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The most damning condemnation of the open office is its exclusively for trendy paid corporate work. Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a sin

by VLM 10y ago

The most damning condemnation of the open office is its exclusively for trendy paid corporate work. Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a singles bar. No open source guidelines book ever claimed open source software can't be written unless the author sits at a table in the middle of a wild day care center. No one teaching themselves anything ever heard they'll never learn in a quiet room, they need to try and learn at a Katy Perry concert. Another topic often missed is megacorporations work remotely all the time. In fact I've never met most of the people I work with because they live all over the country, and I work with hardware all over the country, in fact I'm working on a (private) cloud image later today and I'm not even sure what state its physically located in. If the corporation says you're going to work remotely because that outside contractor is 1000 miles away or that director lives 1000 miles the other way, its obviously inherently correct because the corporation said it. But if a mere human being says something similar about his work environment, its obviously wrong because only corporations can be correct. If my boss says she's going to be 100 miles away thats great, if I say my boss is going to be 100 miles away thats inherently evil and must be suppressed.

nilkn 10y ago
You could say that a library on a college campus is sort of like an open office. At least my university's library did have several large, open rooms with lots of desks. But, lo and behold, there's a huge emphasis on being quiet, and you can even be asked to leave if you don't cooperate. Also, my school's library wasn't just an open layout. There were tons of desks in little alcoves and hidden corners all throughout the multi-story building. There were also lots of completely enclosed, private rooms that you could rent for hours on end if you needed lots of verbal collaboration. Very rarely (basically never) have I seen an open office that was as well-designed as that library was with the same emphasis on quietness in the open portion of the office.
- VLM 10y ago
  And all the propaganda about open offices claims transparent collaboration, so you can either run the OO like a silent library and gain no advantage from it because you've virtualized the remote experience and centralized it, or run it like a frat house party in which case no one will accomplish anything other than great piles of transparent collaboration, which won't pay the bills.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  At the time I attended, my college's library had been recently remodeled to provide a bunch of "open" study-/work-space. They were very proud of this, and it was part of a campus mindset of "collaboration is the future." In retrospect, this ended up being quite damaging for me. I spent a lot of effort trying to "adapt" myself to those workspaces and that working style. Often when a setting/assignment left me no other choice. This made me very worried about myself and my future, because -- try as I might -- I just couldn't do it. On the other hand, and at the same time, give me a quiet, undisturbed workspace, and I'd blow the curve. Literally -- I had professors tell me that I was getting 105%, 112%, whatever, in what were considered to be very demanding classes. This "open" mindset was prevalent everywhere, and -- like "Java is the future" -- permeated not just workplace but also educational institutions and even popular culture. In short, in academia just as much as in the work world, I found lots of authority figures and institutions dictating to me how I was "supposed to be." And a lot of that came out of current trends -- as bad as this year's "mind the gap" corporate best seller self-help book. The counter-culture "revolution" of the '60's and '70's did get one thing right, with their moniker of "The Man." You can't just escape The Man. But it is healthy to take his advice with skepticism and to find your own way. Something that e.g. a liberal education purports to teach you. (But too often doesn't -- especially not in terms of your actual day-to-day life, by example, while under its tutelage.) The Man is always going to tell you "how it is, how it's going to be". It's up to you to say no, and to stand by that. If someone teaches you this, early on, thank