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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 b

by 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.
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I'm hardly assuming people are all the same -- that's the very thing that places like Bloomberg, which standardize on a one-size-fits-all model for the sake of cheapness yet come up with political stories to plausibly defend it, are doing. I'm saying don't make all seating open-plan. Don't allow mandates for one-size-fits-all seating. For those who require privacy to be productive, spend the money required to give it to them. For those who thrive in a constant communication stream, spend the money to give it to them. I'm not going to Google the pile of evidence mounting against open plan offices for you. But I will say that I worked in quant finance for a while and the idea that an open trading floor is needed, even at the exchange, is a big lie. It's about status and showmanship, and functions as nothing but a hindrance to completing actual job duties. Open-plan fire-drill quant finance was the first work environment that actually showed me how much of a lie it is. Every single person hated it, and at least in part the bonuses and inflated compensation was required just to get people to engage in the Sisyphean task of trying to get their work done in that environment. It was like hiring Usain Bolt and asking him to break the world record for a 100m sprint -- but to do it in your swimming pool. There are many high frequency shops and quant hedge funds where they need real-time audio links between traders, and yet they still organize into private offices and use teleconferencing and workplace chat, and it ends up being far more effective than having them physically colocated. In one case, I even remember one of the primary researchers was given special permission to live in San Francisco even though the entire rest of trading team worked on the East Coast, simply because he had family reasons that required him to be on the West Coast. It didn't degrade communication or knowledge sharing, even in rapid trading situations, at all.
  - Grishnakh 11y ago
    That all sounds great, except that if every single person hates these environments, and there are "many" shops that have private offices, why aren't the places like Bloomberg failing because they can't find qualified people to work there (and/or their productivity is lousy compared to their competitors with private offices)?
    - p4wnc6 11y ago

by p4wnc6 11y ago

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.

p4wnc6 11y ago
I'm hardly assuming people are all the same -- that's the very thing that places like Bloomberg, which standardize on a one-size-fits-all model for the sake of cheapness yet come up with political stories to plausibly defend it, are doing. I'm saying don't make all seating open-plan. Don't allow mandates for one-size-fits-all seating. For those who require privacy to be productive, spend the money required to give it to them. For those who thrive in a constant communication stream, spend the money to give it to them. I'm not going to Google the pile of evidence mounting against open plan offices for you. But I will say that I worked in quant finance for a while and the idea that an open trading floor is needed, even at the exchange, is a big lie. It's about status and showmanship, and functions as nothing but a hindrance to completing actual job duties. Open-plan fire-drill quant finance was the first work environment that actually showed me how much of a lie it is. Every single person hated it, and at least in part the bonuses and inflated compensation was required just to get people to engage in the Sisyphean task of trying to get their work done in that environment. It was like hiring Usain Bolt and asking him to break the world record for a 100m sprint -- but to do it in your swimming pool. There are many high frequency shops and quant hedge funds where they need real-time audio links between traders, and yet they still organize into private offices and use teleconferencing and workplace chat, and it ends up being far more effective than having them physically colocated. In one case, I even remember one of the primary researchers was given special permission to live in San Francisco even though the entire rest of trading team worked on the East Coast, simply because he had family reasons that required him to be on the West Coast. It didn't degrade communication or knowledge sharing, even in rapid trading situations, at all.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  That all sounds great, except that if every single person hates these environments, and there are "many" shops that have private offices, why aren't the places like Bloomberg failing because they can't find qualified people to work there (and/or their productivity is lousy compared to their competitors with private offices)?
  - p4wnc6 11y ago