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Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
- mmanfrin 9y agoI hope they win, open offices are the stupidest thing since cubicles.
- falcolas 9y agoAnd yet I would personally prefer cubicles to an open office plan. At least cubicles provide visual interruptions, reduce the overall noise, and provide a space for you to personalize.
- maxxxxx 9y agoCubicles may be better than open space but offices are still much better
- mmanfrin 9y agoI totally agree. Every argument I've heard against cubicles were actually arguments against poor lighting and lack of windows -- a well lit, green, many-windowed office that had cubicles would be much more preferable to open office plans.
- Cozumel 9y agoInvesting in everything but the people who work there.
- pinewurst 9y agoI don't think that was the intent. My guess is that this was planned in an era (sadly now) where open space is portrayed as the "cool" way to work.
- 65827 9y agoPretty much, the open space hype seems to have peaked in like 2010-2012, now we live in an enlightened time where even corporate leaders (gasp) are willing to admit different things work for different people.
- Spooky23 9y agoI'm sure Jony Ive has an office.
- maxxxxx 9y agoYes. Once I see all the big shots sitting elbow by elbow at a long table the whole day I will revise my opinion about open offices.
- pilsetnieks 9y agoMusk and Zuckerberg "sit" among the peasants. It makes for a good photo op but in reality they have to spend very little time at their desk. At that level, they probably spend most of their time in meetings, and even when not, it's not like anyone would chastise them for behaving inconsiderately to other people in the office, or taking over a conference room as their impromptu office.
- borplk 9y agoSame with Jack from Twitter. At that point it's just an empty gesture.
- masterleep 9y agoOpen offices are a direct manifestation of Satan's plan.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- nemo44x 9y agoIt all seems so backwards. Instead of having collaborative working spaces with private rooms for meetings, doesn't it make more sense to have private rooms for working and collaborative meeting spaces?
- gervase 9y agoI suspect the thought process is something like, "Collaboration makes the office more productive. Therefore, if we force the employees to collaborate all the time, we can maximize productivity!"
- wlesieutre 9y agoMy company moved engineering into the same open office as sales and customer support, we can collaborate with everyone all the time! Definitely a negative to productivity on my individual work because it's so much noisier in here.
- loco5niner 9y agoYes, they put our desks right next to finance, with that one person who is our "laugh really loud, laugh at everything and I mean _everything_" person.
- moron4hire 9y agoWe should make an audio output for our build scripts to play a really loud woodchipper sound. "Sorry, can't be helped, part of the process, the machine has to grind the source code up into small bits to fit into the CPU."
- tiredwired 9y agoAt least that way you can hear the sales staff selling features that have not been developed yet.
- bad_user 9y agoCollaboration is essentially contention, like CPU threads racing for the same memory location, needing synchronization. Synchronization kills parallelism.
- LyalinDotCom 9y agofrom the story ... "Prominent Apple podcaster and blogger John Gruber passed along rumors that some high-level Apple staffers are unsatisfied with the company’s open floor plan — which has many company engineers working at long tables with co-workers, instead of in cubicles or offices." wow, "long tables" for lots of devs to work at, what can go wrong right? and i thought Microsoft open space had its issues, this sounds much worse. When do people focus again?
- Animats 9y agoBench seating, work tables and open cubicles. Apple? Famous for not letting their developers talk to people outside the project?
- zitterbewegung 9y agoI have heard that open office plans are justified by decreased cost. Does it make sense that they would build a 5 billion dollar office with open floor plans? I suppose given that large price tag there would be motivation to cut costs that way other than the fact that the open office plan as a fad still exists.
- wmf 9y agoMaybe the justification is density, not cost. The floor space of the spaceship was finalized years ago and maybe Apple is trying to shoehorn more employees into that space.
- oddity 9y agoSurely, they'll all realize that it takes courage to embrace the office layout of the future? Jokes aside, this was a problem five years in the making, and as far as I can tell there was no secrecy about the plan. I'm surprised the complaints are only coming now.
- borplk 9y agoYou see ... all that precious space inside the building ... we just can't have private offices if we want to move forward and make great things happen.
- mncharity 9y agoAnd it's such a privilege to participate in the dialog between architecture and society. (MIT dean of architecture on why inflicting a Frank Gehry building on CSAIL was worthwhile.)
- maxxxxx 9y agoIt seems a lot of managers live in that phantasy world where people do nothing but collaborate. Do they really think that code gets written that way?
- hashmal 9y agothey heard about git once I guess…
- joezydeco 9y agoThat's what the managers have decided...while sitting in their closed-door office meetings.
- rzzzt 9y agoSee mob programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming
- Clubber 9y agoManagers mark their value by how many meetings they attend. If their calendar is booked all the time (even with pointless meetings) it's because they are valuable. Developers mark their value by what they create. Unfortunately people tend to think everyone is like them. In this example, managers tend to think since their value is through constant collaboration, they think everyone is valued in the same metric.
- nashashmi 9y agoMan, I remember in college when we would be working long hours in the library on a computer lined up in a row of computers. Every one would be intensely working on what they needed to. Sometimes two would work together. This was especially true before presentations when we were trying to put our stuff together. It was neat. It was collaborative. It was fun. And we were happy. Open floor plan is reminiscent of those days, but it isn't working. And I cannot figure out why. What's missing? Intensity? Work? Stress? Team building therapy? Or just trust? Whatever it is I hope we figure it out.
- landhar 9y agoIMHO, I think what's missing is focus. In college, people in the library were there to get stuff done and would leave when they were done or needed a break. In today's workspace it's less likely that everyone is completely focused on doing work every hour of the 8 to 5 work day, and that's what creates distractions.
- brightball 9y agoYou nailed it. In the company's mind, everyone in the office is there to focus on exactly the task at hand all the time. In reality, it comes in spurts and each person has those at different times. When people are in there unfocused, they just distract the people who are focused.
- virtuabhi 9y agoIn library you are not supposed to make noise. Go outside to have a chat. Proably that helped.