them -- once you realize it. Work the way that works for you. While you're still young and "footloose" and have the ability, walk away from situations that oppose this. I remember, during one aspect of my corporate career, during a 5 minute conversation and description of a tool, making a consultant's life quite considerably easier and more productive. A tool they, by virtue of their... frankly, social position and respect granted by the institution -- a tool they had budget for, while I did not. Management was very happy with them, while I continued to get by on the whatever % increases were handed down from on high. I should have been on the other side of that equation. Effectively, I introduced the tool. I should have reaped the consultant's reward and respect. But I'd been too well taught to struggle within the ill-fitting system that is "how it is." To the point where I was trapped by my own thinking and emotion. Work remotely, if it's what works for you. Before you can't.
aqme28 10y ago
> Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a singles bar. Counterexample: In college I did most of my work in our library, which was of course an open layout.
- dasmoth 10y ago
  Libraries have slightly different rules to the average open plan office: in particular, there's a fairly strong expectation of silence and if you can hear people talking in the distance, it's relatively unlikely that the conversation directly affects your project -- so less of an urge to tune in. There are often (although, I know, not always) some kind of alcoves to hide if you don't like open-back visibility, too. (Some of the "positive" reports I've heard about open offices at, e.g., Facebook make it sound like they come with expectations of quiet that are as strong as a typical library. ...)
- agentgt 10y ago
  Counter counter example: my college had a library and it was hardly open layout. It was a giant maze of rooms. With the exception of the entrance the only libraries I can think of that are sort of open are ironically old famous ones and even those have pockets of rooms. The stacked shelves basically create rooms. It would be like calling cubicles open layout.
- chris_7 10y ago
  Personally I always just used my apartment (dual monitors, good chair) and found the attraction to the library strange, but... presumably people treated it like... a library? There were no dogs running around. No one played music. No one held conversations or borderline meetings over your head? No one played the drums on their desk or hummed along with their music? If these rules were violated, I assume you'd get kicked out, although no one did, because that's how you behave in a library.My library did have study rooms that you could go into for your study groups, etc. These are not things that you can expect in an open office. If people treated them like libraries, and the offenders were kicked out (fired, I guess?), they'd be a lot more tolerable. Also, stacks kill sound. I can hear people running a coffee grinder in the kitchen (dude, just sleep more!).
- 10y ago
koliber 10y ago
Regarding corporations working remotely, you are correct, but only considering one definition of "remotely". In the context of this article, working "remotely" means that an individual is working remotely from all other individuals in an organization. This is different from one team working remotely from other teams. I am a huge proponent of individual remote work. Having done it for many years and experiencing it from both sides, I can confidently say that the challenges involved are different from a corporate office that is physically separate from other offices.
- VLM 10y ago
  At "megacorp" every other team I work with is remote to me. You do correctly make the point that I personally spend more time working with numerous other teams than with my own team, and that ratio likely varies a lot. There are likely jobs where members never talk to anyone outside their local team. That must be pretty boring, but it almost certainly exists. No one seems concerned that virtually all my working interactions are with "far away teams". Probably because it works very well and comes from top down directives not bottom up.
tyingq 10y ago
I suspect that often, the real purpose of open office is just reduced square footage costs. I've also seen the far end of open office (no assigned spaces, first-come / first served) used to mask the effect of constant layoffs. If people are spread around randomly, missing clusters aren't as easily noticed.

