5 ms·

I still think this is a dividing topic. I personally enjoy working in an open office. I think I would have a hard time working from home or in a singular offic

by joaodlf 10y ago

I still think this is a dividing topic. I personally enjoy working in an open office. I think I would have a hard time working from home or in a singular office... I need people around me, I like being able to get up and communicate with colleagues. Yes, it can get annoying, but the pros outweigh the cons for me. This isn't the trend in tech, I have a lot of developer colleagues that would prefer to stay at home, or at the very least isolate the tech department from the rest of the company. A while ago my company moved developers into their own office. It didn't last for a long time (for a number of reasons), I saw no benefits in it and was very happy when the decision to move us back in was made.

taneq 10y ago
Maybe - and I know, this is going to sound crazy - maybe companies could provide a little variety and let their developers choose the working environment works best for them?
- joaodlf 10y ago
  Small companies can't really offer that many options. Not everyone works for a large company with multiple offices, different room types, etc. The open office is a concept that saves space too. We have a large open plan office and a few extra meeting rooms people can book. If we were to start walling up the place - half our workers would have to go.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    " If we were to start walling up the place - half our workers would have to go." They would have to go to another office space? Companies move all the time. Floorspace adapts to company operations. Not the other way around - unless something is terribly broken.
    - redblacktree 10y ago
      He's saying he doesn't want to pay for more real estate, and so far his employees are putting up with it.
- erikbye 10y ago
  It should be obvious that a company should cater to individual needs, but they rarely do. E.g. open offices are extremely tiring for most introverts, there should be quiet zones/rooms where these people could go to focus/recharge. Ideally they should be offered private space. There should be strict rules on what is accepted behavior and volumes (of talking) in an open office. Distracting behavior should be reported immediately and corrected.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    People misunderstand diversity as a set of checkboxes, when "cater to individual needs" is the real core of it.
- nunez 10y ago
  That's expensive and doesn't scale for most companies
kartan 10y ago
I also enjoy working in an open office. For me it makes so easy to just pass by and say hello to start a conversation. But my company office is really well designed for that. We also have a lot of meeting rooms where teams can go when they want to do something together that is more noisy or needs more concentration. We have individual rooms for people that wants to concentrate or for managers that want to work on something sensitive. But even that way you will see some teams that are more open than others. You still can have silos, but if you had teams in individual rooms the isolation will be complete. So open offices help, but are not the complete answer. The company values also play a big role on helping in an open and friendly communication. > This isn't the trend in tech, I have a lot of developer colleagues that would prefer to stay at home, or at the very least isolate the tech department from the rest of the company. For me this is the company values part. If you feel that you don't fit or that you have nothing in common with the rest of the people of the company that's an issue to solve.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >I also enjoy working in an open office. For me it makes so easy to just pass by and say hello to start a conversation. And kill the other's focus and "zone" concentration for up to 30 minutes...
  - erikbye 10y ago
    Exactly. Please don't do this.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    I think this varies from company to company. At the place I work this is a normal and accepted thing to stop by someone's cube, say hi, and catch up for a bit.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      In mine too, but I don't think the "kills focus" effect disappears just because the practice is accepted -- so this is kind of orthogonal.
zeroer 10y ago
Different people can have wildly different psychologies and responses to open offices.
coldtea 10y ago
>I need people around me, I like being able to get up and communicate with colleagues. Yes, it can get annoying, but the pros outweigh the cons for me. Yeah, just not for them. [Edit] Now, some might be OK with it, but I don't see how one-sided convenience ("to get up and communicate") can be used as an argument, when the issue clearly involves two sides (and, even more so, the rights of the distracted side seem to me more important than the one wishing to communicate something that can't be bothered to use IM, email, slack and another 200 options).
- JBReefer 10y ago
  One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Drives me bonkers. Maybe it's half that we don't have societal etiquette around open offices.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Nothing that some clever electricity trap on the headphone exterior can't fix.
  - aclsid 10y ago
    Just tell him it is annoying, half-jokes work wonders for this kind of stuff: hey, you should watch out for this guy, he will drive you insane with his headphone assault, as if he was testing a mic or something. I worked with this great guy once but he had this tendency to fart from time to time, until during lunch with the team, I just said, jesus, I'm going to install a fart detector under every chair to see who is the sucker farting all the time and then just call him out loudly. Not going to say that it worked 100% but, it was like a 90% improvement, plus we all had a big laugh every time we hit the topic.
  - BoorishBears 10y ago
    One of my colleagues starts huffing about once a second when he's working on something "intensive (from what I can tell)" (to simulate what I mean, inhale, hold your breath, then suddenly force it out of your mouth against your throat, incredibly loud, and even disrupts my own breathing sometimes) It could be some sort of tic that he struggles with. He's single handedly the reason that I started bringing headphones to work and my morale since he joined us has never been where it was before, except days when he's not in. In fact, on more than one occasion I felt in a really good mood, tried to reflect on why, and realized "oh! he's not here today!" But how can one approach someone about something like that? It drives me insane and if I left the company tomorrow it'd be in the top 3 things that made me leave, but it could very easily be a medical condition! I don't even want to bring it up with a third party because of how immature it sounds "That guy's breathing patterns make me upset", and because I have my own breathing problems (chronic nasal congestion), and sometimes my nose makes whistling sounds! I wonder how many coworkers have been annoyed to the high heavens since I started wearing headphones to cover up that guy's breathing, and was unable to hear my own nose whistling (if I hear it I can usually go to the bathroom and clear my nose a little and it goes away) Sometimes I eat a late lunch or I eat certain foods and my stomach gets really noisy. And I don't mean passing gas, just the sound of my stomach growling loudly. I'm sure it's incredibly annoying to deal with, but how would someone approach me about that? "Hey, could you quiet down your stomach when I'm focusing?" Stuff like that is why open offices are horrible. For every positive interaction I have because the guy I talk to is "right next to me", there's some glaring horribly stressful part that wipes out any gains. I think people use open offices as a crutch for poor communication culture anyways, the fact someone isn't "right next to you" shouldn't mean they have a hard time interacting with you when they need to. To me it feels like a zoo, there's no privacy, almost never a quiet moment, and I'll definitely be reluctant to work at a company with open offices again. There are things between "every office is a sound isolated box with no windows" and "every desk is so close you can hear your coworkers food digest".
erikbye 10y ago
Working in an open office this is actually the biggest distractor: colleagues coming over to talk. Often about things of no relevance to what we are working on. Other times, they could have sent me an IM or email. Instead they get up, and walk over to me. Damn dinosaurs. Then there are the people who are extremely talkative and as a bonus happen to have very shrill voices, a couple of these are seated about 30 meters from my desk, and they still distract and annoy me; wearing headphones and listening to something--anything else--is a must in an open office. I'm sure there actually are surveys/research findings that point to a positive, but most don't, as far as employee happiness and productivity goes.