- andrewflnr 9y agoFor one thing, I'm guessing you didn't do all your work there, only specific things for short time periods. If you worked in that environment all day every day, the fun would wear off eventually. Also, as people relax, they'll get noisier.
- hkmurakami 9y agoThe default being quiet, and respect for others doing focused work and trying your best to not distract them, was certainly a key ingredient.
- loco5niner 9y agoHopefully, more and more companies experience backlash from this. It is a horrific mistake to add distracting elements to most programmers environments. Even worse, in my open office plan, they put our very loud finance group right next to us. Absolutely no thought of noise management was considered, except for putting in horrible "white noise" generators that set off my tinnitus Thankfully, my direct manager is understanding and let me turn off the one directly over my head. And by directly over my head, I mean about 4 feet.
- exergy 9y agoFuck, that sounds awful. It's hard for me to believe that there are techies who haven't ever heard of Peopleware, have never heard of Joel Spolsky and his FogBugz offices, and have never consulted even a single authority on what makes software developers productive. It's even harder to believe that those people are responsible for diverting giant sums of money towards making palatial office buildings that will house thousands of such developers.
- 6nf 9y agoThe problem with the Spolsky example is that Atlassian with their huge open-plan offices completely overshadowed Fog Creek in just a few short years.
- anildash 9y agoIn some ways. They did raise $60 million, too, which didn't hurt. I think we're doing just fine having a successful business on our own terms. For what it's worth, Atlassian's NYC headquarters is… our Fog Creek offices, complete with private offices for coders. More about that here: https://medium.com/make-better-software/apple-is-about-to-do-something-their-programmers-definitely-dont-want-fc19f5f4487 https://medium.com/make-better-software/apple-is-about-to-do... (Source: I'm the CEO of Fog Creek.)
- 6nf 9y agoThe NYC 'headqarters' is not even on their list of locations https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers so I'd be surprised if it hosts a signficant percentage of their development workforce. As far as I know their Sydney office is really the heart of their operation and it's very open plan.
- molestrangler 9y agoThis is only a rumour, I would wait for some photos to appear to confirm this. Anyone got any recent images now people have started moving in?
- galonk 9y agoThe reaction from the troops is a rumour. The fact that almost everyone has to work in open space is not. It's well documented fact.
- rm445 9y agoI was under the impression that when John Gruber quotes a 'rumour', it's because someone at Apple has personally given him complete, direct, but off-the-record information. He seems very well-connected.
- pasbesoin 9y agoApple has the money to afford whatever it wants. If it's like any other place I've seen, I expect there's longstanding communication of one or another sort from high performers that they want distraction-free environments. From what I've observed of such high performers, they are not anti-social nor anti-collaborative, nor are they "crippled" in either respect. Rather, many of them are the most capable in these areas, because they actually pay attention and focus on getting things done -- and done as well as time and resources allow. The fact that Apple, like many workplaces I've observed, chooses to ignore this and push a paradigm that increases their stress and decreases their effectiveness and efficiency? Well, as I learned in my own experience, over the years: This is just a fundamental level of dis-respect. I don't know anything about Apple work internals, specifically; the last time I intersected with those peripherally was in the early '90's. But when you blatantly disregard what employees tell you -- and in this case, "professional" employees who have a high degree of training and awareness about the tooling they need, including their work environments, to be most effective. Well, that's just disrespect. And employers who persistently engage in such, deserve what they get. I hope -- because at some point, this counter-productive... "ideology" needs to die. P.S. Those employees that want cubicles or open-space? Fine, give it to them. I don't want to dictate environment, either way. Trust your employees to select what works best for them. And measure the results. Objectively, not in the typical performance review ex post facto rationalization and justification. In my own experience, top performers cautiously (politics) leapt at the chance to work from home and otherwise gain undistracted blocks of time to adequately focus on complex problems and program management. Those who embraced the cycle of endless meetings, interruptions -- including environmental -- and superficially-addressed delegation? They faced the same problems, month after month, cycle after cycle.
- aetherson 9y agoI am fairly close to someone who works at Apple. His team is avoiding the new spaceship building. He mentioned wanting to keep his office, but that was just one part of several different complaints, including just "it turns out that the building isn't big enough for most of the people who work at the HQ in Cupertino," and "My team would probably have to split up in awkward ways because not everyone would be able to work in the spaceship (due to space constraints)."
- ClassyJacket 9y agoThe building looks gigantic but most of it is empty space due to the donut shape. I wonder if they plan to ever build in the middle.
- sidlls 9y agoOpen offices diminish workers to cattle status. Most work, even the kind many developers would not think of as being so, in tech companies requires thoughtfulness often and collaboration less often. I consider open office plans to be disrespectful and an indicator of second-class status.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI also see them as a lack of respect.
- danpalmer 9y agoAnother point of view would be that by having 'senior management' in the same rooms, at the same desks in an open office, they are more human and there's less of a perceived barrier between them and everyone else - which could be seen as a positive.
- whipoodle 9y agoManagers often end up commandeering a meeting room to get around not technically having an office.
- danpalmer 9y agoSure, and I wouldn't want meetings taking place at desks anyway as that would be disruptive, but having the CEO at a 'normal' desk like everyone else, and having them there for any time they are doing tasks alone, I think humanises them more.
- sidlls 9y agoI've actually seen that reasoning also used in support of these plans. My experience is that these senior leaders rarely occupy their desks. Instead they have permanently reserved meeting rooms or even private offices in addition to their reserved open area desks.
- lowbloodsugar 9y agoThe "I don't like open spaces, so therefore my team doesn't" is the same failure as "I don't like an office, so my team doesn't get offices". Developers are humans, and not all humans have the same preference. I personally prefer to work in an enclosed space that includes all my team. Open spaces suck for me. A closed office with just me in it also sucks, for me. If anyone on my team is more productive in an office, I'll do my best to get them an office. There are two fundamental problems that always show up on this issue: 1. Believing that "I am human. My preference is X. Therefore X is the preference of all humans", and 2. "Office as a signal of seniority". If a team can get past both of those, they should be good.
