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I think it was done to save money at some point, and then because so many people do it, it seems like the right thing to do now. Yet everyone who happens to get
by NotSammyHagar 10y ago
I think it was done to save money at some point, and then because so many people do it, it seems like the right thing to do now. Yet everyone who happens to get a chance at an office wants it.
- coliveira 10y agoI have met people who never had an office, so they thing that open office is great and wound't want an office...
- drstewart 10y agoI worked at a place with my own office and at open plan offices and much prefer the latter, but thank you for your condescension.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoOkay, well I guess I am corrected, there are people who like open offices. I didn't mean it to be condescending. I have a number of friends who are devs, and they had a similar feeling to me and we made a mistake in assuming that our experience was universal (a common mistake :-)).
- p4wnc6 10y agoIt's been well-known since at least the time when Peopleware was first published (so at least several decades) that open-plan office designs don't actually save money. Not even in dense urban areas. Not even over short time periods like 1 year. In order to believe that they do, you essentially have to have such an unrealistically hyperbolic discount function that you believe marginal productivity of your workers is nearly worthless compared to the up-front costs of the real estate.
- pitay 10y agoSometimes it is not done to save money. At my previous workplace we had a new CEO come in 4 years ago. 1st. She trashed talked what was done before. 2nd. she took away any coffee or tea provided for employees to use, saying it cost $10000 a year to provide them. 3rd. Then she got a plan for a complete renovation of the office space, so executive officers had offices in the middle of the building that looked out over what would be open plan offices, so that no-one had the slightest bit of privacy at all. This was not done to fit more people in. 4th. Then a move to a completely different state in the country was being talked about. I am glad I don't work there any more. Edit: Formatting.
- s_kilk 10y agoRegarding #3: isn't that how modern prisons are constructed? A central "panopticon" watchtower looking out into the cells.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoSo was it IBM, as someone says down thread? That's a pretty horrible sequence of behaviors. I wonder how the CEO would describe those choices? Honestly appraising the previous leader for #1? For #2, I remember when steve ballmer removed all office supplies at microsoft except for the first floor in every building, to "save money". It was kind of stupid. #3 does sound like a prison. Basically, why would anyone want to work at a place like that?
- pitay 10y agoNo I was working at a, I would say smaller, regulatory agency, I don't want to be any more specific than that. Probably should have mentioned that in the original post, my apologies.
- jib 10y agoI don't want an office. I explicitly say no to one each year. Not to say that many people don't want one, but for me it would be detrimental. Being in an open area lets me overhear things that are useful and removes one barrier to socialising. If I was in an office I would do neither - I'm not the type to hang around the water cooler so being in an open ara combats that some.