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The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#51

Post by andrewflnr »

bane wrote: post #49
zhemao wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why did people stop checking email? I don't see how that relates to the open plan office. I've worked in open-plan offices and team rooms before, and people were generally pretty responsive on email and IM.

Like I said, it can backfire in weird ways. I think it happened because the silence rule made people stop verbal communications, which is the most natural thing in an open office, and it never switched to using email because well...it seems weird to email somebody who's right there. So email clients stayed closed and the communications culture just generally shut down.

Odd. Everywhere I've been with an open office, it's perfectly normal to use electronic chat with someone who's next to you. I guess you would want to make that part of the culture early on, to make it less awkward.

Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#52

Post by packetslave »

enraged_camel wrote: post #5
packetslave wrote: post #4

Some choice quotes from this: "It is rather absurd for a technology firm to provide slides for staff to play on, and to let them wear silly propeller-hats" "Time was when firms modelled themselves on the armed forces, with officers (who thought about strategy) and chains of command" It always amuses me to read these lofty articles from academics and journalists about how multi-billion-dollar companies are doing it wr…

>>It always amuses me to read these lofty articles from academics and journalists about how multi-billion-dollar companies are doing it wrong. What are you trying to say here? Are you suggesting that if someone has a multi-billion dollars company, they are clearly "doing it right?"

Disclaimer: I work at Google, and note that I'm explicitly NOT saying "Google is doing everything right".

I'm trying to say that Google in particular is "doing it right" in the sense that they're providing a fun environment for existing engineers and one that's attractive to many potential engineers, and that the revenue numbers reflect this (in part).

I'm saying that calling propeller hats "silly" (they're a Noogler thing; silly is the point) and bemoaning the fact that Google doesn't "model themselves on the armed forces" (whatever that means) suggests to me that these journalists and academics have no idea how things work in the real world, or at least in the Valley.

Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#53

Post by abawany »

Jormundir wrote: post #14
shubb wrote: post #2

I don't... like the author of this piece. He writes like he doesn't really understand what he is discussing. For instance, he conflates the move to open plan offices, which is seen as increasing communication within teams, but also enables an almost oppressive level of employee monitoring, with googles propensity to space hoppers. These are quite different things, coming from quite different places. Open plan offices…

I reject the implications of the dichotomy of command based and montessori based management structures, but I also think you're shrugging off some important negativities that come from open offices and flat structures. (I also really wish people would stop making statements like "they are farming black swans" when talking about these big tech companies. If black swans were farmable there would be no significance to t…

Hear hear, re. open offices. Sometimes, one just wants quiet - not music, not chatter, not white noise. Not to mention the long-term hearing damage that comes as a result of being forced to listen to loud music to drown out the irrelevant chatter when you are just trying to write some code. Sad days.

Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#54

Post by abawany »

sentenza wrote: post #38
coolsunglasses wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Economist pieces are written by try-hard underpaid 20-somethings desperate to be taken seriously. Keeping that in mind helps to contextualize nonsense like this. It's also why the Economist operates the way they do.

Oh boy, are you right. I have an Economist subscription which I got after foolishly assuming that the quality of Charlemagne and Bagehot are representative of the whole product. What enrages me most is that the "leader" opinion pieces (at the very front of every issue) are so catastrophically bad. I recently wondered if there might be a positive correlation between how bad a political decision has played out and whet…

I too had an Economist subscription (thankfully due to airline points) which I did not renew. Sometimes, it felt like Fox News with an English accent. It was always a good read but the monolithic "insight" started to rankle after a while. Also, I sometimes read a given magazine many months after I received it - it was fun to compare reality vs. what was predicted in the magazine.

Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#55

Post by malandrew »

rubyrescue wrote: post #25
malandrew wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Options are key. I love headphones. I've spent more money on headphones than most[0], but a lot of the time when I'm working on some types of problems, I don't want to listen to anything and I don't want distractions or anything sitting on my head. Not everyone works well with headphones, so it is reasonable that there should be places you can get away to. Lacking a space like that, you oftentimes seek out a third pl…

can you elaborate on the types of headphones that appreciate in value?

Discontinued headphones that had great sonic characteristics, coupled with a lot of growth in the high-end headphone market.

The two that I owned were:

-- Joe Grado HP-1000 HP-1 (bought@ $700 , sold@ $1700)

-- AKG K-1000 (bought@ $750, sold@ $1250)

Both were amazing headphones. I especially loved the experience with the K-1000, but I never used them enough to justify them because I amped them with a pair of monoblock power amps which were normally connected to floorstanding speakers. The effort to change the cables coupled with the risk of burning out components if you wired something up loosely and one power amp was driven with no load lead me to rarely switch the floorstanders for the K-1000s.

Now I use a Denon D7000, which surprisingly works great unamped, but I'll be getting an amp in a few months probably.

Re: The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun

#56

Post by walshemj »

greenyoda wrote: post #37
walshemj wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well with a name like "Schumpeter" you can tell he's pining for the ultra structured German style where the end game is to get an office with a brass plate with Her Doktor on it.

Actually, the pen-name is probably a reference to Joseph Schumpeter[1], who was an influential Austrian economist. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Schumpeter

The prosecution rests Milud
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