- danso 9y agoOT, but is there a good book on the history of offices, at least in American workplaces? What existed before cubicles?
- scrumper 9y agoPrivate offices for managers and more senior types, desk farms for the hoi polloi, and a separate, deafeningly loud typing pool. Very much like today's open plan, but with individual desks with some separation rather than long benches.
- awad 9y agoDon't have a good book but a quick search led me to this Wired post: https://www.wired.com/2009/03/pl-design-5/ https://www.wired.com/2009/03/pl-design-5/ Anecdotally, when I think back to images from the early century, I'm led to believe that open plan with higher level employees in private offices is actually the historical norm. While the actual nature of work of course has changed, I'm not so sure that everyone having their own private office has ever been a reality other than a select few employers.
- bradmwalker 9y agohttp://www.npr.org/2014/04/20/305162943/exploring-the-secret-history-of-the-cubicle http://www.npr.org/2014/04/20/305162943/exploring-the-secret...
- homosaphien1 9y agoI might be in the minority but I HATE cubicle farms and love open office design. Just give every a sound cancellation headphone if they complain. To me cubical farms are depressing.
- exergy 9y agoThere are many of us who code in spurts, and spend the rest of the time goofing off on Reddit or hacker news. At the same time, we'd prefer not to get judged on what percentage of time we have Facebook open on our monitors, and more on the work we do. But when everyone can see what you're doing, it's hard to get rid of the nagging feeling that you're being watched.
- vidoc 9y agoThat's why working from home is the holy grail :D
- intoverflow2 9y agoIt's not really goofing off, I absolutely work in several focused spurts during the day. Which is also why I'm never that fussed about turning up on time because I never do any real work in the morning anyway. Can't dig it out now but John Cleese did a good talk on creativity explaining why this works and how brains solve problems in the background which is why inspiration hits in the shower and on the train. By alternating between focusing then procrastinating and ignoring work you can force a decent cadence of creativity into your work.
- sidlls 9y agoThe thing is sound cancelling headphones tend to cancel out noise, not conversation. So they actually make things worse for those of us who need to think occasionally.
- happypants23 9y agoFor me, its not just about the sound. I can easily lose focus by being visually over-stimulated too, and there's no way to fix that except for cubicles.
- Someone 9y agoIMO, it is all in the execution. Open offices can be terrible, but they also can be good, just like private offices. There's a huge difference between a few dozen desks in a bare concrete hall without any dividers between desks or a few dozen desks in a room with sound-dampening dividers between desks and lots of sound proofing on the walls and ceilings. I work in an open office, and barely hear it when people three meters away make a phone call.
- MikeTLive 9y agothey screwed up my award winning office design. common section down the middle with individual offices on opposite walls, large enough for pair programming, one end of the alcove has windows above shelves, other end has multimedia. offices to be used as small conference rooms and manager offices, without windows, are in a perpendicular central hallway. i designed this over 10 years ago and a virtually identical design was used for my company's buildout the following year. no one is assigned to the common central table. offices can have the door open or closed depending on the occupant need/desire to be heads down or passively participate with others. each alcove houses a functional team
- knorker 9y agoI recently watched the movie Office Space. Oh, such a wonderful working environment. To have the privacy and isolation from distractions and interruptions that a cubicle gives. What I wouldn't give to work in such a great office space.
- Clubber 9y agoIt's funny that the work environment became worse than Mike Judge imagined it would be in Office Space. Wait till that happens to Idiocracy!
- seorphates 9y agoWorking in open office plans is simply awful. Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity. Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could actually support that? I think so. The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thousands of people daily just needs to stop. Tech companies are guilty. They're huge and, humbly opined, are idiots for making it worse and not really needing to. Top that off with an open floor destination and.. damn, work is beat.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hota_mazi 9y agoNah, it's fine. If it gets noisy, put on headphones or go sit in a different place for a few hours. Individual offices can be awful and isolating. Cubes can be an acceptable compromise but it still kills a lot of spontaneous conversations. You gain a lot with open space plans: more interaction with coworkers, cultural gel and socializing. And of course, the company can cram more people in the same place.
- jansho 9y agoWell you can put a team in one room, and a kitchen to cater for several teams - like design studios actually. IMO that's the best balance, but maybe that's a bit luxurious, cattle pen-wise.
- stock_toaster 9y agoI strongly feel the best option (if remote work is not a possibility) is individual offices with team designated collaborative work areas. This allows people to quasi self organize, with the default option being that they have their own space.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
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- mschuster91 9y agoI'm happy about German regulations. This would not fly for long in any company with a Betriebsrat ("work council" is apparently the English word) once noise levels get broken.
- DocTomoe 9y agoI'm sitting in an German open-office setup right now. There is nothing in the regulations to forbid these (and most of these Arbeitsschutzgesetze only are applicable to industrial settings).
- norea-armozel 9y agoI'll never understand the fascination with firms repeatedly going for the open office plan. I remember seeing pictures from the early 20th century where such offices existed full of people typing away. I don't know how they handled the noise or the fact they couldn't isolate themselves to do their work whether it was repetitive or novel in nature. It just seems like firms think of labor as a singular mechanical process and not as something that's done in an irregular and discoordinated fashion (as I've seen in my personal experience from working in factories and currently working in software development). I really think managerial practices need to update with the facts instead of forcing the facts to fit with their expectations.
- chank 9y agoMy company recently switched to an open floor plan. It's done nothing but increase distractions and office gossip. Everyone I know tries to get away from their desk as often as possible. Ducking into side rooms, attempting to work from home, and just plain using any excuse to escape the zoo. Management loves open plans because it's the cheapest seating arrangement. They claim that it will increase collaboration while exempting themselves from having to deal with the environment. The truth is that just being able to see someone without walking over to their desk isn't going to magically make you communicate with them more or make your output higher. Some people like open floor plans but it's been my experience most people don't and just grin and bear it while slowly dying inside.
