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Why do CEO's think they're alone in the need for quiet spaces where they can focus? Sure some people can work in the noisy space where interruptions abound. The
by coffeeski 9y ago
Why do CEO's think they're alone in the need for quiet spaces where they can focus? Sure some people can work in the noisy space where interruptions abound. The only thing in my office that works well with interruptions is my CPU. I'd rather have a Cube farm, but better yet, a small tiny phone booth as an office.
- adamnemecek 9y agoIt's from wsj. They consider you replaceable.
- coffeeski 9y agoI would take a 10% paycut to have a small office that fits 2 monitors, a filing cabinet and some pictures, rather then dealing with constant clattering of the guy behind me that decided converting a type writer into a digital keyboard was a good idea.
- ronnier 9y agoThe mechanical keyboard people in open offices bother me.
- jcadam 9y agoThe problem is the open office, not the mechanical keyboards (which are awesome, btw).
- cdegroot 9y agoI'm a nice guy, I paid the extra $$ for silent mechanical keys (http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/ http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/) ;-)
- busterarm 9y agoYeah, but then you have to have those terrible, bastard ALPS switches. Sorry, strong personal preference here. I use Topre anyway.
- mark-r 9y agoThe switches are their own, they only use ALPS for the keytops. Unless they contract out to ALPS for manufacturing and I missed it.
- busterarm 9y agoSorry, you're absolutely correct. Still, pain in the arse to get decent keysets for and I've always found the ALPS design to be 'wobbly'. Something about them is extremely uncomfortable to me.
- mark-r 9y agoThank you! I've been looking for a keyboard like that for years, ever since I had to get rid of my old Zeos mechanical to keep my wife from going insane in our shared office space. The Quiet Pro PC looks absolutely perfect.
- throwanem 9y agoThe noise is from bottoming out. Put spacers on the keycap stems, and it stops being a problem, no matter what kind of switch you use. This is easy to do and only a little time-consuming. It's easier and faster when you take a cheap Bic pen, pull out the tip and ink tube, and use the body tube to press the spacers down on the stems - it's just the right diameter, and makes the job much faster. The spacers are cheap, too, being simple silicone rubber O-rings, and as an extra benefit, the rubber eats up a lot of the bottoming-out force that'd otherwise be transmitted up the key into your fingers, which means you type more comfortably as well as more quietly.
- abritinthebay 9y agoOr people could just type with less force? I'm not sure where the cultural norm of beating up a keyboard comes from but it's a very inefficient way to type.
- throwanem 9y agoBeats me, but if it comes down to a choice between reengineering people's behavior or reengineering their tools so they can do the same thing they've always done but not get such a poor result, I know which one I've seen to work and which one I haven't.
- cr0sh 9y ago> The noise is from bottoming out. Not with my Model M! /buckling springs ftw...
- throwanem 9y agoI remember my Model Ms with fond nostalgia. I have no desire whatsoever to give up my MX Blues and return to them.
- nilkn 9y agoIn my opinion, if you know you're going to be working in an open office setting, you should try to be courteous and minimize the negative impact you have on your coworkers. I think you should be willing to make the choice to use a quieter keyboard that isn't necessarily your favorite. So I'd say the problem is with both. The open office is the ultimate source of the issue, but it can be compounded by workers who make choices that exacerbate the situation. The reality is that an open office can be quite pleasant if the people working in it collectively make effective choices that take into account the well-being of the group.
- strictnein 9y agoAgreed. I have a mechanical keyboard at home (Corsair Gaming K95 RGB), but at work I use a Mac wired keyboard (on a PC). Super quiet and probably the best performing scissor switch keyboard. edit: proper Mac keyboard type
- kentt 9y agoI'm guessing you mean scissor switch not membrane.
- strictnein 9y agoAhh, yes, you're correct.
- arkitaip 9y agoHey, I have the same keyboard! Do you actually use all the extra G keys or macros? I thought I would but the cognitive load of memorizing what each G key stands for is too much.
- strictnein 9y agoI've tried to, but I'm in the same boat as you I think.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI recently got one and I admit it's really loud. But this shouldn't be an issue in a decent workplace. I have several guys near me who have loud voices and talk a lot. That's worse than a loud keyboard. Open office plans are the problem, not keyboards or loud people.
- softawre 9y agoThis is true. But, if you're in an open office, don't you think the decent thing to do is to not speak loudly (and therefore not use a loud mechanical keyboard)? There are mech keyboards with more quiet switches. At least use one of those.
