8 ms·

Bloomberg, a company famous for an executive who expressed this same "down in the trenches" preference for cubicles, famously does not have offices. Far from t

by p4wnc6 11y ago

Bloomberg, a company famous for an executive who expressed this same "down in the trenches" preference for cubicles, famously does not have offices. Far from their "egalitarian" culture leading to acceptable working conditions over time, it has only enshrined the idea that no one, ever, may have an office. It is much better that some people have offices even if not all do, for then at least there can be a path to earning the chance to work in one. Some hope. When they are all taken away under the guise of egalitarian conditions, you can bet they are not coming back.

eitally 11y ago
Then go work for a company that provides offices. As an employee, that's your choice and you are welcome to subjectively value egalitarianism exemplified in this way versus hierarchical "perks" that manifest in personal offices.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  My goal is to lobby for broad social change, not merely to locate one single private workspace for just me. Complaining about what is wrong with it is a good way to help others, who might not have even considered that workspace should be treated as a negotiable option for them and reflect their personal work style and needs, and potentially create more momentum among the crowd that reads HN, to help set the trend that it ought to be considered unreasonable when an employer whitewashes over human variation when it's actually more cost-effective to provide offices to any knowledge worker who prefers one.
Grishnakh 11y ago
I think you're missing the point with Bloomberg. The whole idea with that place is that they don't like offices: they don't want anyone to have one because they think offices are a bad thing. They think people work better in one big giant, open, noisy room. A bunch of companies these days have bought into this philosophy, and a bunch of young hipsters think it's great. So Blooomberg hasn't eliminated offices to try to oppress people as you're implying, or because of any egalitarian ideals, they've done it because they genuinely think it improves productivity. You and I probably agree that this is incorrect, but we're not Michael Bloomberg. I know that I would hate working in that environment, but I know about it so I don't apply for any jobs at Bloomberg. Many of the people who work there probably actually like it that way; extroverted people like very different environments than introverts. I used to work at Intel back when we had 8x9 cubicles, and now, after various different jobs and different working conditions, I now think it was one of the best work environments I've ever had. I briefly had a walled office at one place and that was nice too. But the 8x9 cubicles were pretty good; we had "do not disturb" signs we could hang across the entrance to keep people from bothering us, and things were generally pretty quiet and I could concentrate and work and not have to see people all the time. After that, things went downhill: cubicles got smaller, then the walls got shorter, they went away altogether, as companies jumped on the "open plan work space" concept to various degrees.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I agree with your description of Bloomberg's beliefs and motivation for it, and I agree that many other organizations, especially start-ups, cargo cult on the back of this. Since the belief that offices are bad in terms of cost or productivity (e.g. Bloomberg's belief that people work better in noisy, open spaces) is demonstrably and quantitatively incorrect, and inflicts undeniable mental and physical health problems, it's all the more important to vocally argue for private working conditions as a social issues. This isn't about my specific preference. It's about what the data says, and has said for decades. By comparison, if some company said that workers worked better in a room filled with second-hand smoke, we wouldn't care whether or not they believed this. It's simply a wrong and harmful belief that ought to be stopped. In other words, we should not allow Bloomberg's management to impose a demonstrably unhealthy working condition (violent lack of privacy) regardless of whatever incorrect fictions they happen to use to justify it.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    There's a problem with your analysis: you're assuming that people are all the same, and that work is all the same. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that noisy, open spaces inflict "undeniable mental and physical health problems", or is that just your personal belief? This isn't like smoking: there is zero evidence that smoking is good for your health, and all kinds of evidence that it causes health problems, because our shared basic biology is consistent enough that this is true. For one example of a work environment where noisy, open spaces seem to work well, just look at stock traders at NYSE on the trading floor. That whole environment works by people being close to each other and able to turn around and talk to each other at a moment's notice. I sure as hell wouldn't want to work there, but there are people who seem to like that environment. I don't like open-plan offices either, but I'm not going to assume that what works for me works for everyone else. From what I've seen, the type of people getting involved in programming in recent years are not the same type of people who got involved in it back in the 70s and 80s, so it's quite possible these offices really do improve productivity overall. It's also possible that certain personality types gravitate toward certain industries, so certain workplaces work better in those industries than in others. The people interested in finance are probably not the same kind of people interested in, say, programming Arduinos. Maybe Bloomberg's office really does work out well for them. I don't have any data to disprove their beliefs, other than my own personal bias, but I can't claim to speak for all programmers.