- paulsutter 9y agoIt's worse than that, managers like open plan because they can "feel the energy" of people working, subconsciously they want to see all the work being done, and to know who leaves and arrives when. And notice how managers always arrange to have their screens hidden from others view, while most people feel a constant sense that someone is looking at their screen.
- hkmurakami 9y agoIt's really kind of amazing to me how in 20 years we've gone from laughing at the cacophonous, claustrophobic, diseases-transmission-inducing, open office plans of other economic regions (ex: the traditional Japanese office http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CadIFZ3h638/T7yGtzdxVDI/AAAAAAAABeg/YhOhlNmYRDc/s1600/5367034132_e04df3f6fe_o.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CadIFZ3h638/T7yGtzdxVDI/AAAAAAAABe..., or the Wall Street trading floor), to precisely emulating their layouts (with better superficial aesthetic design), inheriting both their economic efficiency and productivity inefficiencies. I'll take a cube farm with 5 feet walls any day over an open office.
- brudgers 9y agoHistorically, a cube farm is an open office plan in architectural lingo. About twenty years ago, there was a movement toward movable furniture and hotelling and removing the cubical walls. For what it's worth cubicles were generally considered an improvement on grid layouts of desks.
- skc 9y agoEvery article I've read about this building in the past has gone to great pains to point out the artistry, elegance and taste that was applied in building it. I now find it highly amusing that at Apple, form over function won out yet again.
- cylinder 9y agoI'm sure Jony Ive's office is nice and quiet.
- astrange 9y agoThe new building is based on his ID lab. https://www.cultofmac.com/303396/design-studio-behind-iron-curtain/ https://www.cultofmac.com/303396/design-studio-behind-iron-c...
- smegel 9y ago> instead of in cubicles Wait, I thought cubicles were open plan, in comparison to offices? This sounds like super-exposed office planning.
- borplk 9y agoOpen offices is even-cheaper cubicles.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoOne of the perks of working in defense is the office buildings you wind up in are usually either all offices or a series of very small cube farms because the building organization needs to be capable of supporting teams working with materials of various levels of sensitivity. Even for unclassified work most stuff is "don't share this if you don't need to".
- pinaceae 9y agoNot everyone at Apple is a coder. Not every job is the same. Note how designers and architects work in teams, in open work spaces. I have seen communication in a PM group go to shits because of a move from an open layout to a walled cubicle garden. PMs were avoidig their cubes, sitting in the cafeteria as they enjoyed the "coffee shop hum". Reality, as always, is nuanced.
- inetknght 9y agoMy company only has offices for upper management. Everyone else is at a table. Tables are arranged in groups of four. Now, I get it, some people like open office environments. Good for them. Me? Well, I've told many coworkers that I can't work from home because I wouldn't work from home. There are too many distractions at home, so I need to be at the office to be productive. But this open office? There are days where I am convinced I would do more work, be more productive, and feel more satisfied if I worked from home. I went and bought some noise cancelling headphones. They help, but definitely not enough. My table is by the main door. With a room of 40+ engineers, there's constant distracting traffic. Some people make snide comments about my choice of operating system, keyboard, language, editor, typing noise, attire, whatever. Or to chat about the games that I missed last night, something happened at the not-company-sponsored-happy-hour that I didn't get the invite to, or something about lunch that, you know, you should have been there and if only you wouldn't leave the office for lunch. Or about how your racing car is in for the shop because, well, actually I don't even care why. It's just in the shop (I know! you told me!) and you expect me to care about car parts too, and shame on me for not knowing the difference between a maserati and a miata. On the other hand, any time I mention to my boss that I'd like at least a cubicle the response is "it's not going to happen". Thanks, boss! I'm glad you've got my productivity concerns on your plate. I'm glad they can just, you know, be heard. Not addressed, just heard. It's really helpful to be heard. All day. It's real helpful to hear everyone's discussions while I'm trying to do work. Honestly, guys, if you like an open office environment, that's good for you. Not everyone wants one and not everyone works well in one.
- pteredactyl 9y agoVisual distraction is very real when trying to focus.
- trowawee 9y agoThis is one of the biggest problems at our office. We respect the headphone rules fairly well, but we sit like this: P1 P2 P3 ---------- P4 P5 P6 in pods, and if P5 turns and looks at P4 or P6 to check if they have headphones on, that person will obviously see the movement, possibly get distracted, remove headphones...it's not just a noise issue.
- jansho 9y agoThey should do more huts instead. https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-and-the-legacy-of-steve-jobs/ https://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-an...
- stevesearer 9y agoOffice Snapshots here. Direct links to those "hut" images for those interested (many of you). The above link goes to to the entire gallery of images: https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16797/ https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16797/ https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16765/ https://officesnapshots.com/photos/16765/
- tossaway2847 9y agoAs a current Pixar employee, the open office trend has unfortunately spread to our admittedly beautiful campus. You have to be fairly senior to get an office around here, lowlifes like me get stuck in shared open hallways and the like.
- peeters 9y ago> bench seating Wait long tables is one thing, but what on earth does bench seating mean? Like it's one long picnic table?
- stevesearer 9y ago"Benching" refers to a style of desk system that connects into a row. Example from Steelcase: https://www.steelcase.com/products/benching/frameone/ https://www.steelcase.com/products/benching/frameone/
- icanhackit 9y agoJohn Kullmann, who ported OSX from PPC to x86, was able to work from home. I wonder if it's set up so that when you need to get shit done you work from home and when you need to collaborate you visit the spaceship? Or perhaps only the superstar engineers get to pull that kind of thing.
- mrpippy 9y agoAs I remember, that was a special-case arrangement for some kind of family reason (and after he had worked in Cupertino for several years). There are current Apple engineers with the arrangement you describe though, I know of at least one on Twitter.
- brudgers 9y agoGood architecture does not come from curved glass and 1mm joints between materials. It comes from human habitability. Why build a building that makes people unhappy? It seems to miss the point.
- dilemma 9y agoHubris, narcissism, God complex.