- maxxxxx 9y agoSure. It's good to be courteous. But in the end it comes down to the fact that open offices are just plain stupid. I don't know what the motivation behind them is but it's certainly not to make a productive workplace.
- Declanomous 9y agoPretty much every mechanical keyboard will be loud. I use a board with Cherry Red switches at work, and while it's much quieter than my board with Cherry Blue switches that I use at home, it is still louder than the rubber dome keyboard it replaced. It doesn't bother my coworkers, but I also have an actual cube, so there's at least a little bit of fabric-covered foam inbetween us.
- nsxwolf 9y agoIf someone is complaining about Cherry Reds, I think they're asking for too much. Perhaps they should look for work in the library sciences.
- _jal 9y agoHeh. I had a former cow-orker who hated by Topre board. I told him if he'd (a) keep his computer volume off and (b) not hold impromptu, non-work meetings as his desk at bar-volumes, I'd try to use a crappy board for him. He was offended. I kept my board. Again, the root problem is the veal-fattening pens.
- Arizhel 9y agoMechanical keyboards are better for RSI and general comfort. If you don't like them, complain to your manager that you need walled offices.
- NTripleOne 9y agoAlso be careful not to point out that "keyboard noise" is the crux of the issue, since then you'll end up with those employees being told they can't use their nice keyboards that they probably paid a lot for just to use at work, which will result in said employees really, really not liking you if they find out it was you that complained.
- Arizhel 9y agoExactly. That's a great way to poison a relationship with a coworker.
- martinknafve 9y agoAny source for the statement on RSI? I googled but just found anecdotes.
- Arizhel 9y agoAnecdotes are the best you're going to get on that. Who's going to fund a serious scientific study on the effects of mechanical keyboards on RSI? The mechanical keyboard makers comprise a very small, niche industry these days. The anecdotes are correct: with a proper mechanical keyboard, you don't have to bottom out on the keys, and only have to press enough to make them click. Once you retrain yourself to do that, then you're putting a lot less stress on your fingers, compared to rubber-dome keyboards where you're forced to mash the keys down until they bottom out.
- varelse 9y agoSo you would prefer your coworkers develop RSI symptoms from straining to use a laptop keyboard? Not all of us can use laptops for extended periods of time. Now if I could type with my brain (and I don't mean by smashing my head repeatedly on the keyboard), that's Sam Altman status quo shattering next-level stuff, but I don't think we're there yet. As others have replied, the problem isn't my typing, it's <40 square feet of personal space and no noise partitioning whatsoever.
- amorphid 9y agoAnything noisy in an open office, including me when forget to lower my voice, is bothersome :)
- blhack 9y agoThe standard keyboard layout, which every mechanical keyboard I've ever seen (including my beloved model M) is terrible for your wrists. The people using mechanical keyboards are not saving themselves anything. Get a proper ergonomic keyboard like the microsoft sculpt if you actually care about the health of you hands. Mechanical keyboards are cool, which is why I own one, and when I had an office why I used one every day. But mechanical keyboards are like the loud exhaust that people put on their cars. Yeah, there is a reason that some cars have loud exhausts, but that isn't why you put that on your honda civic.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago> The standard keyboard layout, which every mechanical keyboard I've ever seen (including my beloved model M) is terrible for your wrists. If you type a lot over a prolonged period of time, yes. If you type in short bursts (like most programmers), no, mechanicals are actually useful. > Get a proper ergonomic keyboard like the microsoft sculpt if you actually care about the health of you hands. Again, if you are an old fashioned typist working on memos, this advice holds, otherwise....
- blhack 9y ago>If you type a lot over a prolonged period of time, yes. If you type in short bursts (like most programmers), no, mechanicals are actually useful. Is this really how most programmers work, though? When I'm learning a new language or tool, sure, but after that it's mostly just the activity of writing the code.
- d883kd8 9y agoThey are like Accelerationists, bringing about the end of an undesirable system by increasing the damage it causes until it cannot be ignored.
- _jal 9y agoDrifting rather off-topic here, but why credit the "heighten the contradictions" strategy to a weird modern academic cult? Rebranding Leninist ideas about sabotage, I guess, makes it seem fresh to the rubes. Never mind that attempting to time social and political systems doesn't work much better than timing the market, and if you get it wrong, you're just being a horrible person. (Assuming your underlying goals are good ones to begin with.)
