5 ms·

What is with this cynicism? Bay area tech "drones" are some of the luckiest workers in the world. I work at a pretty average tech company here in the bay and ev

by dntrkv 9y ago

What is with this cynicism? Bay area tech "drones" are some of the luckiest workers in the world. I work at a pretty average tech company here in the bay and every day I am amazed at how good I have it. I get paid multiple times the country average, I live in a beautiful city, I take at least a month off per year, I work with awesome people on fun projects using cool, new tech. Jesus, what more could you ask for? Most people I know here in the bay feel similarly yet here on HN I only see this cynicism. Here we have a company that goes way out of their way to build a ridiculously cool campus for their employees and the top comment is talking about how it's no different from what we see in Office Space. Jesus christ are you all really that jaded?

jshevek 9y ago
The top comment did not say what you claim they said. Being "no different" is not the same as "still the same in certain respects" I don't think this building is "ridiculously cool." "Out of their way" ? Are you suggesting altruism or generosity?
- valuearb 9y ago
  They don't have cubes. They don't have an open floor plan. Those single person pod/offices are huge productivity benefits that most tech companies simply won't invest in.
  - jshevek 9y ago
    "Huge productivity benefits" Citation needed.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Peopleware/Mythical Man month. Anyone who has ever done any amount of software development professionally.
      - jshevek 9y ago
        Yes, you have no objective evidence that this layout results in improved productivity, yet casually throw that assertion around as if it were fact.
        valuearb 9y ago
        i don't have my copy of Peopleware handy but here are some quotes on studies it references: "Workplace Quality and Product Quality - Companies that provide small and noisy workplaces explain away complaints as workers campaigning for the added status of bigger, more private space. To determine whether noise level had any correlation to work, we divided our sample into those who found the workplace acceptably quiet and those who didn't. Then, looking at workers within each group who completed the entire exercise without a single defect: > Workers who reported that their workplace was acceptably quiet before the exercise were 1/3 more likely to deliver zero-defect work. As the noise level gets worse, this trend gets stronger: Zero-defect workers: => 66% reported noise level OK 1-or-more-defect workers: => 8% reported noise level OK A Discovery of Nobel Prize Significance - On February 3, 1984, in a study of 32,346 companies worldwide, the authors confirmed a virtually perfect inverse relationship between people density and dedicated floor space per person. If you're having trouble seeing why this matters, you're not thinking about noise. Noise is directly proportional to density, so halving the allotment of space per person can be expected to double the noise. Even if you managed to prove conclusively that a programmer could work in 30 sq. ft. without being hopelessly space-bound, you still wouldn't be able to conclude that 30 sq. ft. is adequate space. The noise in a 30 sq. ft matrix is more than triple the noise in a 100 sq. ft. matrix, which could make the difference between a plague of product defects and none at all." So everyone should just put on headphones, right? Peopleware says no. "experiment done at Cornell -- they gave two groups a complicated task involving a long string of calculations. One group listened to music while performing the task, and one group had silence. What they didn't tell either group is that the complicated string of calculations always returned the original number. It turned out that not everyone figured this out, but of the people who did, a large majority came from the group that did not listen to music. The theory apparently being is that listening to music is somehow engaging the part of the brain involved in creative thought, keeping it "busy" enough not to be able to look at the big picture of the task being performed." All developers should consider their surroundings and how they affect their thought process. I actually stopped listening to popular music while developing, after I read this and some other studies about it's effect at keeping part of your brain (the language processing parts) occupied. I still listen to music part time, and try to listen to instrumentals only.

by dntrkv 9y ago

jshevek 9y ago

The top comment did not say what you claim they said. Being "no different" is not the same as "still the same in certain respects" I don't think this building is "ridiculously cool." "Out of their way" ? Are you suggesting altruism or generosity?

valuearb 9y ago
They don't have cubes. They don't have an open floor plan. Those single person pod/offices are huge productivity benefits that most tech companies simply won't invest in.
- jshevek 9y ago
  "Huge productivity benefits" Citation needed.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Peopleware/Mythical Man month. Anyone who has ever done any amount of software development professionally.
    - jshevek 9y ago
      Yes, you have no objective evidence that this layout results in improved productivity, yet casually throw that assertion around as if it were fact.
      - valuearb 9y ago
        i don't have my copy of Peopleware handy but here are some quotes on studies it references: "Workplace Quality and Product Quality - Companies that provide small and noisy workplaces explain away complaints as workers campaigning for the added status of bigger, more private space. To determine whether noise level had any correlation to work, we divided our sample into those who found the workplace acceptably quiet and those who didn't. Then, looking at workers within each group who completed the entire exercise without a single defect: > Workers who reported that their workplace was acceptably quiet before the exercise were 1/3 more likely to deliver zero-defect work. As the noise level gets worse, this trend gets stronger: Zero-defect workers: => 66% reported noise level OK 1-or-more-defect workers: => 8% reported noise level OK A Discovery of Nobel Prize Significance - On February 3, 1984, in a study of 32,346 companies worldwide, the authors confirmed a virtually perfect inverse relationship between people density and dedicated floor space per person. If you're having trouble seeing why this matters, you're not thinking about noise. Noise is directly proportional to density, so halving the allotment of space per person can be expected to double the noise. Even if you managed to prove conclusively that a programmer could work in 30 sq. ft. without being hopelessly space-bound, you still wouldn't be able to conclude that 30 sq. ft. is adequate space. The noise in a 30 sq. ft matrix is more than triple the noise in a 100 sq. ft. matrix, which could make the difference between a plague of product defects and none at all." So everyone should just put on headphones, right? Peopleware says no. "experiment done at Cornell -- they gave two groups a complicated task involving a long string of calculations. One group listened to music while performing the task, and one group had silence. What they didn't tell either group is that the complicated string of calculations always returned the original number. It turned out that not everyone figured this out, but of the people who did, a large majority came from the group that did not listen to music. The theory apparently being is that listening to music is somehow engaging the part of the brain involved in creative thought, keeping it "busy" enough not to be able to look at the big picture of the task being performed." All developers should consider their surroundings and how they affect their thought process. I actually stopped listening to popular music while developing, after I read this and some other studies about it's effect at keeping part of your brain (the language processing parts) occupied. I still listen to music part time, and try to listen to instrumentals only.