience, I always left because I wanted to move to something "more", not because I didn't care or didn't feel included. In all 3 I had a seemingly open space and I really like it if I have space to breath. I don't think it's about not caring…
I totally get the idea behind open workspaces, and while there are positives to them - they definitely do encourage collaboration and more frequent interaction - I'm massively less productive in them. My issue isn't so much the lack of walls, but the complete abolition of any sense of ownership of a space. Not having a space that feels like my space makes it more difficult for me to get "into the zone", just because I'm less comfortable. Drive-by conversations can utterly murder a good half-hour debugging session. The temptation to get distracted by all the things going on around me noticeably cuts into my motivation and ability to buckle down and tear into the really hard problems.
I realize that this is just my personal reaction to spaces like this, and I'm certainly not authoritative on it, but I have absolutely observed that I'm far happier and more productive in a space that I can both feel a sense of ownership of and use strategically to limit interruptions and distractions.
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That said, I think those are all Herman Miller chairs, so I guess that's something.
I'm sitting on one right now (not a FB one), while knowing full well how expensive they are - what I can never understand is /why/ they are so expensive - I can't say its noticeably more comfortable than any other office chair I've used.
Also build quality is a big part of it. I'm sitting on one I bought 10 years ago and it's still showing no signs of giving up. Meanwhile during that time a friend of mine has thrown out 3 ~$200 chairs already.
