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Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

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Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#71

Post by strlen »

throwaway1460 wrote: post #38
rayiner wrote: post #24

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.”

> … that no employee below VP level can afford to live near.

San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell, and even parts of Cupertino and Sunnyvale are far more affordable than SF. This is especially so for couples and families.

(Suburbia is a far cry from SF in terms of culture, obviously, but that's a different topic)

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#72

Post by rhizome »

toddmorey wrote: post #17

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…

I'll put a finer point on it: in a coffee shop, you're guaranteed that zero of the conversations will require your attention. In an open-plan office, almost all of them will concern you even if you don't have anything direct to contribute. By this relationship, all voices in an open-plan will steal your attention.

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#73

Post by beat »

SamuelMulder wrote: post #63
tieTYT wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to face the sun? Wouldn't that blind you? I'd think it'd be better to sit with your back to the tree facing away from the sun.

Probably depends on whether you are in Minnesota, trying to get warmth, or in Phoenix trying to stay in the shade...

I'm a Minnesotan, so...

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#74

Post by Nicholas_C »

voidlogic wrote: post #36
Nicholas_C wrote: post #18

I currently work in an open office space and I enjoy it. I love being able to ask the analyst across from me how s/he goes about doing something without having to get up and peer over a cubicle wall or walk into an office. Bouncing ideas off people and getting an immediate response is great. I could see it being more distracting than a cubicle or a real office. I've never worked in a place with those so I can't compa…

>I love being able to ask the analyst across from me how s/he goes about doing something without having to get up and peer over a cubicle wall or walk into an office. So now it takes less effort to interrupt another persons work-flow and potentially make them restart a long train of thought. http://ubuntuone.com/27zU9Q5Tlqkoohp6cO4sF2

Your cartoon doesn't really pertain to this because telling someone they have an e-mail is zero value added. Me asking my neighbor how to forecast something and saving what could be minutes to hours, despite interrupting a train of thought and setting them back a few seconds, definitely does add value.

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#75

Post by rhizome »

humanrebar wrote: post #40
001sky wrote: post #29

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. A firm is a hierarchy, and this is a form of social control.

As a counterpoint, there are companies that have open floor plans or cubes for everyone all the way up to the C*Os.

Yes, there "are" companies where the CxOs are out on the floor like everybody else, but I've only seen it once and that was when we were ~5ppl doing an officeshare.

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#76

Post by voidlogic »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #74
voidlogic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I love being able to ask the analyst across from me how s/he goes about doing something without having to get up and peer over a cubicle wall or walk into an office. So now it takes less effort to interrupt another persons work-flow and potentially make them restart a long train of thought. http://ubuntuone.com/27zU9Q5Tlqkoohp6cO4sF2

Your cartoon doesn't really pertain to this because telling someone they have an e-mail is zero value added. Me asking my neighbor how to forecast something and saving what could be minutes to hours, despite interrupting a train of thought and setting them back a few seconds, definitely does add value.

> Me asking my neighbor how to forecast something and saving what could be minutes to hours, despite interrupting a train of thought and setting them back a few seconds, definitely does add value.

Only if either A, your interruption costs them less time then it saves you, or B you believe your time is more valuable than theirs.

I think its a good idea to establish within a workplace, esp. an open seated workplace, a way of broadcasting the price of interrupting you. Sometimes this is informal with headphones as a sign, other times people make DND signs or lights, etc. Its just much easier when everyone has an office- you can shut your door.

Re: Research: Cubicles Are the Absolute Worst

#77

Post by goggles99 »

pekk wrote: post #69
owenmarshall wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I share your (healthy) skepticism about scientific reporting, a good researcher would've attempted to structure their experiment to control for this very effect. I don't have ScienceDirect access so I can't check the research or methodology, but from reading the abstract & the tables I can see it appears the reporter's conclusion came directly from the experiment, so it's far less likely that this is a reporter…

A good researcher would have the cash to hire hundreds of people and intentionally randomly assign them to different work environments, I guess. Then we would be picking on how they measured productivity and whether the results held up over long periods.

>A good researcher would have the cash to hire hundreds of people and intentionally randomly assign them to different work environments, I guess.

Wrong, you lack the same basic, problem solving logic that I am referring to.

A good researcher would have asked additional questions such as "On a scale of 1-10" - "how enjoyable is the actual work that you do here?", "how satisfied are you with the amount of money that you are making?", "where do you see yourself in five years". These aren't the best quesions that I could come up with, I am just giving examples off the top of my head.

It would be easy to see how unhappy these workers are with other things in their lives rather than if they were in a cubicle vs a private office.

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