Undiagnosed autism and adhd
Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
571–580 of 593 posts
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#572This monkey user comic illustrate it very well: https://www.monkeyuser.com/2018/focus/
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who would win: - literally 100s of publications showing how disruptive and destructive to focus it is to be working in an open office work and how much distractions it brings: https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-workplace-heres... https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices https://www.businessdit.com/distraction-work-statistics/ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/eve... https:…
Yet people still make arguments based off the conceit that a profit motive means businesses act like rational hive minds.
You can actually act rationally on fake, imagined and fraudulent data.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#574[flagged]
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was junior I shared an office with a senior. I was constantly asking him questions. He pretty much knew everything, I'm not kidding, this guy was amazing. So this arrangement worked out really well for me, but not sure how much he liked having his work interrupted so much. Could be that between the two of us, the benefits averaged out to zero.
This is where headphones can help. Headphones on, don't bother the person or only chat. That was an unwritten rule the last time I worked in an open space.
I find people don't care and will talk to you with or without headphones on and expect you to take them off.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#576My analogy for some kinds of programming is mental juggling. Good programmers, juggle lots of balls at one time: the problem components, constraints, other problem elements, production issues, reliability issues, all the possible solutions. A programmer starts with a couple of these, gets them in the air, then adds more and more concepts. When I am good I can juggle lots of them and see how they interoperate. Once al…
Wow, this is the best way to describe the flow state to my non technical manager. Thanks.
However, I don’t think she will still able to understand and empathise.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#577But, why offices at all? All my productivity problems are solved by just working from home.
Have you guys ever thought about the fact that there are nerds that like so socialize and hate working from home, because it gets f'ing lonely after a while? I want to see people. The corona pandamic where I worked almost 2 years from home drove me into a severe depression.
Yes? And people like you have enjoyed an office environment that by default catered to you. It's not those of us who finally found productivity in a controlled, quiet environment that lack empathy, it's you, the group that can't imagine that "normal" might not be universally healthy and that for the first time are finding themselves not the default perspective.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't that make it impossible to use story points for estimating effort and ensuring people aren't overcommitted?
There's no such thing for us. We don't work in "sprints". We have a giant list of things to do. If you need something to do, you take something off the top of the pile and do it. When you're done, however long it takes, you take another thing off the top and work on that.
What purpose do the story points serve, then?
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#579I 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…
Your mention of working culture is quite interesting. I am a Mexican and have had the chance to work in "open offices" environments in UK, US and Mexico.
For me, US and UK culture was great for Open Office plan, as people were pretty silent and focused. Our Mexican culture is just crazy for that... we are noisy and chatty people, very "happy", and for that reason you just cannot focus in an open office environment. I enjoyed every time I went to our US office in a previous job, as we could actually sit down and work silently.
In the UK it was similar, but I worked in an international setting. So we had people from China, Iran and other nationalities in the same open office, and it was noisier. But not as noisy as Mexico, as people were not very "integrated" with each other.
Re: Why do programmers need private offices with doors?
#580I 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…
I worked for a Japanese corporation where each floor had different rules. One floor had an open-plan layout where people were open to chitchat, another open-plan floor that expected everyone to be quiet, and there was a floor with reservable cubicles or sound-proofed rooms. In general though, I do agree that the culture is on the quieter side. I really enjoyed working there because the level of isolation was entirely…
We kind of have that, but it isn't by floor since its a one-story building, but we are an American small tech company. The engineering department (department I am in) is separated by a long glass wall. In side of there, we are expected to keep it quiet. Now, we are not discouraged from conversation, say I need to tap another engineer's shoulders and discuss some architecture. But it expected to keep it relatively quiet and not distracting. Other side of the glass wall, its a free for all.