6 ms·

My 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 offi

My 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 ago
Visual distraction is very real when trying to focus.
- trowawee 9y ago
  This 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.
- seorphates 9y ago
  For. Sure. I have difficulty with lively sensory input conditions. In a nutshell I will, by default, listen and hear every conversation within ear-shot. It can be a huge effort when attempting to carry a discussion when among many. Not too mention I reflexively am willing to snark at anything I hear, no matter who's speaking. That can get uncomfortable, too, but in different ways. That's one of the reasons I wave one of those tech-broad-brush-anti-social banners around - Internally I'm interacting with everything around me. That can be hard. I demure when the option is available if for only to manage my senses. I'm so misunderstood.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  Visual distraction is the second worst, IMO, with noise in third. Number 1 is vibration and physical movement. I've had a desk environment where two folks would be sitting on opposite sides of a wide table, so there's one shared and non-isolated surface that both people work on. Every time my coworker would stand up, they'd brace themselves on the desk and shake the shit out of it, and I never learned to filter it out. Headphones don't help. Lots of big monitors don't help. Or when the hardwood floor has enough flex that you can feel people walking near your desk. Ugh.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I worked with a twitchy guy in the same office. It was horrible. He would constantly be pumping his foot on the floor, vibrating the entire room. After I asked him to stop a few times, he got out of the habit, but damn, it is distracting. Then of course some PM would swing by and talk to him about stocks or something silly. The PM didn't have anything better to do. We were also right by the break room, so people would constantly be chatting. I think you should just put developers and only developers on a floor. Everyone else who needs to chit chat and only has to attend meetings can go on another floor.
  - mathw 9y ago
    Where I currently am (I'm a consultant, based mostly in various client offices), the floor has a lot of flex in it. When people walk past, I can feel it bouncing under my chair. We do have decent-sized desks, so the open plan isn't too bad. It's actually pretty good as these things go, although there are no kitchens in which one can make a proper cup of tea. No proper kitchens for tea-making. We're in England. Come on! Admittedly this is a German company I'm working with at the moment, but still, the office is full of Brits. Open plan is perfectly normal here, but I still hate it. Especially the ones where they put really loud people near you (but you can't make a seating plan based on how loudly people tend to talk), or when there are people whose jobs involve loads of phone calls and who shout down their headsets, in the same open plan space as a highly technical team who really need to concentrate and occasionally have a quiet conversation with each other. No one space works for everyone. It just doesn't. And that's not even taking into account personal variations, as we've seen from these comments some people like the open collaborative possibility and some feel the need to hide away and bash the keyboard for hours at a time. I have days when I want to do one, and days for the other, so I really don't know what kind of office I'd like!
- ryan-allen 9y ago
  True, this is why I work on a 43" screen in an open office. I can't see ANYTHING but screen!
loeg 9y ago
If you can work from home, try it. It's not that bad.
- DigitalJack 9y ago
  I worked from home for 10 years, and I thought it was pretty good. Then my company changed policy and I had to find a satellite office to commute to. I’ve been back in an office for about six months now, and even with the noise and potential for distraction, I find I get more done there. Could just be the change that I am benefiting from. 10 years is a long time for anything.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aetherson 9y ago
  Counterpoint: Working from home is awful. In contrast, open office plans are pleasant. It's fine that lots of people here have the opposite opinion, but they shouldn't assume that their opinion is objective truth.
  - loeg 9y ago
    Doesn't hurt to try it and find out for yourself. I never said it was a panacea.
    - aetherson 9y ago
      That's fair.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
pcurve 9y ago
Good lord, your environment sounds horrific. We have open office plan, but it's quite comfortable because it's spread out enough, and traffic is fairly low.
Hnrobert42 9y ago
I suggest using Hearo's 32 NRR earplugs under the headphones. When people approach to bullshit with you, ignore them for a little bit. If they persist, make a show of taking off the headphones and extracting the earplugs. People will soon learn to leave you alone when you have your headphones on. At least, it worked for me, mostly.
- inetknght 9y ago
