What the hell?! Give. Developers. Offices. With. Doors. It's conceptually simple, and will probably cost less than this novelty shit in the long run.
Some people like that, some people don't. The worst physical office environment I've ever worked in was one where I had an individual office with a door. It was an interior office with no windows, effectively a large closet, and it was pretty depressing and alienating. Maybe you could argue that you should give all developers offices with doors and exterior windows. But the dimensions of most buildings don't make tha…
Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
91–100 of 189 posts
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (who I find are always rather disinterested with us plebs in "shit-hole" India) It probably doesn't make you feel any better, but I ran into this attitude frequently when working from a satellite office in the US. Teams worked in constant fear of a defrag (read: their jobs got impactful enough to pull the work into MTV), and we regularly referred to ourselves as a "vassal" office. Teams in the vassal would get assi…
Do you know whether people based out of the Cambridge/Boston site would be considered second-class citizens today? And if there is a second-class dynamic, would it be in a way that adversely affected the work, directly, or the impact was more about individual treatment? (For example of affecting the work... when collaboration across sites is needed, for the benefit of the org, would there be difficulty getting it to…
There have been a few defrags, but there is a wide array of impactful projects.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#93You don't have to worry about a sick person sitting 3 feet away from you if you have a private office.
You don't need to wear a mask sitting at your desk all day if you have a private office.
You don't need specialized "focus rooms" if you have private offices.
You don't need specialized break-out rooms for small informal meetings if people have private offices.
You don't need to call a robot to set up a balloon wall (which won't block sound anyway) every time you want to make a phone call if you have a private office.
If you want people not to work from home, a private office gives them many of the advantages that make them more productive when working from home.
Open office was never about collaboration, it was about cramming more people into less space and the fact that furniture depreciates faster than walls. But, it's not like Google couldn't afford private offices if they wanted to.
Edit: keep adding more as I think of them.
> Google is also trying to end the fight over the office temperature. This system allows every seat to have its own air diffuser to control the direction or amount of air blowing on them.
This is insane. It's the same principle as having separate "driver" and "passenger" temperature controls in a car. You're all in the same box of air. The temperature is going to even out to the average. Maintaining comfort by constantly blowing a person's preferred temperature air on them - only to have it canceled out by the person next to them blowing a different temperature air - is an enormous waste of energy. You know what would give people actual control of the temperature in their space? You guessed it - private offices.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#94Why would I want to come back into the office if I have to wear a mask?
As soon as a coronavirus vaccine gets full FDA approval (expected soon for Moderna and Pfizer), companies should require immunization for employees. Then they can stop requiring masks. Every vaccine that has ever had serious side-effect problems has shown them in the first few months.[1] The FDA requires six months of data for full approval. Those six months have passed. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns…
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#95As a Googler, I'm pretty disappointed with this plan and I think many colleagues are as well. The office that's being pitched right now has no resemblance whatsoever to the one we left. I just don't see why someone would go through 1+hr commute just to social distance/wear masks, use balloon walls and hotdesk. By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive. Even the hybrid model isn't i…
while I was there I detested the open plan cube farm horror of their offices (at least the SF ones) they weren't even full cubes, being only half height so constant visual distraction, and they didn't completely surround you so you had people always moving around behind you. Changing how the open plan is arranged is just pointless, accept that you have made an unpleasant work environment and leave it alone so at leas…
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
And makes it blatantly obvious that you're setting up to talk about things in private... Seriously, just have some rooms with doors. Even if that's not the majority of the space.
I know cubicles were previously mocked but a private space with walls where I'm not distracted by people walking all around me doesn't sound too bad.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#97What the hell?! Give. Developers. Offices. With. Doors. It's conceptually simple, and will probably cost less than this novelty shit in the long run.
Not everyone want that, if I need my own private space I don't need to go to office. The reason I may want to go to office is to see my coworkers. Doors/private cubicle defeat the purpose.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
As soon as a coronavirus vaccine gets full FDA approval (expected soon for Moderna and Pfizer), companies should require immunization for employees. Then they can stop requiring masks. Every vaccine that has ever had serious side-effect problems has shown them in the first few months.[1] The FDA requires six months of data for full approval. Those six months have passed. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns…
This is what the Cal State and University Of California are systems are waiting for: https://csusystem.edu/csu-system-announces-covid-vaccine-req...
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know cubicles were previously mocked but a private space with walls where I'm not distracted by people walking all around me doesn't sound too bad.
Right, the cube farm of "The Matrix" was supposed to be a dystopian horror that only a heartless machine would invent, but two decades later we'd all kill to have a cube.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#100Those balloon walls seems the worst possible solution. Noisy, obnoxious, slow, fragile and doesn't create any sound privacy from whatever you will be talking about.
Is the need for ad-hoc, purely visual (not auditory) privacy even a common scenario? If so, how about some curtains? In the 90s, Twin Peaks taught me that drapes can be made whisper silent, unlike an electric air pump and possibly crinkling cellophane.
Examples:
https://officesnapshots.com/photos/164814/
https://officesnapshots.com/photos/150191/
There are also existing solutions for temporary privacy that range from moveable/accordion walls to rolling felt / fabric partitions:
https://www.buzzi.space/acoustic-solutions/buzzishield-free
https://www.darran.com/product/screens/room-divider
The inflatable concept in the article definitely seems more concept that practical solution.