- aphextron 9y agoEverything Old Is New Again https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/866329202121506819/1240/10/scaletowidth https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/866329202121506819/1240/1...
- borplk 9y agoAt least in those days they didn't pretend like that was a beautiful thing. Now we have these charlatans who not only want to push these concepts. But also want everyone to acknowledge just how great they are. And not to mention the proponents are never seen working in one for a single day. It's only good for the peasants.
- mathattack 9y agoI'm ok with an open office, but my job is to be interupted. It's less good for deep thinking jobs, or heavy phone call jobs. Our engineers don't seem to mind though, maybe they just plug in their headsets? Joel Spolsky wrote about this [1] though his main citation is experience at Microsoft. I do have to admit Open Floors are a shift for a company focused on secrecy. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2008/12/29/the-new-fog-creek-...
- pilsetnieks 9y ago> Our engineers don't seem to mind though Eventually you just seem to attract the people who can tolerate such conditions, or who are happy to keep up the pretense.
- marze 9y agoApple is famous for pixel perfect prototyping, of numerous possible solutions, before choosing. Did they prototype and test various office layouts? If not, why not?
- Digory 9y agoThe WSJ article said Apple prototyped one work area, and then multiplied it across the available space. "Having settled on an overall shape, the team then broke it down into smaller parts. “One of the advantages of this ring is the repetition of a number of seg-ments,” says Ive. “We could put enormous care and attention to detail into what is essentially a slice that is then repeated. So there’s tremendous pragmatism in the building.” The ring would be made up of pods—units of workspace—built around a central area, like a spoke pointing toward the center of the ring, and a row of customizable seating within each site: 80 pods per floor, 320 in total, but only one to prototype and get right."
- marze 9y agoPrototyping one version seems un-Apple. I would have expected them to have prototyped many office layout options, had people work in them for six months each and rate them or otherwise measure quality.
- kevinburke 9y agoOne solution to this problem would be for Apple employees to form a union and collectively bargain for better working conditions. Probably just threatening to do this would lead to significant concessions. Any Apple employees interested in this should contact Maciej Ceglowski on Signal at +1415-610-0231.
- sooheon 9y agoInteresting you'd recommend him, I enjoy his writing but didn't know he had expertise here. Any reason why? Also isn't "unionizing" a quick way to get a black mark in Silicon Valley? I vaguely remember Michael O. Church was essentially exiled just for accusations of unionizing.
- kevinburke 9y agoMaciej (and others) believe the best way to get your company to stop doing things you may not like: - keeping user history around forever - donating more from the company PAC to Republicans than Democrats - keeping engineers in open plan offices - providing services to election campaigns of anti-immigrant politicians - not paying the same amount of money to men and women for the same work - provide less-than-livable wages to cafeteria staff Is to form a union and strike or negotiate for more worker-friendly policies. Notably no one is suggesting striking for higher engineering wages, just the avoidance of bad policy and a say in the company's future direction. As to your second point, I can't speak to that, other than to say it's illegal to retaliate against someone for discussing or organizing to form a union.
- idlewords 9y agoForming a union is a big step. You can fight for these things through concerted collective action, and still enjoy most of the protections of labor law (especially against retaliation). The point is to organize so that a large group of employees is speaking with a single voice about the workplace issues that matter most. I urge anyone interested in learning more to contact me or coworker.org, who have experience running successful employee campaigns, and understand the tech world well.
- cordite 9y agoI've worked in both, and both have their benefits. However, my evaluation of open office may be biased because we also use slack. Regarding open office plans: Focus does suffer in an open layout. Creativity does suffer too. In the face of a fire in production, an open office creates a low friction environment for task distribution to handle it. A factor that makes up for this is that we can work from home one day a week. I find these times to allow me to be most creative for planning long term solutions. Occasional remote work is possible and effective thanks to several technologies including Slack. Regarding individual or paired offices: focus is easy to accomplish, and it is easier to be creative. It can be quiet, but it sure feels lonely when my team members take 3-6 minutes to walk to. Unfortunately, meetings, ad-hoc visits, and email were the communication methods here. Remote work was near impossible and impractical with just email for peer involved processes. This was also in a very corp-legacy environment and my ability to make an impact was unsatisfying. So I feel my creativity was often wasted and unvalued. Overall, I think I like what I have now, which is mostly open office, but still occasional time for individual creativity.
- khazhoux 9y ago(if I may repost a comment I wrote here before...) We have an open floor plan, and it works like this: * Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this. * We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics. * Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. * If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is their signal to you to keep talking loudly, as their noise-canceling headphones will eliminate any trace of your conversation. * You can usually carry a conversation at your desk at any volume, because other engineers will let you know if you're being too loud. Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them. * When someone first sits at their desk, it's polite to immediately engage them in a 30-minute conversation about their weekend or what they did last night. It eases their transition into work. * A person working without headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question. * A person working WITH headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question. * If someone usually works off in quiet parts of the building, one should always remind them "you're never at your desk" with an accusatory tone.
- notyourwork 9y ago> Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them. Might be the first person to claim engineers are extroverted.
- minwcnt5 9y agoHeadphones are a poor solution to the noise problem in open offices. I find it uncomfortable to wear them for 8 hours at a time, and it means I can't overhear the conversations I do want to overhear. Sitting elsewhere only works if I have a task I can do on a laptop; for serious development work I need a lot of screen real estate. That solution also has the same problem as headphones where I might miss important conversations because I'm too busy hiding from noise created by people doing work completely unrelated to mine. There's a pretty happy medium, 2-10 person offices (with 4-5 being the most common size) with glass walls. Google used to have a lot of these before completely open plans became en vogue, and it was very rare to hear complaints. They allow frequent interaction with your most common collaborators while blocking out conversations from distant teams. They reduce visual distraction while still allowing in lots of natural light and inviting conversation. Doors were usually left open, so it was pretty comfortable to walk into another office and start up a conversation. With the giant, open, chicken-farm style floorplans, people feel too self-conscious about dozens of people overhearing to have small 2-3 person conversations near their desks, which means more formal meetings with all the associated overhead, and fewer impromptu questions like "hey does anyone know of a tool to do X?" And then you're still more distracted anyway due to all the typing, people walking by, large groups being loud when gathering to eat lunch or go to a meeting together or whatever. I only see two advantages of completely open floors: slightly cheaper (glass offices can be made almost as dense, but not quite, and I guess the glass partitions aren't free), and better circulation to dissipate bad odors more quickly.