  I've had two different earplugs. I don't remember the first brand, it was close to 20 years ago by now. The second pair is a discontinued Skullcandy. They work well enough but they're not really noise cancelling... more like noise blocking. They're wearing out though. Last week I pulled one out of my ear and it left the rubber piece in my ear. That wasn't fun to fish out. I bought a pair of Bose QC35 on Sunday. Over-the-ear headphones. Their active powered noise cancelling feature works well enough for ambient noise such as the air system, but not so much for voices. If there's an over-the-ear pair of headphones with active noise-cancelling feature that blocks _all_ noise instead of just ambient noise and has great sound reproduction, that would be peachy.
  - ricardobeat 9y ago
    The recently launched Sony MDR1000X does the job for me (and also has a voice-passthrough option that is handy at times). It's around the same price as the Bose.
    - andrei_says_ 9y ago
      Speaking of price, were you able to get them expensed?
    - gaius 9y ago
      How long have you had them? Any issues with the headband cracking?
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    I owned some QC25s for a while and also found that they're useless when it comes to voices. The solution I've found to voices is IEMs, those in ear headphones. I'm currently using a pair of Etymotic ER4SR with the foam tips that came with them and I can't hear a thing when I'm in the office. They're not as good for deep ambient noise like the rumbling of a bus or train engine but I haven't found anything nearly as good when it comes to voices. The stock foam can get a bit uncomfortable for a while though so I'd recommend getting some Comply branded tips, which I find much more comfortable and close to as good. In the end though, I ended up paying for custom molded silicon tips, which by all reports I should barely be able to feel at all, let alone experience discomfort with. Still waiting for them to arrive though.
mapster 9y ago
it sounds mgmt wants you guys to work from home.
jansho 9y ago
Yeah about the headphones. I remember in one workplace when my manager expressed concern that I wasn't interacting and open enough solely because I had headphones on most of the time. What. It never occurred that I needed it to cut down the background noise, just so I can focus on my work? And I thought lunch time is reserved for casual conversations? There's another thing about open plan offices: too much visibility. I can't even get away to a quiet area without someone chalking it as suspicious. And it's easy to assure everyone else that I'm a pro, I just need to open two laptops with lots of notes and wiring on the desk. I still don't regret my decision to become a contractor.
rodgerd 9y ago
It could be worse. We've gone to hot-desking with a 10-20% overcommit. Good luck finding somewhere to work in the morning!
Steeeve 9y ago
> some people like open office environments I don't know of anyone that prefers an open office.
- boobsbr 9y ago
  Managers. Open office for regular employees, offices for managers.
- prawn 9y ago
  Hi! Personally, I really like working in an open office. I'm in a room of ten desks, all small businesses that have elected to work in this space rather than employees forced to. There is background music playing. People occasionally take calls at their desk if they can't relocate to the meeting room. People use headphones if they want to concentrate. Most people here are reasonably sociable, but also focus on their work well. I would really dislike being in a private office, solo cubicle or working from home day after day. (I've experienced each of these in the past.) I enjoy coming into the office even if it means a commute, not having endless snacks at my disposal, etc.
- Marazan 9y ago
  I prefer an open office. Thanks.
- ihalip 9y ago
  Younger hires fresh out of college maybe?
abawany 9y ago
Also, all of the people talking about headphones as a solution are sadists. The non-stop ringing in my ears from years of headphone use should serve as a warning that headphones are not a solution.
- aphistic 9y ago
  Or it should serve as a warning that you need to turn the volume down.
  - abawany 9y ago
    Well, I had the volume to a level to eliminate distracting noise. The latter comprised of stand-ups not associated with my team, random interjections, people discussing their dating experiences, scraping of bowls, etc. I guess I was trying to work as best as I could and listening to white noise to drown out the open-office cacophony was my attempt to earn my paycheck. My attempts to complain to the teams and their managers fell on deaf ears. I now have lifelong tinnitus.
Jaruzel 9y ago
> 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. That's kinda on you. Discipline is something that can be learned. When I first started working from home almost full-time, I found it quite difficult to separate work life and home life - I deliberately set up an office space in my house that only had my work laptop, and work essentials. My home machine and all my fun toys were elsewhere in the house. By doing this, it helped me focus on just doing work related stuff - any time wasting I did do, was on par with what I would do in the office anyway (reading tech sites etc). Over time, once I got into a routine, I reintroduced personal stuff/kit into my work space, and although my productivity took a bit of a drop, I also knew I could fully focus on work if I had to. WFH is not for everyone, and nor are Open Plan offices. The thing is, as many have already said, you need to find what works for you... We're all different ("I'm not!") and employers should acknowledge that if they want to retain good talent.

