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Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

178 points by merraksh 9y ago

tomohawk 9y ago
Such a failure to learn. The US school system went through this with "open classrooms". Schools were built to support the idea of no walls between classrooms. For years, teachers trying to maintain sanity erected temporary dividers. These days, most of those schools have been rehabbed to include actual walls, or they've been demo'd. Such a waste.
- MBCook 9y ago
  They just built a new school like that near me, and my understanding is that many teachers didn’t want to work there because of it. I can’t believe they’re still trying that stuff.
- yardie 9y ago
  I went to one such school. Our walls were made from blackboards and the teachers had installed nets to catch the occasional paper plane and flying pencils.
- madengr 9y ago
  Ugh, I went to a horrible elementary school like that, in the 70's, in rural VA. When my parents complained, she was told "these kids were destined for factory work, so the noise was not an issue". That shithole of a school is still there. I wonder if they added interior walls? http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us They pulled me out of 2nd grade and put me in private school where we had an orderly array of desks facing a black board. Had to start over again in 1st grade, since they were much ahead. The teacher kept our class in order; it was peaceful and quiet. I really excelled in that environment.
- jnwatson 9y ago
  That's a great point. All three schools I attended growing up were designed like that. The school district spent a lot of money on separating the rooms out again. Climate control never worked after that. It would be a shame for Apple to divide up the pretty space with ugly cubicle walls.
Shivetya 9y ago
we had a web group to great fan fare had all new work area created for them, open ceilings, glass walled conference rooms, and open-plan in general. I am not sure if anyone like it. from lack of perceived "my space" to simple increase in noise. plus if the computer setups are not well planned out it just looks wrong. for me, it reminds me of one especially bad contract where we worked on school lunch room tables. five of us in a row facing a wall with one phone at the end. amazing after spending our hourly rate what they thought they could save without realizing the impact on productivity if not turn over. people deride cubicles now but they are last safe haven, just like dogs and other animals, there is a lot to be said from the subconscious feeling you have from the walls of the cube and single entrance
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  > people deride cubicles now Yeah, I don't understand where the hate comes from. I suspect it's just about using cubicles as symbols of corporate environment in general. Because from a floor-plan standpoint, they're a fucking great invention. It's a perfect compromise between the need to give everyone their personal space, and the need to fit in lots of people cost-effectively. Today, if a company offered me a cubicle to work in, I'd consider it as hugely positive about them.
  - amalag 9y ago
    Cubicles were considered the worst of both worlds. No proper privacy because there is not enough sound blocking and the faux walls isolate people and prevent collaboration.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      I wonder why. I think they provide enough privacy for a workplace (as long as you're allowed to use headphones for extra sound blocking, and as long as the entry is to your side, not behind you) - the only way to get even more would be closed-door offices, but that takes much more floor space. As for "collaboration", at this point I consider talking about it as a negative thing about a place. I mean, frankly, I know "collaborating" is fun and games, but at some point somebody has to sit down, focus, and write the fucking code.
heisenbit 9y ago
Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me. On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How was that supposed to preserve and foster the engineering culture? Apple is the company where walls and secrets are not accident but carefully designed. I could imagine a part of the organization going to open floor but the whole building?
- Cacti 9y ago
  Who wants to get 3/4 of the way through the construction and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? Easier to just shove everyone in. Apple is usually a smart company, but it is always a large company, and large companies are prone to making broad one-size-fits-all mistakes.
  - tempodox 9y ago
    > ...and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? How do companies believe in ever-lasting growth and then not reflect that in their plans on usage of space? Feels like cognitive dissonance to me.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      If it were a person, sure, but it's a company so it's just shitty leadership exposing a lack of coordination among various discrete entities.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Just do what Amazon is doing, and build another one. Not enough room? Erect another skyscraper. And another one. Then a third. And then when you start facing the prospect of your employees getting lynched by locals who are furious about their rent, ask some other cities if they might have room. My prediction for the future: Amazon's internal transfer process is extremely smooth. Seattle is not gonna weather the opening of this second HQ well, once it gets up and running. But the point is, you gotta keep moving forwards - it's always day 1, right?
Spooky23 9y ago
I have a really bad feeling about Apple and this building. Companies tend to have bad things happen when they build or move HQ anyway, and the fetishization of Apple Park is a level beyond. Even their product marketing is distracted by talking about how awesome the building is. How much time has been wasted in the company on the topic?