by VLM 10y ago

nilkn 10y ago

You could say that a library on a college campus is sort of like an open office. At least my university's library did have several large, open rooms with lots of desks. But, lo and behold, there's a huge emphasis on being quiet, and you can even be asked to leave if you don't cooperate. Also, my school's library wasn't just an open layout. There were tons of desks in little alcoves and hidden corners all throughout the multi-story building. There were also lots of completely enclosed, private rooms that you could rent for hours on end if you needed lots of verbal collaboration. Very rarely (basically never) have I seen an open office that was as well-designed as that library was with the same emphasis on quietness in the open portion of the office.

VLM 10y ago
And all the propaganda about open offices claims transparent collaboration, so you can either run the OO like a silent library and gain no advantage from it because you've virtualized the remote experience and centralized it, or run it like a frat house party in which case no one will accomplish anything other than great piles of transparent collaboration, which won't pay the bills.
pasbesoin 10y ago
At the time I attended, my college's library had been recently remodeled to provide a bunch of "open" study-/work-space. They were very proud of this, and it was part of a campus mindset of "collaboration is the future." In retrospect, this ended up being quite damaging for me. I spent a lot of effort trying to "adapt" myself to those workspaces and that working style. Often when a setting/assignment left me no other choice. This made me very worried about myself and my future, because -- try as I might -- I just couldn't do it. On the other hand, and at the same time, give me a quiet, undisturbed workspace, and I'd blow the curve. Literally -- I had professors tell me that I was getting 105%, 112%, whatever, in what were considered to be very demanding classes. This "open" mindset was prevalent everywhere, and -- like "Java is the future" -- permeated not just workplace but also educational institutions and even popular culture. In short, in academia just as much as in the work world, I found lots of authority figures and institutions dictating to me how I was "supposed to be." And a lot of that came out of current trends -- as bad as this year's "mind the gap" corporate best seller self-help book. The counter-culture "revolution" of the '60's and '70's did get one thing right, with their moniker of "The Man." You can't just escape The Man. But it is healthy to take his advice with skepticism and to find your own way. Something that e.g. a liberal education purports to teach you. (But too often doesn't -- especially not in terms of your actual day-to-day life, by example, while under its tutelage.) The Man is always going to tell you "how it is, how it's going to be". It's up to you to say no, and to stand by that. If someone teaches you this, early on, thank them -- once you realize it. Work the way that works for you. While you're still young and "footloose" and have the ability, walk away from situations that oppose this. I remember, during one aspect of my corporate career, during a 5 minute conversation and description of a tool, making a consultant's life quite considerably easier and more productive. A tool they, by virtue of their... frankly, social position and respect granted by the institution -- a tool they had budget for, while I did not. Management was very happy with them, while I continued to get by on the whatever % increases were handed down from on high. I should have been on the other side of that equation. Effectively, I introduced the tool. I should have reaped the consultant's reward and respect. But I'd been too well taught to struggle within the ill-fitting system that is "how it is." To the point where I was trapped by my own thinking and emotion. Work remotely, if it's what works for you. Before you can't.

aqme28 10y ago

> Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a singles bar. Counterexample: In college I did most of my work in our library, which was of course an open layout.

dasmoth 10y ago
Libraries have slightly different rules to the average open plan office: in particular, there's a fairly strong expectation of silence and if you can hear people talking in the distance, it's relatively unlikely that the conversation directly affects your project -- so less of an urge to tune in. There are often (although, I know, not always) some kind of alcoves to hide if you don't like open-back visibility, too. (Some of the "positive" reports I've heard about open offices at, e.g., Facebook make it sound like they come with expectations of quiet that are as strong as a typical library. ...)
agentgt 10y ago
Counter counter example: my college had a library and it was hardly open layout. It was a giant maze of rooms. With the exception of the entrance the only libraries I can think of that are sort of open are ironically old famous ones and even those have pockets of rooms. The stacked shelves basically create rooms. It would be like calling cubicles open layout.
chris_7 10y ago
Personally I always just used my apartment (dual monitors, good chair) and found the attraction to the library strange, but... presumably people treated it like... a library? There were no dogs running around. No one played music. No one held conversations or borderline meetings over your head? No one played the drums on their desk or hummed along with their music? If these rules were violated, I assume you'd get kicked out, although no one did, because that's how you behave in a library.My library did have study rooms that you could go into for your study groups, etc. These are not things that you can expect in an open office. If people treated them like libraries, and the offenders were kicked out (fired, I guess?), they'd be a lot more tolerable. Also, stacks kill sound. I can hear people running a coffee grinder in the kitchen (dude, just sleep more!).
10y ago

koliber 10y ago

Regarding corporations working remotely, you are correct, but only considering one definition of "remotely". In the context of this article, working "remotely" means that an individual is working remotely from all other individuals in an organization. This is different from one team working remotely from other teams. I am a huge proponent of individual remote work. Having done it for many years and experiencing it from both sides, I can confidently say that the challenges involved are different from a corporate office that is physically separate from other offices.

VLM 10y ago
At "megacorp" every other team I work with is remote to me. You do correctly make the point that I personally spend more time working with numerous other teams than with my own team, and that ratio likely varies a lot. There are likely jobs where members never talk to anyone outside their local team. That must be pretty boring, but it almost certainly exists. No one seems concerned that virtually all my working interactions are with "far away teams". Probably because it works very well and comes from top down directives not bottom up.

tyingq 10y ago

I suspect that often, the real purpose of open office is just reduced square footage costs. I've also seen the far end of open office (no assigned spaces, first-come / first served) used to mask the effect of constant layoffs. If people are spread around randomly, missing clusters aren't as easily noticed.