pteredactyl 9y ago

Visual distraction is very real when trying to focus.

trowawee 9y ago
This 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.
seorphates 9y ago
For. Sure. I have difficulty with lively sensory input conditions. In a nutshell I will, by default, listen and hear every conversation within ear-shot. It can be a huge effort when attempting to carry a discussion when among many. Not too mention I reflexively am willing to snark at anything I hear, no matter who's speaking. That can get uncomfortable, too, but in different ways. That's one of the reasons I wave one of those tech-broad-brush-anti-social banners around - Internally I'm interacting with everything around me. That can be hard. I demure when the option is available if for only to manage my senses. I'm so misunderstood.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Visual distraction is the second worst, IMO, with noise in third. Number 1 is vibration and physical movement. I've had a desk environment where two folks would be sitting on opposite sides of a wide table, so there's one shared and non-isolated surface that both people work on. Every time my coworker would stand up, they'd brace themselves on the desk and shake the shit out of it, and I never learned to filter it out. Headphones don't help. Lots of big monitors don't help. Or when the hardwood floor has enough flex that you can feel people walking near your desk. Ugh.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I worked with a twitchy guy in the same office. It was horrible. He would constantly be pumping his foot on the floor, vibrating the entire room. After I asked him to stop a few times, he got out of the habit, but damn, it is distracting. Then of course some PM would swing by and talk to him about stocks or something silly. The PM didn't have anything better to do. We were also right by the break room, so people would constantly be chatting. I think you should just put developers and only developers on a floor. Everyone else who needs to chit chat and only has to attend meetings can go on another floor.
- mathw 9y ago
  Where I currently am (I'm a consultant, based mostly in various client offices), the floor has a lot of flex in it. When people walk past, I can feel it bouncing under my chair. We do have decent-sized desks, so the open plan isn't too bad. It's actually pretty good as these things go, although there are no kitchens in which one can make a proper cup of tea. No proper kitchens for tea-making. We're in England. Come on! Admittedly this is a German company I'm working with at the moment, but still, the office is full of Brits. Open plan is perfectly normal here, but I still hate it. Especially the ones where they put really loud people near you (but you can't make a seating plan based on how loudly people tend to talk), or when there are people whose jobs involve loads of phone calls and who shout down their headsets, in the same open plan space as a highly technical team who really need to concentrate and occasionally have a quiet conversation with each other. No one space works for everyone. It just doesn't. And that's not even taking into account personal variations, as we've seen from these comments some people like the open collaborative possibility and some feel the need to hide away and bash the keyboard for hours at a time. I have days when I want to do one, and days for the other, so I really don't know what kind of office I'd like!
ryan-allen 9y ago
True, this is why I work on a 43" screen in an open office. I can't see ANYTHING but screen!

loeg 9y ago

If you can work from home, try it. It's not that bad.

DigitalJack 9y ago
I worked from home for 10 years, and I thought it was pretty good. Then my company changed policy and I had to find a satellite office to commute to. I’ve been back in an office for about six months now, and even with the noise and potential for distraction, I find I get more done there. Could just be the change that I am benefiting from. 10 years is a long time for anything.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aetherson 9y ago
Counterpoint: Working from home is awful. In contrast, open office plans are pleasant. It's fine that lots of people here have the opposite opinion, but they shouldn't assume that their opinion is objective truth.
- loeg 9y ago
  Doesn't hurt to try it and find out for yourself. I never said it was a panacea.
  - aetherson 9y ago
    That's fair.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

pcurve 9y ago

Good lord, your environment sounds horrific. We have open office plan, but it's quite comfortable because it's spread out enough, and traffic is fairly low.

Hnrobert42 9y ago

I suggest using Hearo's 32 NRR earplugs under the headphones. When people approach to bullshit with you, ignore them for a little bit. If they persist, make a show of taking off the headphones and extracting the earplugs. People will soon learn to leave you alone when you have your headphones on. At least, it worked for me, mostly.

