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Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

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Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#541

Post by pseudalopex »

ayuhito wrote: post #540
pseudalopex wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it a Japanese office or a foreign office following Japanese customs?

I would say it fits in a third category. It’s a Japanese office that switched to English as its official language and hires a lot of foreign engineering talent. These types of companies are becoming more and more prevalent in Japan. It is interesting to note that they can integrate the best and worst elements of both aforementioned work cultures.

You worked in kevinmershon's office?

Either way it's interesting such offices are becoming more common in Japan. Could you say more about how they integrate the best and worst of both cultures?

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#542

Post by midtake »

To me, it's not so much offices with doors, but rather some sort of barrier between work and distraction. I don't want to hear about TikToks or food if I'm actually trying to work. An open office layout would work if everyone spoke in hushed tones about work-related stuff, but when it's about stupid shit it's impossible, and "putting on headphones" to ignore everyone is cuck tier and emasculating when other people are giggling and having a great time. Naturally what tends to happen is that no work gets done. Over time what happens is that I stop caring about work entirely and enjoy the office environment exclusively for the shit talk aspect. Whenever I need to get anything done I work from home.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#543

Post by BobaFloutist »

dvngnt_ wrote: post #527
yousif_123123 wrote: post #407

Just want to add that I only became (at least in my opinion) a good programmer by sitting next to a very good and passionate one that I was able to question from time to time and may have interrupted his work some days. I also probably helped him brainstorm ideas with me and debugging, since he would just say what's on his mind while doing it, and I'd do the same, and sometimes this kind of ping pong debugging/brains…

The most in sync i've ever been with a team was playing end-game raids in MMO's using ventrilo. huddles, meet, and zoom just aint the same. I've never tried discord though.

Discord is funny.

The bad: it's a little too cutesy, a little too "gamer" targeted. It's a little tiresome.

The fantastic: In a call, you get individual volume sliders (and mute buttons) for every single participant. I cannot use Zoom after experiencing this, it's simply intolerable to be at the mercy of the person with the loudest and most obnoxious mike/background noise

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#544

Post by creakingstairs »

JAlexoid wrote: post #514
creakingstairs wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made numerous friends over IRCs, Warcraft 3 chat channels and whatnot and had preferred it over face-to-face (and I still prefer chat over zoom calls!) but as I've gotten older, I started appreciating talking in real life more and more, and now struggle to form connections over chat. I wonder if there are others who are in the same boat.

You cannot compare an open chat, with a strong interest in a particular topic vs you team's Slack channel. Online games work well, because you have a visual and full engagement. Compare that to work communications... You are totally async on slack, it's just a simpler version of email at this point. Just because people are online in Slack today, doesn't mean that they'll respond within minutes. If someone is online p…

I get what you are saying but I seem to find it hard to engage with anyone, even my old friends, over chat these days. We end up hopping into voice chat when we want to catch up.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#545

Post by imbnwa »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #543
dvngnt_ wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most in sync i've ever been with a team was playing end-game raids in MMO's using ventrilo. huddles, meet, and zoom just aint the same. I've never tried discord though.

Discord is funny. The bad: it's a little too cutesy, a little too "gamer" targeted. It's a little tiresome. The fantastic: In a call, you get individual volume sliders (and mute buttons) for every single participant. I cannot use Zoom after experiencing this, it's simply intolerable to be at the mercy of the person with the loudest and most obnoxious mike/background noise

I mean if you set aside the mere theming, Discord is everything Slack should be

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#546

Post by i_am_a_peasant »

iancmceachern wrote: post #381
i_am_a_peasant wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My new year resolution is to never do remote work at my next job. I wanna be that guy known for being always there , at his job , doing what he's paid to do.

This has seriously diminishing returns. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, did it fall? If your the only one at work, did you work? Are you going to optimize to others view of your work habits or are you going to optimize to outcomes?

outcomes trumps all, however, I learned the hard way, as most of us do, that optics play a role.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#547

Post by twelve40 »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #99
twelve40 wrote: post #80

so many screens of text and not one mention of slack, which is the real productivity killer. Something that no amount of doors or offices can protect against.

Slack can be closed or at least crippled by muting every channel.

unfortunately that's not all, my coworkers in all of the last N places have been conditioned to treat you as an evasive hostile psychopath if you don't respond to their DMs within minutes.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#548

Post by mcmoor »

no_wizard wrote: post #423
yousif_123123 wrote: post #407

Just want to add that I only became (at least in my opinion) a good programmer by sitting next to a very good and passionate one that I was able to question from time to time and may have interrupted his work some days. I also probably helped him brainstorm ideas with me and debugging, since he would just say what's on his mind while doing it, and I'd do the same, and sometimes this kind of ping pong debugging/brains…

Biggest thing is changing cultural dynamics to make maximal efficiency of remote work. Which includes that sometimes , you get a team of people together temporarily in person to really focus and iterate on issues, but we all know the majority of time, this isn't needed for proper collaboration. As far as excitement and collaboration goes: this is a culture and communication problem. If your company hasn't done a good…

> Which includes that sometimes, you get a team of people together temporarily in person to really focus and iterate on issues, but we all know the majority of time, this isn't needed for proper collaboration.

Some remote workers here dismisses even that, because it disallows them to take residence at the other side of the world from the office. Mileage truly may vary.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#549

Post by mcmoor »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #236

I worked for a Japanese corporation. The Tokyo offices had enormous rooms, with long rows of desks, arranged by section/department. The section manager's desk was at the end of each row. VPs, with billion-dollar budgets, had small, schoolteacher-style desks, in the corner of the room. These enormous rooms, with hundreds of engineers, were quiet as a library. They had carpeting, people wore "office slippers," and ther…

Aah yes this is why I work in an open office yet very confused on why this website hates it so much.

Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?

#550

Post by ayuhito »

pseudalopex wrote: post #541
ayuhito wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it fits in a third category. It’s a Japanese office that switched to English as its official language and hires a lot of foreign engineering talent. These types of companies are becoming more and more prevalent in Japan. It is interesting to note that they can integrate the best and worst elements of both aforementioned work cultures.

You worked in kevinmershon's office? Either way it's interesting such offices are becoming more common in Japan. Could you say more about how they integrate the best and worst of both cultures?

I worked at a similar type of office, but I had coworkers who also had interned/worked for Rakuten.

These are based on the accounts of my local coworkers, but their experiences with previous traditional Japanese companies involved strict social hierarchies, long working hours, constant overtime[0] and overall a very oppressive work culture (though this is slowly improving in general). Getting a chance to escape all that while still working for a local company that really understood them is a huge win. As a foreigner, they made it really easy for me to integrate into their work without feeling like an outsider (which is unfortunately a common trope in more traditional offices).

There is a spectrum to this. For example, I’ve heard Rakuten has a lot of bad rep with a bunch of foreign engineers I’ve met. They still have a lot of “traditional” influence in their management culture that I’ve heard has created a high turnover rate on the foreigner side. This Reddit thread last year also was a hot topic that led to a small exodus[1] and some of their Glassdoor reviews are scathing.

On a side note, the government actually takes some interest in these companies too through inspections, as they seem to observe how well-integrated foreign talent can be with Japanese offices. I’m assuming they’re looking long term to increase immigration to compensate the decrease in local talent from the declining population…

Please do take these as stories and not fact. Experiences can wildly differ from company to company and I’m just one perspective.

[0] I recall a story where a company made employees “tap-out” but not actually leave the office to get around government regulations.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/japanlife/s/LmIxQUPakW

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