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CEOs Want Their Offices Back

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Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#71

Post by valuearb »

atemerev wrote: post #66
rayiner wrote: post #26

> The lofty building Jordan Hamad moved his tech-advisory firm into four years ago had the trappings of a startup idyll: open floor plan, polished concrete floors , custom-built communal tables. Decisions like this make me seriously question the whole idea that our economy is populated by rational actors. Obviously polished concrete floors are a terrible idea in an office. Even if you believe that open plan works, th…

Markets are efficient, not rational.

I think it's clear they are more rational than efficient, and perfect at neither.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#72

Post by bitexploder »

ronnier wrote: post #18
coffeeski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take a 10% paycut to have a small office that fits 2 monitors, a filing cabinet and some pictures, rather then dealing with constant clattering of the guy behind me that decided converting a type writer into a digital keyboard was a good idea.

The mechanical keyboard people in open offices bother me.

I have never suffered the tyranny of an open office. I do use a loud keyboard and honestly can't imagine going without it.

I am easily distracted by sensory stimuli. It ruins my concentration. At home I have some nice in ear noise isolating ear buds and some of those ear muffs designed for yard work. My children can, and do, reenact world wars on the hard woods above me and I can't hear it.

If I ever were in an open office, when I do deep work, those things would stay on.

So I sympathize, but the open office puts knowledge workers who need to concentrate and type in a lose / lose environment.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#73

Post by maxxxxx »

softawre wrote: post #53
maxxxxx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got one and I admit it's really loud. But this shouldn't be an issue in a decent workplace. I have several guys near me who have loud voices and talk a lot. That's worse than a loud keyboard. Open office plans are the problem, not keyboards or loud people.

This is true. But, if you're in an open office, don't you think the decent thing to do is to not speak loudly (and therefore not use a loud mechanical keyboard)? There are mech keyboards with more quiet switches. At least use one of those.

Sure. It's good to be courteous. But in the end it comes down to the fact that open offices are just plain stupid. I don't know what the motivation behind them is but it's certainly not to make a productive workplace.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#74

Post by strictnein »

jlebrech wrote: post #54
strictnein wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a cube because it's not the noise that bothers me but the constant motion on the periphery of my vision. Cubes can be setup properly. They don't need to be row after row after row of cubes. We have them setup in pods that hold 6-8 people, one pod for each dev team. Only one way in or out, so there's no traffic moving through, with a small table in the middle that's mainly used to eat lunch or store treats that…

maybe you need a cube-aware voice chat system. or just a contact list inside of noise cancelling headphones.

How would that help limit movement in my peripheral vision?

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#75

Post by carsongross »

I was dead wrong about the open office layout: I was an advocate, but I now see that over time, for any company larger than a garage startup, it ends becoming a way to cut costs and pack more employees per square foot. It isn't worse than cube-farms, but it isn't much better.

I wonder if per-team offices of 2-5 people around a central hub would actually hit the right balance between interaction and think time.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#76

Post by valuearb »

jesseryoung wrote: post #50

It seems like when "Open Office" articles come out there seem to be quite a few people talking ill of them. I recently switched jobs and with it switched from an open concept (large room with whiteboards separating teams) to an office (shared with one other coworker.) Maybe I was conditioned to like it (I certainly didn't like it at first) but I really did prefer the open concept when working on a team of 8 or 9 peop…

What was your role on the team?

Did your team-members enjoy you turning around and interrupting them?

Is it really that hard to get up and walk to another office so you don't disturb 8 other people with a question they don't care about? Walking around occasionally in the day is actually good for us.

And two person offices are a mild improvement over cubicles, which are a significant improvement over open offices. But neither is remotely as good as a one person office.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#77

Post by acdha »

yalogin wrote: post #60

Sometimes I wonder if this open office thing is pushed on people because of the high real estate cost in San Francisco. Anything can be spinned into a great thing.

I think that's globally true: it's been known since the 1970s that open-plan offices aren't good for productivity but they're undeniably cheaper and, in many cases, also has the unstated advantage of making it clear where people rank on the status hierarchy in organizations where only management above a certain rank are allowed offices.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#79

Post by Declanomous »

softawre wrote: post #53
maxxxxx wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got one and I admit it's really loud. But this shouldn't be an issue in a decent workplace. I have several guys near me who have loud voices and talk a lot. That's worse than a loud keyboard. Open office plans are the problem, not keyboards or loud people.

This is true. But, if you're in an open office, don't you think the decent thing to do is to not speak loudly (and therefore not use a loud mechanical keyboard)? There are mech keyboards with more quiet switches. At least use one of those.

Pretty much every mechanical keyboard will be loud. I use a board with Cherry Red switches at work, and while it's much quieter than my board with Cherry Blue switches that I use at home, it is still louder than the rubber dome keyboard it replaced.

It doesn't bother my coworkers, but I also have an actual cube, so there's at least a little bit of fabric-covered foam inbetween us.

Re: CEOs Want Their Offices Back

#80

Post by mytec »

walshemj wrote: post #37
andrewingram wrote: post #5

Curiously, in my experience it's been senior management (including CEOs) who've fought for open plan offices in the first place. Cost benefits aside, they do wax lyrical about all the reason why open plan is great.

Because they have allowed tail functions like HR and Building Services to set company policy with no thought to the wider effect on the company. Aka I got my bonus and I don't care if I have F%$Ked up the company

At a previous job, I was sent to a partner company who was building a web site we'd take over. This company had a wide open floor plan (except for the execs). I remember one day our HR VP visiting and exclaiming how wonderful this is. She said she wanted to implement it where we worked. She asked me what I thought with this beatific smile, and I said I found the never ending movement and ad-hoc meetings around me to be distracting. The smile on her face dropped and she said, "You'll get used to it", as she walked away.
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