51–60 of 77 posts
This fascinates me. I find open-plan offices really hard to work in. Meanwhile—perhaps surprisingly—my favorite places to work are coffee houses or college libraries. I'm surrounded by strangers, but their anonymous presence starves off the feelings of loneliness that I can get working from home. I think the difference between a public place and an office is that it's really unlikely for any of those strangers outsid…
Unsurprisingly, private offices score the best, by a huge margin. Right now, I've got a huge office to myself (separate from a two-person office next to me by an open passageway). It's super quiet because there are bookshelves full of books to absorb any noise, as well as thick 1970-era carpeting. It's the most productive place I've ever worked. I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money,[1]…
> Apple's new spaceship building (in the middle of a faceless suburb) > will cost $5 billion and have 2.8 million square feet of space … that no employee below VP level can afford to live near. It's OK, though; Apple doesn't have to pay them for the tenth of their lives they waste commuting. And above the entrance these words appear: “My name is Jobs, CEO of CEOs: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.”
I also know people who work for those same companies who have long commutes for affordability reasons, but they seem to be the exceptions rather than the rule. Even in their case, it's usually for reasons other than there's just no way they can afford to live in the South Bay. More often, it's because they are determined to have a really big house with a really big yard and are unwilling to concede on that (such a thing is quite a luxury in the South Bay). Even then, they're accepting the commute for because they want to, not because they have to. It really sucks that housing is that ridiculous in the Bay Area, but it's not like any of these huge companies are going to pick up and leave and build their giant new campus out in the middle of the desert or something.
This fascinates me. I find open-plan offices really hard to work in. Meanwhile—perhaps surprisingly—my favorite places to work are coffee houses or college libraries. I'm surrounded by strangers, but their anonymous presence starves off the feelings of loneliness that I can get working from home. I think the difference between a public place and an office is that it's really unlikely for any of those strangers outsid…
Yes, I think this is the difference. The noise around you becomes background/white noise.
But honestly, I don't know how you can work in these areas. Doesn't it prevent you from making phone and conference calls? Assuming yes, maybe that's another reason you can become more productive.
This fascinates me. I find open-plan offices really hard to work in. Meanwhile—perhaps surprisingly—my favorite places to work are coffee houses or college libraries. I'm surrounded by strangers, but their anonymous presence starves off the feelings of loneliness that I can get working from home. I think the difference between a public place and an office is that it's really unlikely for any of those strangers outsid…
IMO it really depends on how open they are, and what your company/team size is. I love open cube "bullpens" for a team of 4-5 people working on a shared goal, but a completely open office where anyone can disturb you has given me issues in the past.
* Exaggerated a little, I'd probably drive myself nuts in an office alone.
Unsurprisingly, private offices score the best, by a huge margin. Right now, I've got a huge office to myself (separate from a two-person office next to me by an open passageway). It's super quiet because there are bookshelves full of books to absorb any noise, as well as thick 1970-era carpeting. It's the most productive place I've ever worked. I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money,[1]…
> I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money, spend gobs of money on huge office campuses, then inflict open plan or cubicles on said engineers. It's largely due to the conventional wisdom created in the 90s by Microsoft's Jim McCarthy known as "21 Rules of Thumb for Shipping Great Software on Time".[1] Rule 6 (or 8 in his later talks[2]) is "beware of a guy in a room": > Specialist developer…
Unsurprisingly, private offices score the best, by a huge margin. Right now, I've got a huge office to myself (separate from a two-person office next to me by an open passageway). It's super quiet because there are bookshelves full of books to absorb any noise, as well as thick 1970-era carpeting. It's the most productive place I've ever worked. I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money,[1]…
As long as corporate programmers think of themselves as socially below doctors, lawyers, professors (who tend to get paid less!), accountants, etc, then management can continue to treat them poorly ("Everyone should be working late into the evening this month, but don't worry, free pizza!" ...I doubt those sort of tricks would work well in other professions.)
Anyone who has read Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language"[1] can easily extrapolate his ideas to cubicles. Alexander pointed out that if you drop any human in an open field with a tree, within a few minutes they'll be sitting with their back to the tree, facing the sun. We are animals. We get physically and psychologically uncomfortable when our vision is restricted and our backs are exposed. It means we are v…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money, spend gobs of money on huge office campuses, then inflict open plan or cubicles on said engineers. It's largely due to the conventional wisdom created in the 90s by Microsoft's Jim McCarthy known as "21 Rules of Thumb for Shipping Great Software on Time".[1] Rule 6 (or 8 in his later talks[2]) is "beware of a guy in a room": > Specialist developer…
I feel strongly that 99% of the people who are responsible for making this decision have no idea who "Microsoft's Jim McCarthy" is, other than maybe Jenny McCarthy's husband.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple's new spaceship building (in the middle of a faceless suburb) > will cost $5 billion and have 2.8 million square feet of space … that no employee below VP level can afford to live near. It's OK, though; Apple doesn't have to pay them for the tenth of their lives they waste commuting. And above the entrance these words appear: “My name is Jobs, CEO of CEOs: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.”
They can absolutely afford to live near it. Based on my own anecdotal experience at least, the people who work for the big tech companies in the South Bay with the long commutes are generally the ones who choose to have long commutes so they can work in the South Bay but live in SF. If affordability were their concern, they could save a ton of money by just living nearby in Sunnyvale or Campbell or wherever. I also k…
> not like any of these huge companies are going to pick up and leave and
> build their giant new campus out in the middle of the desert or something.
Typically a programmer's daily work product can be moved half way around the world in a fraction of a second, for a fraction of a cent.
Perhaps there should be an addition to Latency numbers every programmer should know:
Programmer drives to work .... 3,000,000,000,000 nsUnsurprisingly, private offices score the best, by a huge margin. Right now, I've got a huge office to myself (separate from a two-person office next to me by an open passageway). It's super quiet because there are bookshelves full of books to absorb any noise, as well as thick 1970-era carpeting. It's the most productive place I've ever worked. I have no idea why tech companies would pay engineers gobs of money,[1]…
It's because cubicles can be depreciated as furniture, over 10 (or 7, I've never been clear on the difference) years, whereas internal walls and doors get depreciated as real estate over a 27.5 year schedule. The CFO has to do something.
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.318767....