- jmull 9y agoOpen office spaces is something that will be laughed at in the future.
- nupertino 9y agoI wonder if anyone will make a claim about necessary workplace accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act for ADD/ADHD. I already take medication which makes it almost OK for me to share an office - a recent change for me after 20 years. But I'm still freaked out by someone literally 3 feet away from me. My social anxiety and borderline asperger's really make me seize up until I can be alone in the late afternoon / evening. When I had my own office, I was able to do things like coordinate health care, talk to my wife, and eventually the divorce lawyers, but with the knowledge that I could close my door and have privacy - now I have to escape to a staircase to have a private conversation. Plus, I'm terribly annoying to be around. From my mechanical clicky keyboard to a desk overflowing with artifacts and fidgets of various ilk, sharing a workspace means subjecting everyone else to my idiosyncrasies, mumblings and offensive body oder.
- chmaynard 9y agoI worked at Apple during the years when the company designed and built its first campus at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. As I recall, Apple R&D employees were considered stakeholders and participated in the design of the interior spaces. Apple wisely decided to give each engineer a private office. There were open areas near the offices with comfortable furniture and whiteboards for engineers to meet and collaborate. I worked in one of these buildings from 2001-2007, and I can confirm that the work areas were beautifully designed and ideal for fostering productive work. It's sad to hear that Apple apparently abandoned this approach in its new campus.
- joshavant 9y agoAh! I noticed this interior layout in more than a few buildings but didn't realize the backstory. Thanks for posting!
- doomlaser 9y agoYes. The Infinite Loop space was designed really well, and each of the buildings was somewhat different with some character.
- chmaynard 9y agoInteresting. When I display my threads in HN, this comment is now hidden. Why?
- borplk 9y ago> open floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams This is just an overused cover-up story to avoid stating the real reasons which is cutting costs and monitoring employees. They use "collaboration" so that you can't voice your opposition to it easily. If you do that they will beat you with the "not a team player" and "not a culture fit" sticks. Then in reality unhappy employees sit next to each other with noise cancelling headphones whose job has been unnecessarily harder than it already is because now a part of their mental focus and capacity is actively going towards ignoring distractions.
- diogenescynic 9y agoGood. I wish this happened more often. I would be much more productive with a little more privacy. Open floor plans are awful.
- carapace 9y agoI will take $20,000 off of my pay if you will give me my own office with a door I can close.
- abawany 9y agoDon't give them any ideas. The whole open office dumpster-fire has probably been a cover to further reduce software engineer salaries. Edit: added probably.
- astrange 9y agoSince when has anyone reduced software engineer salaries?
- abawany 9y agoOne way I can think of is this (slightly applies to me): when my large company with generous benefits and RSUs went to the open office plan, it (amongst other reasons) caused me to leave. They were likely able to hire more junior staff to backfill (as was their practice) netting them a net reduction in wages.
- carapace 9y agoBut that's my point: I put a dollar value on an office. I think 20k/year could pay for an office, eh?
- auggierose 9y agoI guess there will be two classes of people at Apple. Those with their own office, and those without. Although it has its rough edges, I am becoming a big fan of Swift. I hope Chris Lattner has his own office.
- jnbiche 9y agoChris Lattner hasn't been at Apple since leaving for Tesla back in January (he has recently left Tesla, as well).
- auggierose 9y agoOops. Maybe he can go back to Apple now :D
- auggierose 9y agoJust read up on the whole thing. Yes, I remember now that he went to Tesla. I think it is unusual for a programming language guy to do machine learning. Not surprised it didn't work out.
- 1_2__4 9y agoEvery single company does this now and it's a fucking nightmare. They'll give you a million useless and stupid perks, but they won't give you a fucking place to actually do work. It's infuriating beyond words.
- booleandilemma 9y agoMy company has an open office plan and I feel like the area directly behind my chair was designated as the company's unofficial meeting space, but no one ever told me.
- Practicality 9y agoOh man. About 10 feet behind my chair is where another department likes to have their meetings. And for whatever reason, they also like to stand there and swap gossip about all the employees. I mean seriously. I DO NOT need to know any of those things. Especially while I am trying to work. Please go away. Of course they talk really loudly too.
- gaius 9y agoIn one job, the group mine sat next to all had phone headsets but they liked to join conference calls by one of them putting it on speakerphone and the rest of them shouting at it, some from 20-30ft away.
- peterwwillis 9y agoEver walked into a Starbucks with those long communal tables and 10 people on laptops, with two people having a conversation, and others walking past every now and then? And you go to get your coffee and turn around, and now you're looking in the direction of 12 people, some of whom look up from what they're doing because they wonder what you're looking at. You go find a place to sit, set down your coffee, get out your laptop, and log in - only for Frank, the retired cab driver who is a regular here, to immediately strike up a conversation with you about "those fuckin' contractors who won't get shit done on my addition". It's not as cramped or loud, but it is awkward and distracting. It's definitely not the end of the world. But if working in a coffee shop full of people you see every day does not work for you, this is an unproductive floor plan. They had enough money that they could have built 10 different kinds of workspaces spread out in a building with five times the work space on the same property. Instead they built a hollow glass donut. Because: Steve Jobs.
- BrainInAJar 9y agoThey should rebel collectively, through a union perhaps
- a3n 9y agoIn (almost) all open office environments, people above a certain level have private offices. Why? Why don't they want to be as productive and collaborative as their reports? Conference rooms and phone rooms are just as available to them as they are to the rest. They can probably even afford much better head phones than the rest. I just don't see enough of a difference to justify it.
