8 ms·
An open office wouldn't be so bad if library-like codes of silence were enforced.
by dilap 10y ago
An open office wouldn't be so bad if library-like codes of silence were enforced.
- QuercusMax 10y agoWhere I work (at Google), it's generally pretty quiet; you'll occasionally have conversations going on, but most of the time all you hear is typing. It's not quite "library-like", but making phone calls at your desk is very strongly frowned upon. At my last company, we generally had 1-2 person offices; it was very easy to stay in your office all day long and never interact with other developers. With the open plan here, we're much more likely to have impromptu team conversations. I think it would be better if we were in separate rooms in groups of 8-10, but open offices definitely are not all negative. When I work from home I miss the human interaction.
- jrockway 10y agoI mean, Google is a big company, and it varies widely. I sit in an open office space with the staffing team. They are much louder than our team, most of the time. I like the idea of team rooms, we should try more of that.
- Consultant32452 10y agoDid you not have a team chat application in your 1-2 person offices? In my experience that has always provided an excellent balance between distraction and isolation.
- QuercusMax 10y agoSure, it helps to some degree, but can also be very distracting in its own right. Being able to turn to the person next to you or behind you and ask a question is very different from pinging somebody over IM / IRC / etc.
- chris11 10y agoHow do you like the office plans? From what I've seen Google seems to mainly use open offices.
- 1_2__3 10y agoTry sitting in an area near, say, a marketing team. It's not quiet.
- Nav_Panel 10y agoEven a little respect would go a long way. I don't mind people having conversations, but loud laughter from the team across the way can really get on my nerves. And don't even get me started on phones ringing...
- chris_7 10y agoI strongly mind people having conversations about anything that is not work-related. If you want to talk about Game of Thrones or the latest sportsball game, take it outside.
- chris_7 10y agoYep. Work in an office with communal[1] music, it's really bad for focus. I would say that this policy likely loses us money. [1] controlled by a clique, really
- Declanomous 10y agoI thought listening to music all day was bad. Then I got moved in to a cube area when I got promoted. The old-timers listen to the radio all day. The radio is so much worse than just listening to other people's music -- not only am I forced to listen to music I don't care for, but the ads are twice as loud as the actual music. So I can completely tune out the music and still be interrupted by some grifter yelling about what a crazy deal you can get on a new car.
- pvdebbe 10y agoAds & music. You got off easy! Combine with a bunch of inept presenters that fill in time by raving about tabloid news like it's their religion. It's madness.
- monk_e_boy 10y agoI used to work in a place like that, sometimes I would get up and dance (badly) and shout banging chooons! ... they soon turned it off. Another place they had the radio on so I would laugh loudly at the DJs jokes, then say oh man, so funny, but so distracting, what was I doing again? Oh hell. I can't remember. They turned that off too.
- suyash 10y agoGood point, the real problem is not open offie vs closed office. It's distractions - noise, interruptions, visual distractions etc outside of the computer screen. Actually if you really think about it, the biggest distractions for quality work are multi-tasking on the computer.