by p4wnc6 11y ago

eitally 11y ago

Then go work for a company that provides offices. As an employee, that's your choice and you are welcome to subjectively value egalitarianism exemplified in this way versus hierarchical "perks" that manifest in personal offices.

p4wnc6 11y ago
My goal is to lobby for broad social change, not merely to locate one single private workspace for just me. Complaining about what is wrong with it is a good way to help others, who might not have even considered that workspace should be treated as a negotiable option for them and reflect their personal work style and needs, and potentially create more momentum among the crowd that reads HN, to help set the trend that it ought to be considered unreasonable when an employer whitewashes over human variation when it's actually more cost-effective to provide offices to any knowledge worker who prefers one.

Grishnakh 11y ago

I think you're missing the point with Bloomberg. The whole idea with that place is that they don't like offices: they don't want anyone to have one because they think offices are a bad thing. They think people work better in one big giant, open, noisy room. A bunch of companies these days have bought into this philosophy, and a bunch of young hipsters think it's great. So Blooomberg hasn't eliminated offices to try to oppress people as you're implying, or because of any egalitarian ideals, they've done it because they genuinely think it improves productivity. You and I probably agree that this is incorrect, but we're not Michael Bloomberg. I know that I would hate working in that environment, but I know about it so I don't apply for any jobs at Bloomberg. Many of the people who work there probably actually like it that way; extroverted people like very different environments than introverts. I used to work at Intel back when we had 8x9 cubicles, and now, after various different jobs and different working conditions, I now think it was one of the best work environments I've ever had. I briefly had a walled office at one place and that was nice too. But the 8x9 cubicles were pretty good; we had "do not disturb" signs we could hang across the entrance to keep people from bothering us, and things were generally pretty quiet and I could concentrate and work and not have to see people all the time. After that, things went downhill: cubicles got smaller, then the walls got shorter, they went away altogether, as companies jumped on the "open plan work space" concept to various degrees.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I agree with your description of Bloomberg's beliefs and motivation for it, and I agree that many other organizations, especially start-ups, cargo cult on the back of this. Since the belief that offices are bad in terms of cost or productivity (e.g. Bloomberg's belief that people work better in noisy, open spaces) is demonstrably and quantitatively incorrect, and inflicts undeniable mental and physical health problems, it's all the more important to vocally argue for private working conditions as a social issues. This isn't about my specific preference. It's about what the data says, and has said for decades. By comparison, if some company said that workers worked better in a room filled with second-hand smoke, we wouldn't care whether or not they believed this. It's simply a wrong and harmful belief that ought to be stopped. In other words, we should not allow Bloomberg's management to impose a demonstrably unhealthy working condition (violent lack of privacy) regardless of whatever incorrect fictions they happen to use to justify it.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  There's a problem with your analysis: you're assuming that people are all the same, and that work is all the same. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that noisy, open spaces inflict "undeniable mental and physical health problems", or is that just your personal belief? This isn't like smoking: there is zero evidence that smoking is good for your health, and all kinds of evidence that it causes health problems, because our shared basic biology is consistent enough that this is true. For one example of a work environment where noisy, open spaces seem to work well, just look at stock traders at NYSE on the trading floor. That whole environment works by people being close to each other and able to turn around and talk to each other at a moment's notice. I sure as hell wouldn't want to work there, but there are people who seem to like that environment. I don't like open-plan offices either, but I'm not going to assume that what works for me works for everyone else. From what I've seen, the type of people getting involved in programming in recent years are not the same type of people who got involved in it back in the 70s and 80s, so it's quite possible these offices really do improve productivity overall. It's also possible that certain personality types gravitate toward certain industries, so certain workplaces work better in those industries than in others. The people interested in finance are probably not the same kind of people interested in, say, programming Arduinos. Maybe Bloomberg's office really does work out well for them. I don't have any data to disprove their beliefs, other than my own personal bias, but I can't claim to speak for all programmers.