- desireco42 9y ago
  My thought exactly, nature of many organizations changed when they moved to new fancy offices. Being in crammed offices, sharing and collaborating with your colleagues makes things special.
noir_lord 9y ago
I'm moving my office at work from a nice office next to the production office (noisy, people banging in and out all day) to a much bigger windowless space on the other site across the road just because of the noise. Boss keeps asking if I'm OK with no windows and I keep saying "Have you ever seen me with the blinds open?", It's amazing how even good managers don't get that for some of us a cave with fast internet is the best environment.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Yes, noise is a total productivity killer for me. I can't think, and thinking is most of my job! And what people designing offices never seem to understand is that noise is situational, relational. Some of my best working experiences have been in open-plan space with shared tables. And some of my worst have too. The difference is whether the people around me share the same definitions of "signal" and "noise". If the only people in earshot are my team, we quickly work out a shared sense of what's good to talk about in the team space. But if the people in earshot are on different teams, it's a fucking nightmare. We have very different understandings of what "signal" is. E.g., to a recruiter or someone in sales, "signal" is loud, emotionally intense conversations. But to me that's the worst kind of noise. And there's little social context for negotiating shared use.
tempodox 9y ago
I guess, once you're big enough, you can afford to have people quit and let the rest work inefficiently, just for the vanity of a “design” chief.
bjourne 9y ago
> "Judging from the private feedback I've gotten from some Apple employees, I'm 100 per cent certain there's going to be some degree of attrition based on the open floor plans, where good employees are going to choose to leave because they don't want to work there," Gruber said. But where are they going to go? Is there a single company left that hasn't adopted the open floor plan ideology? If so, are they hiring because I'd like to send in my resume. :/
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  This. I so strongly wish companies would start including their office arrangement in the job description. It would make it easier for me to avoid open-plan places, and it would let those who like them avoid offices/cubicles - thus making it more likely employees will feel good and thus work at peak productivity. It would also let the industry gather some real feedback about people's preferences. I don't really see a downside of including that info.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    Microsoft did this when they promoted their private offices in the 80s. Unfortunately, I can't find a copy of this newspaper job ad on google, but I saw it internally on Yammer.
  - amelius 9y ago
    Or better yet, offer both styles of workplace.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      That would be best, sure, but not every company can (and owners can subscribe to their own philosophies of workplace). All I'm saying is that providing this information would help potential candidates self-select to environments they find comfortable, which is beneficial both for employees and the company.
      - amelius 9y ago
mirekrusin 9y ago
In EU all those glass doors would have to have matt texture/stickers around eye level so you don't enter them by accident - I'm surprised in US there's no such requirement?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  As someone who managed to crash into a glass wall by accident (someone was really good at cleaning them), I second the suggestion - such stickers are a good idea.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    I went to a mall in Manila, walked into a glass door that had just been cleaned really well. I felt like a bird for awhile.
proyb 9y ago
I think it’s easy to reversed TOP floor for quiet working environment and noisy environment at lower level. Looking at Singapore has an office look similar to Apple Park spaceship. Directors, professors and councillors are working in open space, I don’t see why not?
StronglyTyped 9y ago
Where are they gonna go, though? The whole Valley has succumbed to this fad.
- tinus_hn 9y ago
  Yeah, all those idiot successful companies succumbing to this fad. It's probably some kind of conspiracy!
  - bitlax 9y ago
    Maybe now Apple will be a successful company!
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Open plan “offices” need to go away. I’m a professional and the products I develop make my company lots of money. Telling me if I need quiet I should put on headphones is insulting and is treating me like a child.
- amelius 9y ago
  Yes, open workspaces make me feel like I'm back in college.
  - jdbernard 9y ago
    It's worse. In college I could work in the lab with partners when we needed to collaborate but then work from "home" when I really needed focus. And I got to choose when I went to each.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    I'd take a significant pay cut to have a permanent desk in something like a university library (expectation of quiet on the floor, no conference rooms around the edges with booming teleconference speakers, go to another floor if you need to collaborate).
gdulli 9y ago
Why bother working for a company that has that much money and still won't invest it back in giving employees proper working conditions?
codyb 9y ago
Good. Apple is one of my favorite companies. I just absolutely love what they're doing and have done in terms of personal privacy. I'm really disheartened that they've moved to an open office layout. It's a surefire way to lose huge amounts of productivity from their engineers. Open office layouts are a travesty. They make literally no fucking sense. As engineers we're expected to maintain abstractions in our minds which can span hundreds if not thousands of lines of code. So why would you put us in the middle of a fucking zoo? I can hear sports TV while I try to work. I can hear my friends/coworkers shoot the shit about the new South Park or Game of Thrones episode while I work. I can hear people talk about their weekend plans while I work. I can hear my coworkers planning projects I'm not involved in as I work. And here I am, expectected, as a full stack engineer, to abstract complex data flows while all of this is going on. To produce, while all of this is going on. And do not forget that even if every single person was a deaf mute, their mere presence can knock me out of the zone. I remember college. I remember working on projects and losing track of time. Because back then I had a room where I could work without distraction. Boy, how wonderful, to be so absorbed as to forget how much time has passed. I literally have never felt that in an open office layout. It sucks. I love what I do. Why take that pleasure away from us? It burns me out.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I work in cubicles but the noise is also driving me crazy. There is always some conversation going on somewhere. In the office I am having more and more trouble holding on to a complex thought and in the evening I am totally exhausted. On the other hand working from home feels like paradise. It's quiet and I can look out the window when I need a break. Because of the office environment I am now looking for a new job, either remote or an office. Open space has turned work from being interesting to plain misery and exhaustion for me.