- abritinthebay 9y agoBecause it's a cute one word term?
- mahyarm 9y agoI've seen the concept mentioned in writing from the 1800s, and you can probably see it even further back. I don't know if it's that modern ;)
- bitexploder 9y agoI have never suffered the tyranny of an open office. I do use a loud keyboard and honestly can't imagine going without it. I am easily distracted by sensory stimuli. It ruins my concentration. At home I have some nice in ear noise isolating ear buds and some of those ear muffs designed for yard work. My children can, and do, reenact world wars on the hard woods above me and I can't hear it. If I ever were in an open office, when I do deep work, those things would stay on. So I sympathize, but the open office puts knowledge workers who need to concentrate and type in a lose / lose environment.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoThis is why I gave up my old IBM Model M for a quieter DAS Model S. I don't really want to type on cheaper mushy keyboards, so this is a nice compromise.
- djsumdog 9y agoI have had mechanical keyboards four different offices (1 cube, 3 open workspaces) and got very lucky with people either not minding or, at one company, a co-worker saying "that's music to my hears." I've had a friend on the wrong floor at one company who had to switch to MX Browns with o-ring dampeners. If a company banned me from using a mech keyboard entirely, I'd start looking for another job.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoIf you're going to use a mechanical keyboard in an open office have the courtesy to at least install dampeners.
- Jach 9y ago"Hey everyone, I'm working!" Personally I'd rather listen to mechanical keyboards rather than people having meetings at their desks, I can fairly easily tune out non-human sounds... Unfortunately not many people seem to have them despite my office being the 'geekiest' in the Seattle region. sigh
- dralley 9y agoBrown-type switches are OK, it's the blue-type keys that are problematic.
- markatkinson 9y agoI was told my brown switches were horrendous :(
- falcolas 9y agoIt's the keys bottoming out. Add some rubber o-rings to dampen that sound.
- rhinoceraptor 9y agoThat only works for some keycap profiles, if you use DSA or SA profile then you can't really dampen them well.
- ferongr 9y agoLearning to type without bottoming out not only will mostly elliminate the noise of brown switches but also reduce the shock tranmitted to the fingers. Ever since I stopped bottoming out (except for the spacebar and pinky-operated backspace) my typing comfort went up a lot.
- wastedhours 9y agoWas once commended on my hard work since a manager could hear my constant typing on my Browns. Annoyed a lot of people in the process, of course.
- BatFastard 9y agoFunny thing about loud keyboards. A few years ago my company had a programming pit, and I could tell when ever one of my younger programmers was chatting with a friend rather than working. His typing rate would go from 20 wpm to 100 wpm. FYI I quickly abandoned the programming pit, back to quite workspaces for all!
- trcollinson 9y agoI understand your sentiment entirely. I have thought the same way. However, I have to ask, why would you, or I, or any other person creating substantial value for a company, ever in their right mind take a 10% pay cut (or any other level of pay cut or reduction) in order to be MORE efficient? Our attitude in this industry drives me crazy lately. And really it has been my own attitude for a long time. We ask to be more efficient, to produce better and more valuable assets for our employer, we believe in their vision, and in return we have to beg and plead to help ourselves become more efficient, often to our own financial detriment. It's rather disheartening.
- ddlatham 9y agoBecause it makes me happier.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- HarryHirsch 9y agowhy would you, or I, or any other person creating substantial value for a company, ever in their right mind take a 10% pay cut Because markets. In sales you learn fairly quickly that price isn't determined by cost or value added but exclusively by what the market will bear. Since US labour has little negotiating power even a programmer will have to buy quiet space.
- NTripleOne 9y agoI couldn't care less for efficiency, I'm going to get roughly the same amount of work done in a shitty office and in a good one, that's just how I am - but it would make me a helluva lot happier and allow me to actually enjoy doing the job I should enjoy.
- coffeeski 9y agoAll things being equal, yeah I'd love to keep 10% of my pay, but if I have to give up X to get private space, which would help my happiness at work, I would do that. My happiness is worth atleast 10% of my pay. Life is more then money
- atemerev 9y agoI have all that, and the best part is I don't need to commute. :) Working remotely is perfect.
- ljw1001 9y agoWorking remotely is probably the most-likely trend to supplant open offices. It doesn't cost the company any hard cash (like real offices would), and any productivity differences are nearly invisible, as they are with open offices.