- Veratyr 9y agoI don't really buy it but a potential reason is that people above a certain level have a business need for a private space. Say you need to be on the phone all day talking about privileged information like the upcoming earnings call or a major business deal. Even at lower levels than that, maybe someone wants to come to you in private with a complaint or maybe you need to tell someone they're underperforming. You could do these things in meeting rooms like everyone else but if you're doing it 75% of the time you're working, you may as well have a private meeting room (i.e. office). There's also security. People with higher privileges have more sensitive information that needs to be better protected. Yes workstations should be encrypted and confidential paper documents shouldn't be laying around the office but defence in depth is a thing. Efficiency is another concern. The time of people at a certain level is extremely valuable and it can be wasted on suboptimal collaboration. Their time needs to be planned very carefully. And finally, it's just a perk.
- jorts 9y agoPutting on headphones and listening to white noise like rainfall blocks out just about everything for me. I don't like open floor plans due to noise when I'm not wearing headphones, but with them on it's fine. When I don't put my headphones on it allows me to engage with my team when I am not hyper focused on something.
- chewrocca 9y agoI worked at a place that had the floor to almost ceiling cubicles. It was nice and quiet. Then we went to the open floor plan. Then the Nerf guns arrived.
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- meddlepal 9y agoIn the future when I do my next job hunt I'm giving serious extra consideration to any company with private offices or high wall cubes even if the comp is worse. Open office plans suck. It's time these companies start being penalized
- synicalx 9y agoWe're going one step better at my work with our new/future office, "Activity Based Working". All the trappings of "open plan" but with even more features to make Government work more soul-crushing and complicated. One office, with desks for 80% of the staff (because the other 20% need to take the hint and resign). Each desk only has one monitor, keyboard, and a mouse. If you've got certain ergonomic requirements, or need a colour accurate monitor, or a large monitor, or several monitors then you're just a naysayer who is obviously not productive enough to understand the ways of the future. No one 'has' a desk, instead you grab your laptop out of your locker each morning and go find one. Or you might be allocated a desk via a morning raffle, not sure on this one yet. At the end of each day you clean every surface with alcohol wipes, which you then queue up to place in the singular bin that services the 300ish staff. Anyone who sits at the same desk twice will have to complete "Activity Based Working" training, in much the same way intoxicated road users may attend a DUI class. There will also be no car parks for staff, who are being encouraged to use public transport. The fact that this public transport doesn't actually exist yet is just a "growth opportunity", but who's growth we're referring to here is not yet clear. This might all sound like a joke, but the sad thing is it's 100% serious. Literally all of the above has been set in stone by minister that our department reports to.
- bumblebeard 9y agoThat sounds infuriating. Have you started looking for another job yet? I know I would.
- synicalx 9y agoI'm hanging on until I can officially pad my resume with all the office-move stuff (network redesign being a big one), but the second another job comes up after that I'm out there.
- dogruck 9y agoWhen was the first "rebellion against an office plan"? Can anybody link a report from the early 1900s? The 80s?
- tarikjn 9y agoI knew this was going to happen when I saw some of the office picture/renders a few months back. Highly relevant article: http://timharford.com/2017/02/what_makes_the_perfect_office/ http://timharford.com/2017/02/what_makes_the_perfect_office/ And for a bit of history about cubicles, their first incarnation was actually a developer's dream: https://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-offices-accidentally-became-hellish-cubicle-farms/ https://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-offices-accidentally-becam...
- siculars 9y ago"Gruber continued, “When he [Srouji] was shown the floor plans, he was more or less just 'F--- that, f--- you, f--- this, this is bulls---.' And they built his team their own building, off to the side on the campus … My understanding is that that building was built because Srouji was like, 'F--— this, my team isn't working like this.’”" Ya, what that guy said ^^.
- b34r 9y agoGod I hate open office layouts. The only job I've ever had with a proper cube was a marketing agency, and it was glorious. My team recently got little flags for our desks that explicitly say "open for business" and "busy, come back later"... but even with those people still bother you!
- deathanatos 9y ago> Apple has insisted in presentations to the city of Cupertino that the open floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams Oh, please. A trip to Wikipedia would have told you that[1]: > A systematic survey of research upon the effects of open-plan offices found […] high levels of noise, stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high staff turnover. The noise level in open-plan offices greatly reduces productivity, which drops to one third relative to what it would be in quiet rooms. > Open-plan offices have frequently been found to reduce the confidential or private conversations which employees engage in, and to reduce job satisfaction, concentration and performance, whilst increasing auditory and visual distractions. Further, open office plans spread disease more readily[2]: > elevated risks [for disease] were found among employees in all three traditional open-plan offices An open office floor plan robs you of the ability to control the noise level in the environment. There is literally no way for me to convince enough of my coworkers that they should: * Either take their phone with them, or silence it if leaving it at your desk. * Stop having meetings in the aisle immediately next to my desk. * If you're going to video conference in the meeting rooms, and have the other end at full volume, close the damn door. If you don't know enough about video conferencing to understand what a feedback loop is, and want to spend the first 10 minutes of the meeting generating them, close the damn door. Stop looking at me like I'm rude when I close the door for you.¹ Calling people out gets a typical "oh, sorry", but not an actual change in behavior. Maybe it encourages me to talk to the team nearby. Maybe. But is it worth the losses? No. (The team next to me is sales. They're not bad people, but they are fairly noisy. (And I'm sure they'd say the same of us, in fact!)) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan [2]: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00140139.2013.871064 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00140139.2013.871...
- pimmen 9y ago"But the high-level executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, are exempt from this collaborative environment and have offices on the fourth floor of the new building." Because private offices offers control over your working environment; if you need to collaborate, use a conference room, if you need a quick discussion, call them up on Slack. I'm not going to touch wether or not the CEO has earned the best working environment, but let's bring attention to the fact that the CEO is promoting less control over your working environment for his employees and claim open-office plans offers all kinds of benefits, while the C-level management chooses to opt out. Either that's very noble of them to sacrifice all the benefits of open-office, or they're being a bit disingenuous about why almost everyone else gets an open-office plan.
