“Today we moved into our new Facebook building” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#411

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:17 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #360

JohnBooty wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When people see their teams working hard around them, they > have little excuse not to follow the suit. > In private offices... ...most people are actually fairly > weak against distractions generated from their own computer I think this is true. When left totally to my own with medium-term or long-term deadlines it's hard to resist the pull of distractions on the web. But that is also fairly easily mitigated with…

But that is also fairly easily mitigated with methodologies like Scrum where you are frequently touching base with other team members. Seriously, FUCK THAT SCRUM SHIT . A daily status meeting isn't that bad, but "you can only work on it if it's in the backlog" and "sprints" and backlog grooming meetings and this brand of aggressive micromanagement that has revived itself in the name of "Agile"... all of that nonsense…

There is no manager in a scrum. There are only the developers and a product owner to communicate customer priorities.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#412

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #373

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I'm in strong agreement with JohnBooty's comment. That said, we might bear in mind that not all open offices are created equal, and perhaps a better way of thinking about this is not just a binary "do I get my own office" but also in terms of square feet per employee. 6 people sharing 800 square feet is pretty nice, and you can actually have semi-private phone conversations in a space like that just due to the distan…

Conflating "team room" with "open office" is how we got into this "open office" mess in the first place. Quatity has a quality all its own.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#413

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #178

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I've worked in an exclusively open format office and it can be hard at times. Ideally you can find 2-3 spots to work: your desk near your team, a reliably (tho perhaps non-reservable) quiet spot for focusing, and an (perhaps unreliable) quiet spot for super privacy (e.g. a conference room ). The most damaging part of the open format (for me) is that extroverted ops folk would fight fires all day and make tons of nois…

So you hold meetings in your personal workspace, and you do your individual work in meeting rooms. Clever.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#414

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:24 PM UTC

encoderer wrote: post #215

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I think most individual engineers are more productive coders in a private room. And here, many of us retire often to a comfy chair or a quiet corner when we need uninterrupted focus. But my team is far more productive across non-coding tasks by being adjacent to each other. And anybody who felt very strongly about not sitting with the team would, in my opinion, not fit in as well here. My point is: the feeling would…

Take care to distinguish "team room" from "open office".

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#415

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

correctbattery wrote: post #210

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

I hear you. I work at Facebook, albeit in Seattle. Honestly, I'd prefer private offices too. I prefer complete silence for coding. (Okay, occasionally jazz, classical, or video game music.) I don't get that with our open plan office. BUT! 1) I can work from home as often as I want 2) we get free, very high quality headphones, and 3) there are quiet spaces I can use when necessary. Coming from Microsoft, I miss privat…

Sounds like Facebook is actually having people use their homes as their offices (claim that tax deduction!) and having an open office for meetings. But they are afraid to admit that individual work happens at home.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#416

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #278

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

What I see happen at these places too is that while in a hushed voice, people tend to gossip _a lot_ throughout the day. And the gossip has to be interspersed with citation, because a plain old chewing the fat without any authority is a waste of time, of course. And walk their dogs by... But I guess it doesn't matter much when money is aplenty. The other subtle thing is that you are being stripped of any privacy --we…

This is sophistry. I could say an office is a cage, and a pen is better than a cage.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#417

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #396

JohnBooty wrote: post #160

I would literally switch jobs (and perhaps careers, if every company was like this) if forced to work in an open office like this. I cannot work that way; I can't focus. I realize that I'm adding nothing constructive to this thread; I don't care. Maybe some manager somewhere will see this and a hundred other anecdotal opinions and think twice about open offices. I am the opposite of a prima donna. I just want to work…

Last year I designed an office for a small business with 20 employees. Having worked in several offices (with different layouts) made me very "bearish" on open-offices so I advised the business owner against it. While explaining all my arguments to him, he told me: I completely agree with you but without an open layout how do I control my employees? And: With an open layout I can put more people in less space. This i…

I would love to see this reposted non-anonymously, to cite to people.

Also, what does it mean to "design" an open office? There is no architecture.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#418

Post by jordigh » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:38 PM UTC

MCRed wrote: post #397

jordigh wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but I'm not demanding all of that crap for a job. My demand is more modest: any job I take must not contribute to the proliferation of non-free software and the company I work for must not attempt to control or mistreat its customers. And if I can't find such a job, I'll work as a waiter. Beyond that, having enough of a salary to live on is all a person really needs. Having such an inflexib…

You just ruled out far more companies, and for far more arbitrary reasons-- eg: you want to get paid but you won't let any company you work for sell software in order to pay you. You're far more inflexible than I am.

Lots of free software is sold. I didn't say the software couldn't be sold. I didn't mean without a price. I meant without restriction and without control.

I will not work at a company that mistreats its customers. A license manager, software whose purpose is to inhibit the use of another piece of software, is an example of such abuse. Having been on the receiving end of such abuse, my condition is to not force that abuse on anyone else.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#419

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:42 PM UTC

calinet6 wrote: post #352

megablast wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably someone just throwing the words introvert and extrovert around.

Yep! Gotta watch those darn words I learned to juggle for comedic effect. Definitely haven't taken the MBTI assessment multiple times in my life or anything. Or read Jung's books on personality that underpinned them. Nope, just heard those words used once in this article I read and people keep saying I done used them good so I keep doing it.

MBTI and Jung(!) aren't crowning achievements in science.

Re: “Today we moved into our new Facebook building”

#420

Post by sukilot » Tue, Mar 31, 2015, 4:44 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #112

fsk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office. I have a hard time believing that one. Given how high programmer salaries are, the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings. It seems like an introvert/extrovert thing. The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers), but…

> The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office. To be fair, I don't think everyone that uses the term "open office" is thinking "auditorium with 1000+ people." Attempting to extrapolate anything conclusions taken from open office environments of 4-10 people out to 1000+ people seems insane.

4-10 is team room, please don't confuse the conversation by calling it an open office. Don't be overly literal in mincing, let words have useful meaning.