Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

thewalrus.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 316 posts

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#51

Post by conesus »

matte_black wrote: post #35
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…

I know you may have meant it sarcastically, but woodworking has a lot of traits that appeal to a software developer. I do it as a hobby and if I wasn’t a software engineer I would probably have a woodworking business of some sort. Better to be a programmer in a woodworking shop than woodworker in a WeWork.

Woodworking on a CNC is very much a software job. I built a wooden remote and for the most part it’s software with a woodshop component. I explored how I made it in detail in a series of blog posts if you’re interested.

https://medium.com/@samuelclay/everything-you-need-to-build-...

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#52

Post by kerkeslager »

LandR wrote: post #27

I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…

> No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness. I often see two people in the kitchen area from different companies and it can be a bit like a comedy sketch as they try to get their kitchening done without acknowledging the other person exists. Absurd, why don't people talk to each other. Especially people you see every day!

Having worked in a number of shared workspaces: while this does seem to be the natural state of things, breaking the barrier is fairly easy. In every workspace I've worked at, I've gotten to know almost everyone there by talking to them in the kitchen, and once people see me doing it, they start doing it. You're not obligated to change the culture of your workspace, but if you don't like it, it doesn't even take much effort to change it. And there are big career benefits to this: I've met a number of my clients this way.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#54

Post by AlphaSite »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #8
gnclmorais wrote: post #3

> WeWork offers freelancers a chic workspace and beer on tap—but are people productive? Not really. That was my experience at a WeWork space in London. It was not quiet (glass walls), it was hard to focus, social events starting at 4pm (who finishes work at that time?), and if you end up being close to the common spaces, near the kitchen… well, I suggest you get a good pair of sound cancelling headphones.

Noise cancelation does nothing for kitchen noises. They only silence things like fans or HVAC systems.

He passive noise blocking helps for that sort of thing.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#55

Post by megaman22 »

I think I'd rather commit seppuku or eat Tide pods than work in an open office as described. Hopefully there is an eighth circle of hell in the afterlife reserved for management that inflicts such things on their workforce, full of gibbering, odoriferous, chronically sneezing demons that will pelt them with whiteboard markers and constantly ask for TPS reports.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#56

Post by twunde »

I always find that WeWork has a very weird vibe. It has all of these companies but nobody talks to each other. It feels oddly sterile. When I worked out of General Assembly, the big benefit was that these companies would talk to each other, make deals or just help each other out with business/tech problems. Investors would come in to meet one company and would end up talking to a few more.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#57

Post by collyw »

acd wrote: post #28

A better example would to have private offices with a shared space in the middle for working together. I think the truth is that office space is very expensive in Sillicon valley startups. Thus to lower the operating costs shared space is used but it is not fully productive and has lots of distractions for workers. Google is probably a company that has actual productivity data about working in private work spaces vs…

I am pretty sure plenty of people would be happy to work from home.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#58

Post by Piskvorrr »

collyw wrote: post #40
nathanaldensr wrote: post #2

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the c…

I always wonder what Apple Mac coffee shop workers are actually working on. The closest I got to seeing someone working, it looked like cutting some parts out of a photo using something like photoshop. (Not exactly rocket science.)

One summer, I've done my usual job (programming) in public - parks, squares, on trains, etc., gravitating towards cafés (read: WiFi+power); mostly for the change from sitting at a desk for the whole shift, and for a bit of travel, too. Very few things are rocket science, I guess ;) but wouldn't want to work this way permanently.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#59

Post by silverbax88 »

ramphastidae wrote: post #36
ryandrake wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also alcohol flowing at work? I’m no teetotaler but isn’t that a recipe for trouble? Assuming we’re not just talking about sharing a few beers after hours. I’ve worked with people who drank on the job to the point where they were working totally shitfaced, and it’s not pretty. If they’re meeting with other teams or customers, they’re going to be an embarrassment, and if they’re checking in code... let’s not even go t…

Drinking at work is one of the absolutely worst traits of tech. Not only is it totally unprofessional, but things like ‘Friday beers’ are actually presented by companies as a benefit, and you face major social and professional consequences for not participating. It’s obscene.

You show me any company with beer on tap, and I'll show you a company that I will run over if we are competing against each other.

Re: Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

#60

Post by dalbasal »

LandR wrote: post #27

I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk,…

No one talks to anyone

This happens by default, but isn't hard to change. I suspect this is why the likes of wework are startups while most are just buildings. Not sure it works in every location, but it certainly works in some. I know someone in a south Tel Aviv wework who refuses to move apartments because she likes her local wework, and refuses to change to another one 20k away.

Post reply on HN