inetknght 9y ago
I've had two different earplugs. I don't remember the first brand, it was close to 20 years ago by now. The second pair is a discontinued Skullcandy. They work well enough but they're not really noise cancelling... more like noise blocking. They're wearing out though. Last week I pulled one out of my ear and it left the rubber piece in my ear. That wasn't fun to fish out. I bought a pair of Bose QC35 on Sunday. Over-the-ear headphones. Their active powered noise cancelling feature works well enough for ambient noise such as the air system, but not so much for voices. If there's an over-the-ear pair of headphones with active noise-cancelling feature that blocks _all_ noise instead of just ambient noise and has great sound reproduction, that would be peachy.
- ricardobeat 9y ago
  The recently launched Sony MDR1000X does the job for me (and also has a voice-passthrough option that is handy at times). It's around the same price as the Bose.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago
    Speaking of price, were you able to get them expensed?
  - gaius 9y ago
    How long have you had them? Any issues with the headband cracking?
- Veratyr 9y ago
  I owned some QC25s for a while and also found that they're useless when it comes to voices. The solution I've found to voices is IEMs, those in ear headphones. I'm currently using a pair of Etymotic ER4SR with the foam tips that came with them and I can't hear a thing when I'm in the office. They're not as good for deep ambient noise like the rumbling of a bus or train engine but I haven't found anything nearly as good when it comes to voices. The stock foam can get a bit uncomfortable for a while though so I'd recommend getting some Comply branded tips, which I find much more comfortable and close to as good. In the end though, I ended up paying for custom molded silicon tips, which by all reports I should barely be able to feel at all, let alone experience discomfort with. Still waiting for them to arrive though.

mapster 9y ago

it sounds mgmt wants you guys to work from home.

jansho 9y ago

Yeah about the headphones. I remember in one workplace when my manager expressed concern that I wasn't interacting and open enough solely because I had headphones on most of the time. What. It never occurred that I needed it to cut down the background noise, just so I can focus on my work? And I thought lunch time is reserved for casual conversations? There's another thing about open plan offices: too much visibility. I can't even get away to a quiet area without someone chalking it as suspicious. And it's easy to assure everyone else that I'm a pro, I just need to open two laptops with lots of notes and wiring on the desk. I still don't regret my decision to become a contractor.

rodgerd 9y ago

It could be worse. We've gone to hot-desking with a 10-20% overcommit. Good luck finding somewhere to work in the morning!

Steeeve 9y ago

> some people like open office environments I don't know of anyone that prefers an open office.

boobsbr 9y ago
Managers. Open office for regular employees, offices for managers.
prawn 9y ago
Hi! Personally, I really like working in an open office. I'm in a room of ten desks, all small businesses that have elected to work in this space rather than employees forced to. There is background music playing. People occasionally take calls at their desk if they can't relocate to the meeting room. People use headphones if they want to concentrate. Most people here are reasonably sociable, but also focus on their work well. I would really dislike being in a private office, solo cubicle or working from home day after day. (I've experienced each of these in the past.) I enjoy coming into the office even if it means a commute, not having endless snacks at my disposal, etc.
Marazan 9y ago
I prefer an open office. Thanks.
ihalip 9y ago
Younger hires fresh out of college maybe?

abawany 9y ago

Also, all of the people talking about headphones as a solution are sadists. The non-stop ringing in my ears from years of headphone use should serve as a warning that headphones are not a solution.

aphistic 9y ago
Or it should serve as a warning that you need to turn the volume down.
- abawany 9y ago
  Well, I had the volume to a level to eliminate distracting noise. The latter comprised of stand-ups not associated with my team, random interjections, people discussing their dating experiences, scraping of bowls, etc. I guess I was trying to work as best as I could and listening to white noise to drown out the open-office cacophony was my attempt to earn my paycheck. My attempts to complain to the teams and their managers fell on deaf ears. I now have lifelong tinnitus.

Jaruzel 9y ago

> 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. That's kinda on you. Discipline is something that can be learned. When I first started working from home almost full-time, I found it quite difficult to separate work life and home life - I deliberately set up an office space in my house that only had my work laptop, and work essentials. My home machine and all my fun toys were elsewhere in the house. By doing this, it helped me focus on just doing work related stuff - any time wasting I did do, was on par with what I would do in the office anyway (reading tech sites etc). Over time, once I got into a routine, I reintroduced personal stuff/kit into my work space, and although my productivity took a bit of a drop, I also knew I could fully focus on work if I had to. WFH is not for everyone, and nor are Open Plan offices. The thing is, as many have already said, you need to find what works for you... We're all different ("I'm not!") and employers should acknowledge that if they want to retain good talent.