- gk1 9y agoI used to work out of an open-floor co-working space. I just moved to a new space that's 2x the price, just because it comes with an enclosed office. I'm so glad I did it. If I can get just a few more hours of productivity each month then the upgrade pays for itself.
- goshx 9y agoMake sure you ask for a ceiling as well. I asked for a small office and I got one. It doesn't have ceiling because my boss didn't want to put one, for whatever reason, so it is useless.
- solnyshok 9y agocareful what you wish for. I also like silence. But I'd rather use noise cancelling headphones than work in the booth among thousands other booths.
- Deinos 9y agoI appreciate a nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones, but they tend to cause pain and irritation when worn for long periods of time.
- Already__Taken 9y agoConsider finding some pilots headsets, now that's fancy quality.
- jschwartzi 9y agoOr studio monitor headphones. I can wear mine for hours.
- strictnein 9y agoI want a cube because it's not the noise that bothers me but the constant motion on the periphery of my vision. Cubes can be setup properly. They don't need to be row after row after row of cubes. We have them setup in pods that hold 6-8 people, one pod for each dev team. Only one way in or out, so there's no traffic moving through, with a small table in the middle that's mainly used to eat lunch or store treats that people bring in.
- jlebrech 9y agomaybe you need a cube-aware voice chat system. or just a contact list inside of noise cancelling headphones.
- strictnein 9y agoHow would that help limit movement in my peripheral vision?
- marcosdumay 9y ago> The only thing in my office that works well with interruptions is my CPU. You certainly have never tried to write interruption handling code...
- varelse 9y agoJust like the cargo cult Agile pandemic peaked a few years ago, I suspect we're reaching peak open floor plans right now. The overall negative effects of an open floor plan for a significant fraction of engineers (though not all) is self-evident and backed up by reams of data stretching back nearly 40 years: http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-book/web/workspace/ http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-book/web/work... TLDR: 100 square feet of personal space is optimal. The highest I've ever had in tech was 81. I miss those days and I end up working from home a lot because of the current open floor plan. But square feet cost $$$ and switching to an open floor plan is an immediate cost cutter. Never mind what it's doing to overall productivity and future earnings, the analysts love $h!+ like this. Fortunately, executives are not all idiots, so once the more insightful of them realize how much more they get done in private spaces, one or more of them will push back on this. And if employers start treating cubes and offices as a perk, I suspect they'll see lots of converts.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoMany large company will do but the large brunt of codetariat working for cash strapped business living and dying according to investors and customers will be keept in the open spaces: they looks cool in photos, convey a reassuring sense of "working bees" and sells well to visiting customers, so I fear the open plan it's here to stay.
- bragh 9y agoThat is the crux of the issue, isn't it? Actual productivity does not matter that much on a grand scale, the perceived productivity and therefore sales is what matters.
- meddlepal 9y agoI think we can have our cake and eat it too. The all-glass office style at We Work could be adopted. I wish the glass was a bit thicker but the small shared office or bullpen model is ideal IMO.
- 9y ago
- mmaunder 9y agoWSJ thinks that. Not CEOs. ~a CEO
- draw_down 9y ago"If you're reading it, it's for you."
- closeparen 9y agoI don't think it's realistic to put the masses in their own offices at any productivity level if it means you need more Silicon Valley or San Francisco square feet. But an office and the opportunity to live somewhere I can spend less than 50% of my income on a reasonable apartment, I'd take that offer in a heartbeat.
- wcummings 9y ago>I'd rather have a Cube farm Cubes cost money, but Silly Valley CEOs have done such a great job convincing gullible young workers that they actually like open offices.
- voidlogic 9y ago>The only thing in my office that works well with interruptions is my CPU. Slight tangent: This isn't even true, context switch time has not scaled (equally) with improvements in processing power (IPC, freq and functional-unit parallelism). A PIII in 1999 spent proportionally less of its operating wall time performing a context switch compared to modern processing. Turns out flushing TLBs and the like is not fast. This is why managing interrupts properly is very important on server class hardware.
- rotten 9y agoI've often thought about taking my laptop into a bathroom stall so I could get some work done for a few minutes.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> Why do CEO's think they're alone in the need for quiet spaces where they can focus? No, they just think they're more deserving of it.
- Aeolun 9y agoEveryone can work in a noisy space where interruptions abound. They're just going to be hella unproductive.