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(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 o
by 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.
- inetknght 9y agoYou might want to read the replies on his previous post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395204
- manicdee 9y agoEngineers are also well known for being unable to effectively communicate sarcasm in written prose.
- nandemo 9y agoNah, in this case it's good sarcasm, if someone doesn't get it they need to work on their sarcasm detector: http://www.wikihow.com/Detect-Sarcasm-in-Writing http://www.wikihow.com/Detect-Sarcasm-in-Writing
- notyourwork 9y agoI come here for intelligent discussion not useless sarcasm. This is HN right, not Reddit?
- freehunter 9y agoThat post was sarcasm, but it was incredibly intelligent sarcasm. Irony tends to be one of the higher forms of comedy when well executed.
- virmundi 9y agoProse don't communicate sarcasm easily without explicit notice. Check out The Beggar's Opera (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beggar%27s_Opera https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beggar%27s_Opera). It's actually really funny. Reading in college, no idea. Thought it was boring and everyone was bitchy. Seeing it college, lols. It's the play that inspired the play that brought us Mac the Knife and inspired Mac Tonight.
- andrewfong 9y agoYou can improve upon this by giving everyone VR headsets to shut out visual noise. You'll still need to come into the office though. Face time is important.
- inetknght 9y agoIronically I have a Vive at home and it would be one of the reasons I'd never get much work done
- jaggederest 9y agoMostly, in my experience, the struggles of working from home are precisely the opposite of that, in basically every way - people half-jokingly half-enviously chuckle about how many video games you're playing, because that's what THEY imagine they'd do if they worked from home, and they've never actually put themselves in the position to find out.
- bcoates 9y agoI can already imagine the future where someone slacks me "hey" in order to start a five-round conversation about if I'm busy and if it's OK for them to ask a question only to find out they were standing behind me the whole time.
- wavefunction 9y agoOr I could just work from home I guess.
- zghst 9y agocleverly sarcastic!
- uhhhhhhh 9y agoThat sounds horrible. Also extroverted vs assertive, I would lean towards engineers are assertive but not extroverted. There is a whole lot more to extroverted that isn't included in speaking your mind, and that speaks directly to why open floor plans can be horrible for many introverted people. * 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. This is sarcasm right? right? please tell me its sarcasm!
- NikolaNovak 9y agoI'm fairly certain entire post is sarcasm, including extroverted engineers, headphones making it OK to keep yelling, and quiet/meeting rooms being used for unproductive purposes :)
- uhhhhhhh 9y agoI thought so, but at the same time I've seen not sarcastic approaches to open office plans that aren't that far off.
- developer2 9y agoTheir _entire_ comment is sarcastic. Even "Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less" - all it takes is 2 people talking to ruin the environment for everyone else. Scratch that, it takes 1 person - someone on the phone.
- extesy 9y agoWell played! Just don't forget that there are too many people on the internet (including HN) who don't understand sarcasm if it's not explicitly marked as such.
- idlewords 9y agoSarcasm that's marked is not sarcasm.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- alanh 9y agoidlewords or not, that’s not true. Verbal sarcasm is usually 'marked' by its delivery. (Can you hear Homer Simpson's sarcastic voice in your head?) In my experience, seeing an explicit (sarcasm) at the end of a post has never ruined the post for me. Certainly I spotted the sarcasm here myself, but clearly many didn’t.
- firmgently 9y agoVerbal sarcasm being marked by its delivery as per Homer is a very US thing, in the UK (or at least in my life experience) sarcasm is supposed to be subtle, otherwise what's the point? To put a special voice on to denote sarcasm would be roughly equivalent to carrying a small drum-kit around to play 'badoom-tish' whenever you say something wry or funny. The function of sarcasm almost seems to be a kind of social 'weeding'... "Do you think so badly of me that you don't realise that the horrible thing I just said is the opposite of my real view?" / "Are you too stupid to know when someone's being sarcastic?". The deliverer of the sarcasm gets confirmation that people know she isn't that much of a dick, the recipient gets to demonstrate that they 'get it'. Validation all around. I think the cues are still there in physical interactions over here, they're just not as garish as a Homer Simpson sarcastic voice. "American-style sarcasm" exists as a phrase :) I realise the rise of internet/text communication will dilute these subtleties out of our lives but for now I'm one of the people who finds the /s tag very disappointing.
- maxxxxx 9y agoAnd I am sure you have handy flow charts printed out so people can figure out what to do when 6 people at a desk have a discussion while wearing headphones.
- whalesalad 9y agoThis.... is quintessential open floor plan. I feel like you are actually me.
- holografix 9y agoIt's infuriating, as a technical pre-sales resource I get interrupted INCESSANTLY throughout the day by rabbit hole "quick questions" and calendar management. Some of my colleagues were moaning about the constant growth of our team and the fact we'll have to move to hotel desks, I reckon it's the best thing ever.
- enraged_camel 9y ago>>It's infuriating, as a technical pre-sales resource I get interrupted INCESSANTLY throughout the day by rabbit hole "quick questions" and calendar management. This was my old job. I don't miss it...
- abc_lisper 9y agoMe too! I hated the environment (not the job) in every bone of my body.
- hindsightbias 9y agoNoise cancelling headphones really don't seem to be tuned to 85-250 Hz (human voice) in my experience, so you don't have to actually talk louder.
- sitkack 9y agoI have a patent pending that uses ML to read lips combined with aggravated deep learning to generate specific noise canceling wave forms for people within visual range. It can also mask obnoxious follow on affectations like filler words and laughter out of visual range once it has locked onto a conversation. The next phase of research is for an inanity filter, predictions are that it will mute most of existence.
- hindsightbias 9y agoThey have that nausea-inducing sound beam thing. I was wondering what a head-mounted version would weigh. Maybe integrate with an eye-tracker. Or a decibel meter hooked up to some old hag librarian robot that rolled around shrieking "SSSSHHHHHHH!"
- jjoonathan 9y agoHere's a classic from when Silicon Valley made actual silicon: the Widlar Hassler http://www.analogzoo.com/2015/01/building-the-widlar-hassler/ http://www.analogzoo.com/2015/01/building-the-widlar-hassler...
- pklausler 9y agoLet us know when you can detect people who start every sentence with "So" and tune them out entirely.
- snvzz 9y ago>Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less. How about zero or less?
- acchow 9y agoI think you missed the sarcasm
- dang 9y ago> if I may repost a comment I wrote here before Please don't do that. We have too much repetition on HN already, and copy-paste doesn't go well with thoughtful discussion.