by joaodlf 10y ago

taneq 10y ago

Maybe - and I know, this is going to sound crazy - maybe companies could provide a little variety and let their developers choose the working environment works best for them?

joaodlf 10y ago
Small companies can't really offer that many options. Not everyone works for a large company with multiple offices, different room types, etc. The open office is a concept that saves space too. We have a large open plan office and a few extra meeting rooms people can book. If we were to start walling up the place - half our workers would have to go.
- fsloth 10y ago
  " If we were to start walling up the place - half our workers would have to go." They would have to go to another office space? Companies move all the time. Floorspace adapts to company operations. Not the other way around - unless something is terribly broken.
  - redblacktree 10y ago
    He's saying he doesn't want to pay for more real estate, and so far his employees are putting up with it.
erikbye 10y ago
It should be obvious that a company should cater to individual needs, but they rarely do. E.g. open offices are extremely tiring for most introverts, there should be quiet zones/rooms where these people could go to focus/recharge. Ideally they should be offered private space. There should be strict rules on what is accepted behavior and volumes (of talking) in an open office. Distracting behavior should be reported immediately and corrected.
- pjc50 10y ago
  People misunderstand diversity as a set of checkboxes, when "cater to individual needs" is the real core of it.
nunez 10y ago
That's expensive and doesn't scale for most companies

kartan 10y ago

I also enjoy working in an open office. For me it makes so easy to just pass by and say hello to start a conversation. But my company office is really well designed for that. We also have a lot of meeting rooms where teams can go when they want to do something together that is more noisy or needs more concentration. We have individual rooms for people that wants to concentrate or for managers that want to work on something sensitive. But even that way you will see some teams that are more open than others. You still can have silos, but if you had teams in individual rooms the isolation will be complete. So open offices help, but are not the complete answer. The company values also play a big role on helping in an open and friendly communication. > This isn't the trend in tech, I have a lot of developer colleagues that would prefer to stay at home, or at the very least isolate the tech department from the rest of the company. For me this is the company values part. If you feel that you don't fit or that you have nothing in common with the rest of the people of the company that's an issue to solve.

