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It's interesting watching the juxtaposed trends of increased remote work and... this, in the tech sector. Clearly there is a trend away from "traditional" offi

It's interesting watching the juxtaposed trends of increased remote work and... this, in the tech sector. Clearly there is a trend away from "traditional" offices, but it appears to be moving in two fundamentally opposite directions at the same time. Of course, both share one significant feature: cost savings compared to a more traditional office environment. I guess another similarity could be increased equality, although again, achieved in opposite manners: in one case, everyone gets to choose their own work environment, and in the other, everyone has an identical work environment. (Right down to a lack of personal effects in this case.) Still, the proponents of both approaches appear to believe they offer many other advantages. I wonder whether we'll see one or the other ultimately dominate. Personally speaking, as the owner of a small, all-remote company, I vastly prefer the remote approach for my own quality of life. (Although I've certainly known people who prefer to go to an office every day.) As far as work output though, both remote work and open offices have advantages and disadvantages. Personally I can't stand the distractions being crammed in a room with a bunch of other developers, but at least being in the same building undoubtedly makes collaboration easier (not that it's impossible remotely). The company culture can definitely do a lot to make that sort of environment more pleasant too. (Things like avoiding noise pollution, and knowing when not to interrupt.) For me, even if I knew I could make more money by relocating everyone to an office, it wouldn't be worth it, but obviously that math would change a bit at Facebook scale.

friendzis 11y ago
The parent I wanted to reply to got deleted, but it feels quite suitable here, so here are my thoughts on difficulties of working in an open office: --------------------------------------------- [Not an FB employee, but] Most of my workspaces have been semi-open: offices/rooms with ~10 workplaces scattered around, maybe a glass wall or a shelf here and there. As for HN, FB, etc: it highly depends on the culture, but if the office is open not for control - you just open and browse. One might as well browse stackexchange (e.g. arqade) for leisure or code personal project. The terribleness of NSFW link would be the shame/embarrassment you inflict on yourself and maybe an occasional finger pointing if anyone happens to witness. The noise level is definitely higher than in a private office, but then again - culture. Either your colleagues are understanding to keep the noise level down or not. I can/could easily listen to music at comfortable levels even with open headphones. A much bigger issue is that people tend to have coffee/smoke breaks in groups and it requires some self control not to take a break with each and every group. I'm not sure whether that's an issue, but since people tend to work different hours (e.g. 7-16, 9-18) it also puts some unconscious pressure to work 9-16 or 7-18. Quite a lot of the "issues" (differences from an office) are related to the person/culture and not the workplace itself.
hkmurakami 11y ago
Just 10 years ago, we would scoff at the high density office environment of the Japanese Salaryman. The same salaryman who would die of overwork and jump into running trains. What happened? I'm genuinely perplexed. http://www.accountant-tokyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Japanese-Office-Space.jpg http://www.accountant-tokyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/J...
rdl 11y ago
For startups, it's not just about the cost, it's about flexibility. It's easier to have a decent open-plan low density and 3x the people in it overall, or particularly, to 10x a certain department while 1.1xing the other departments temporarily, into a crowded shitty open plan, than it is to have a bunch of 1-2 person sized offices and somehow put 30 into a single office while keeping the others at 1-2. That's the only reason I can excuse open plan in sv tech at all; otherwise it seems to be a clear failure vs. well-executed offices. It's better than the hierarchical allocation of offices/corner offices/etc. to managers, but that isn't the optimal way to deploy offices. We can do better, even at 0-50 person startups, than either.
- tempestn 11y ago
  That's a great point. It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. Many open plans reserve the prime areas for shared spaces, and there's obviously no reason an office space couldn't (or shouldn't) do that too. In fact, that jogs a faint memory of another post on HN some months back of an office like that; all the actual offices were on the interior, and the window spaces were all hallways, meeting rooms, and break areas. Can anyone remember what that was?
  - hkmurakami 11y ago
    >It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. IIRC this is Microsoft right?
    - erdojo 11y ago
      I interviewed once up at the Borg, and as far as I remember almost everyone had tiny private offices. They were little more than closets. I'm sure some people had bigger/better offices than others, but there was a decent baseline. I've worked in both private offices and big open floorplans like this. Prefer the former. However my favorite work environment was a smaller company where we all had two-person shared offices (most with no windows), and large coworking spaces where one could camp in the sunlight and be more social. The two-person offices kept people from feeling totally isolated and encouraged some level of watercooler conversation, plus gave everyone a sense of privacy and control over their immediate environment. I thought it was the best of both worlds.

friendzis 11y ago

The parent I wanted to reply to got deleted, but it feels quite suitable here, so here are my thoughts on difficulties of working in an open office: --------------------------------------------- [Not an FB employee, but] Most of my workspaces have been semi-open: offices/rooms with ~10 workplaces scattered around, maybe a glass wall or a shelf here and there. As for HN, FB, etc: it highly depends on the culture, but if the office is open not for control - you just open and browse. One might as well browse stackexchange (e.g. arqade) for leisure or code personal project. The terribleness of NSFW link would be the shame/embarrassment you inflict on yourself and maybe an occasional finger pointing if anyone happens to witness. The noise level is definitely higher than in a private office, but then again - culture. Either your colleagues are understanding to keep the noise level down or not. I can/could easily listen to music at comfortable levels even with open headphones. A much bigger issue is that people tend to have coffee/smoke breaks in groups and it requires some self control not to take a break with each and every group. I'm not sure whether that's an issue, but since people tend to work different hours (e.g. 7-16, 9-18) it also puts some unconscious pressure to work 9-16 or 7-18. Quite a lot of the "issues" (differences from an office) are related to the person/culture and not the workplace itself.

hkmurakami 11y ago

Just 10 years ago, we would scoff at the high density office environment of the Japanese Salaryman. The same salaryman who would die of overwork and jump into running trains. What happened? I'm genuinely perplexed. http://www.accountant-tokyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Japanese-Office-Space.jpg http://www.accountant-tokyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/J...

rdl 11y ago

For startups, it's not just about the cost, it's about flexibility. It's easier to have a decent open-plan low density and 3x the people in it overall, or particularly, to 10x a certain department while 1.1xing the other departments temporarily, into a crowded shitty open plan, than it is to have a bunch of 1-2 person sized offices and somehow put 30 into a single office while keeping the others at 1-2. That's the only reason I can excuse open plan in sv tech at all; otherwise it seems to be a clear failure vs. well-executed offices. It's better than the hierarchical allocation of offices/corner offices/etc. to managers, but that isn't the optimal way to deploy offices. We can do better, even at 0-50 person startups, than either.

tempestn 11y ago
That's a great point. It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. Many open plans reserve the prime areas for shared spaces, and there's obviously no reason an office space couldn't (or shouldn't) do that too. In fact, that jogs a faint memory of another post on HN some months back of an office like that; all the actual offices were on the interior, and the window spaces were all hallways, meeting rooms, and break areas. Can anyone remember what that was?
- hkmurakami 11y ago
  >It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. IIRC this is Microsoft right?
  - erdojo 11y ago
    I interviewed once up at the Borg, and as far as I remember almost everyone had tiny private offices. They were little more than closets. I'm sure some people had bigger/better offices than others, but there was a decent baseline. I've worked in both private offices and big open floorplans like this. Prefer the former. However my favorite work environment was a smaller company where we all had two-person shared offices (most with no windows), and large coworking spaces where one could camp in the sunlight and be more social. The two-person offices kept people from feeling totally isolated and encouraged some level of watercooler conversation, plus gave everyone a sense of privacy and control over their immediate environment. I thought it was the best of both worlds.