- signa11 9y ago'peopleware' by demarco and lister, goes over this and lot of other issues in great detail. imho, it should be required reading for s/w managers at the very least. edit-001 : added author info for the book.
- Bonge 9y agoThe open office arrangement works for some industries but for others, each company would need to evaluate how specialized their workforce is to choose a suitable arrangement. I would prefer a glass office with the freedom to have it closed much of the day without any "judgement". I am developer with an office now, but if i close the door I seem to be keeping people off, and not "social" or "accommodating". Leaving the door open exposes me to a lot of distractions (noise, visual-people walking etc, people just stopping by or spying on me) which are unhealthy and reduce my productivity. I have since learnt to ignore as much distractions as I can. Working previously in an audit firm, the open space worked well, because there is constant collaboration with multiple audit colleagues and all tasks complement each other hence the need to constantly keep tabs. But in development,if I have my specs or requirements , I don't need to keep in touch unless when giving updates, requesting for a resource, asking fr help or something else that is really pressing.
- jacobr 9y agoWe have screen walls (~2 meters) around teams of 2-4 people. I think 2-4 people is a decent compromise, you get friction-less cooperation with the people you work with but you don't get to overhear 20 different conversations about what someone did on their weekend. I am still bothered by other people's conversations across the screen-walls though, and I prefer to not listen to music all day. Our CEO is sympathetic to the issue with open offices and maybe if we move to another place it will have a different layout, but converting an open office to separate rooms is not that easy. Does anyone have any suggestions when management would actually accept taking measures to avoid the negatives of open office plans? Are there 4m high screen walls, with doors..?
- wdb 9y agoIf you do open office plans then everyone should do it including the executives
- eecc 9y agoAs a freelancer I'm looking forward to the day my customers will accept that I'm just as effective (actually more so) sitting in my own shared office space located just a short commute from home rather than their own desk and office, alas a grueling journey away. I guess they don't trust us children doing the work we are assigned and want to smell us sweating away at their stinky enterprise codebases
- nottorp 9y agoHmm. In a field like software development, where the good people work wherever they want, this means they will lose their best staff. Time to take a look at current desktop Linux again :)
- bipson 9y agoEverybody arguing for open office plans and stating that they or "some people" thrive in such environments should finally come around to read Peopleware [1]. Although they might base some statements on assumptions I do not fully agree with all the time, and before reading I was had not decided if I was strictly for or against open office plans, their conclusion is spot on: open plans do not foster collaboration or communication. They may cause a constant buzz and seem productive, but nobody will be smart, creative or productive in that environment, compared to a silent, uninterrupted workplace. All you multitaskers and procrastinators (including me): You are lying to yourself. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-3rd/dp/0321934113 https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-...
- bipson 9y agoI might add: I honestly do think we thinkers, developers, programmers, researchers, etc. do not talk enough and communication and exchange is important. That being said, the open office plan is not the solution to that, it will kill every possibility of focus, and make the lives of people seeking it miserable - because there needs to be communication, but it should not interrupt everyone especially if not actively participating.
- romanovcode 9y agoWell I would also be pissed if I had an office and then was told to give that up.
- Joeri 9y agoApple has insisted in presentations to the city of Cupertino that the open floor plan designs are conducive to collaboration between teams, per Bloomberg. But the high-level executives, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, are exempt from this collaborative environment and have offices on the fourth floor of the new building. See, this is exactly what's wrong with open plan offices in most places. If a CEO honestly believes open plan is better for collaboration, then they need to eat their own dog food. That CEO needs to be sitting right in the middle of things. If they find they can't get anything done as a consequence of the collaboration they are in the right place to take action to fix that. And if they are able to achieve productive outcomes, they are also in the right place to argue against people who say it's not possible. Letting upper management avoid all the downsides of the open plan layout causes problems with it to fester and will bring overall worker satisfaction and productivity down. In short, it is bad management to treat management in a special way.
- bottlerocket 9y agoThat jumped out at me as well, it's always the folks in a private office touting the virtue of an open plan
- jjtheblunt 9y agopossibly irrelevant observation: it was normal to find Steve Jobs eating with Jony Ive among all the employees in Caffe Mac, but I never saw Tim Cook doing so, though he was personable and even kind. Different personality or something...
- zz9815 9y agoI wonder how many Apple employees will be fired for speaking their minds (or writing 10 page documents) about how much they hate open office designs...
- tradesmanhelix 9y agoMy main disappointment with most businesses that implement open office plans has been the lack of choice. Everyone (except management) is expected to work in the open environment regardless of personal preference or the negative way such a setup impacts them. I personally struggle to be productive in an open office environment, but time has proven that there's very little that I as a non-managerial employee can do about it. I've tried: - Using noise-cancelling headphones. They kind of work, but I don't want to listen to music all the time (hurts your hearing after too long of exposure) nor do I want to wear them all day (uncomfortable for 8+ hours). - Moving to quieter locations around the office. Yes things are quieter, but my assigned desk is set up the way I like it - HD monitor, RSI-preventing keyboard + mouse, my Varidesk, etc. If I move to a different location, I lose all of the above and my productivity and happiness suffer. - Asking for changes (i.e., 1/2 height cubicles). "We'll see," or, "We can't afford that" were the two responses our team got from management despite numerous requests from multiple employees. In the end, I decided to lobby against open offices the only way I could - by voting with my feet. I quit my job, making sure to share my dissatisfaction with the work environment during my exit interview. I now enjoy a fully-remote development position where I can work from the comfort of my home office. However, I know there are only so many such jobs and that they're not ideal for everyone, so I come back to my original point: The fact that the vast majority of businesses don't make at least some sort of effort to provide their employees with options for their work environment that will allow them to do their best work is sad. Doing so just seems like common sense, which I guess is really not all that common after all, especially when it comes to open offices.