coldtea 10y ago
>I also enjoy working in an open office. For me it makes so easy to just pass by and say hello to start a conversation. And kill the other's focus and "zone" concentration for up to 30 minutes...
- erikbye 10y ago
  Exactly. Please don't do this.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  I think this varies from company to company. At the place I work this is a normal and accepted thing to stop by someone's cube, say hi, and catch up for a bit.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    In mine too, but I don't think the "kills focus" effect disappears just because the practice is accepted -- so this is kind of orthogonal.

zeroer 10y ago

Different people can have wildly different psychologies and responses to open offices.

coldtea 10y ago

>I need people around me, I like being able to get up and communicate with colleagues. Yes, it can get annoying, but the pros outweigh the cons for me. Yeah, just not for them. [Edit] Now, some might be OK with it, but I don't see how one-sided convenience ("to get up and communicate") can be used as an argument, when the issue clearly involves two sides (and, even more so, the rights of the distracted side seem to me more important than the one wishing to communicate something that can't be bothered to use IM, email, slack and another 200 options).

JBReefer 10y ago
One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Drives me bonkers. Maybe it's half that we don't have societal etiquette around open offices.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Nothing that some clever electricity trap on the headphone exterior can't fix.
- aclsid 10y ago
  Just tell him it is annoying, half-jokes work wonders for this kind of stuff: hey, you should watch out for this guy, he will drive you insane with his headphone assault, as if he was testing a mic or something. I worked with this great guy once but he had this tendency to fart from time to time, until during lunch with the team, I just said, jesus, I'm going to install a fart detector under every chair to see who is the sucker farting all the time and then just call him out loudly. Not going to say that it worked 100% but, it was like a 90% improvement, plus we all had a big laugh every time we hit the topic.
- BoorishBears 10y ago
  One of my colleagues starts huffing about once a second when he's working on something "intensive (from what I can tell)" (to simulate what I mean, inhale, hold your breath, then suddenly force it out of your mouth against your throat, incredibly loud, and even disrupts my own breathing sometimes) It could be some sort of tic that he struggles with. He's single handedly the reason that I started bringing headphones to work and my morale since he joined us has never been where it was before, except days when he's not in. In fact, on more than one occasion I felt in a really good mood, tried to reflect on why, and realized "oh! he's not here today!" But how can one approach someone about something like that? It drives me insane and if I left the company tomorrow it'd be in the top 3 things that made me leave, but it could very easily be a medical condition! I don't even want to bring it up with a third party because of how immature it sounds "That guy's breathing patterns make me upset", and because I have my own breathing problems (chronic nasal congestion), and sometimes my nose makes whistling sounds! I wonder how many coworkers have been annoyed to the high heavens since I started wearing headphones to cover up that guy's breathing, and was unable to hear my own nose whistling (if I hear it I can usually go to the bathroom and clear my nose a little and it goes away) Sometimes I eat a late lunch or I eat certain foods and my stomach gets really noisy. And I don't mean passing gas, just the sound of my stomach growling loudly. I'm sure it's incredibly annoying to deal with, but how would someone approach me about that? "Hey, could you quiet down your stomach when I'm focusing?" Stuff like that is why open offices are horrible. For every positive interaction I have because the guy I talk to is "right next to me", there's some glaring horribly stressful part that wipes out any gains. I think people use open offices as a crutch for poor communication culture anyways, the fact someone isn't "right next to you" shouldn't mean they have a hard time interacting with you when they need to. To me it feels like a zoo, there's no privacy, almost never a quiet moment, and I'll definitely be reluctant to work at a company with open offices again. There are things between "every office is a sound isolated box with no windows" and "every desk is so close you can hear your coworkers food digest".

erikbye 10y ago

Working in an open office this is actually the biggest distractor: colleagues coming over to talk. Often about things of no relevance to what we are working on. Other times, they could have sent me an IM or email. Instead they get up, and walk over to me. Damn dinosaurs. Then there are the people who are extremely talkative and as a bonus happen to have very shrill voices, a couple of these are seated about 30 meters from my desk, and they still distract and annoy me; wearing headphones and listening to something--anything else--is a must in an open office. I'm sure there actually are surveys/research findings that point to a positive, but most don't, as far as employee happiness and productivity goes.