81–90 of 148 posts
office -> cube -> open floor plan -> next? what can be even worse than the open floor? Transparent floors? No walls at all? I'm sure in a few years we'll know.
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Asking someone a quick question while they are in the middle of something is a good way to break their focus. It takes a lot of effort to "get into the zone", so you will not only lower the productivity of the person you "ask a quick question", but you'll also make him frustrated. He may even get a head-ache. How can you live with yourself? This mostly applies to jobs which involve a higher degree of complexity, like…
I reject this assertion that people get ripped "out of the zone". What are you doing that is so complex that you can't jump right back into it? I've met plenty of people that like to act like they're some super elite programmer that is juggling complex class structures and debugging them inside their head. In my experience so far, those people are full of shit and make overly complex spaghetti code. Idk though, maybe…
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My understanding is accounting - furniture is depreciated or amortized at a different rate than offices, and it is beneficial to the bean counters.
Reduced productivity will bite it from the other end. Shouldn't accounting worry about that too?
I guess I'm in a real minority here, but I'm pretty happy with open-office. Some qualifiers: - The team has a good culture of respecting each other, and we're busy enough not to want to banter too much outside of certain times (e.g., lunch, when we see it already going on, etc.). - I've got good headphones hooked to a 24-bit-DAC'd USB amp. I don't hear anyone unless I'm trying to. - My screen's big enough where visua…
Where I work there's a group chat for low priority questions you can check whenever you're not totally immersed in something. It's also anonymous chat so nobody is embarrassed to ask "stupid" questions.
I guess I'm in a real minority here, but I'm pretty happy with open-office. Some qualifiers: - The team has a good culture of respecting each other, and we're busy enough not to want to banter too much outside of certain times (e.g., lunch, when we see it already going on, etc.). - I've got good headphones hooked to a 24-bit-DAC'd USB amp. I don't hear anyone unless I'm trying to. - My screen's big enough where visua…
"As a company grows, the cost of restructuring an office to accommodate more people in different layouts is time consuming and expensive. By having desks in an open plan and telephone rooms for quiet time, the idea is that you can solve the cost and flexibility problems while still offering a quiet place to retreat if needed. From a growth perspective this is smart. If I planned to add 30 employees to our office in t…
I still prefer to just stay home when I have to actually get stuff done. Offices are weird. It's not even about open or not. But I can only be really productive if I'm completely alone.
Between industry, offices, and schools, I bring earplugs with me everywhere and hand them out to people who have to work in these types of environments. A lot of the time, people can't get away to hear themselves think, and it stresses them out more than they realize. Imagine never feeling like you're as focused and productive as you're used to being and the impact that might take on your self appraisal; it's like ne…
Open offices instantly "out" anyone who comes late, leaves early, takes a 2.5 hour lunch breaks, or surfs the web instead of working. And that's really the whole point. It's why they are popular in Japan, together with the fact that thanks to the open structure, transgressor can apologize in front of everyone at once.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Asking someone a quick question while they are in the middle of something is a good way to break their focus. It takes a lot of effort to "get into the zone", so you will not only lower the productivity of the person you "ask a quick question", but you'll also make him frustrated. He may even get a head-ache. How can you live with yourself? This mostly applies to jobs which involve a higher degree of complexity, like…
I reject this assertion that people get ripped "out of the zone". What are you doing that is so complex that you can't jump right back into it? I've met plenty of people that like to act like they're some super elite programmer that is juggling complex class structures and debugging them inside their head. In my experience so far, those people are full of shit and make overly complex spaghetti code. Idk though, maybe…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29
FWIW while I think interruptions are a real problem, I have certainly encountered some people who I think demand more quiet than is really needed. But some of this may just come down to differences in how tolerant people are of noise, or perhaps how stressed they are.
Open office "advantage" is the story owners who can't afford to pay for a better location tell the developers. Sort of like the guy whose car broke so he is taking his tractor to work. He would tell the world how tractors are so much better and have all these great advantages compared to regular cars.