  - vslira 9y ago
    I know this may sound like a poor substitute to private corporate space, but I can't praise enough the combination of noise reducing earplugs and active noise cancelling over earphones. This combo plus somafm and a pomodoro timer app can instantly boost my productivity
pjc50 9y ago
I'm always reminded of those stock photos of typing pools or pre-computer accountants, where you had a vast noisy field of people (usually gender-segregated) clattering away on typewriters: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-pool-1930s-high-res-stock-photography/10075686 http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-pool-1... Really if there is to be a change in the industry it has to be led at the biggest, most fashionable employer. Everyone else will then be able to follow suit without the tedious need to actually think about the problem. (Maybe there will even be a union threatening a strike over working conditions?)
- MBCook 9y ago
  Apple is hardly the first to do this, many other large companies already have. The problem is the people doing typing pools or accountants weren’t doing creative work, they were doing more rote tasks. They weren’t trying to come up with complex abstract thoughts or get into a state of flow so the additional noise wasn’t as big a deal.
yosito 9y ago
Every time I hear someone complain about open offices, I want to say "Shhh! They'll send us all back to our cubicles and chain us to our desks!". Seriously, if you have an open office it's not that hard to put headphones in or pop into a side office for some focus time. But being required to spend 40 hours a week alone in a tiny box is my personal definition of hell.
- edwhitesell 9y ago
  There are some environments where headphones are discouraged, sadly I worked in one that was semi-open (more of a bullpen). The reality is some people work fine in open environments, some don't. If you really want to have happy, productive team members, you need to offer some different options.
  - steego 9y ago
    This. I don't understand why more companies don't copy university libraries and create a mix of spaces for different tasks. Sometimes you want small collaborative rooms, sometimes you want a quiet cubicle.
- kps 9y ago
  > pop into a side office for some focus time Maybe that works where you are, but my desk is bolted to the divider and probably wouldn't even fit down the aisle between my coworkers.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Some people don't like headphones on while working. Just give me a quiet room with a window.
- detaro 9y ago
  Either "side office" is a weird word for "toilet stall" or your open office is fancier than many.
thinbeige 9y ago
I am no fan of open-plan office or just going to an office but there is a huge difference between a cramped open-plan office and one where you have so much space around your and your peer's desk that you need a hoverboard to get to the next couple of coworkers. Also carpets, semi-wall, calling booths can make a difference. So what I want to say is that every open-plan offices is different and yes, most are terrible. But I guess that if somebody made them right it must be Apple?!
SethMurphy 9y ago
If as an engineer your only Job is to write code based on perfectly written functional specs, then open offices may not be the best. However, In larger project communication and transparency is an as important part of the job. While many people are more comfortable alone, you are part of a team and not just a coder. I find it selfish for people to feel their alone time is more important than learning how to work as a team. Noise canceling headphones do wonders when you need to focus.
- phkahler 9y ago
  >> I find it selfish for people to feel their alone time is more important than learning how to work as a team. Noise canceling headphones do wonders when you need to focus. Wow. That's a fairly narrow view you have there. The core work of engineering is done individually. People having ad-hoc meetings next to you ruins concentration and it's not just the noise. It's the visual distraction as well as a psychological distraction - you may wonder if something pertinent to you is being discussed and you should stop and participate. The notion of "just put on headphones" and it will all be better is - to use your own word - selfish. How about some degree of privacy by default. In a traditional cube farm you can have 1 or perhaps 2 people stop in for discussions and go to a conference room for larger discussions that involve the team. I guess the simplest way to show how wrong it is: in most open offices, the management still get offices. Sure, they have reasons like a need for private discussions (people conflicts, compensation, etc) but they could just grab a conference room for that stuff right? Nope, they hate being in the open too.
- codyb 9y ago
  Hm. Maybe I'm nuts but I have literally no idea what desiring a private and quiet space for concentration does to ruin a persons ability to work as a teammate. My coworkers love their noise canceling ear phones. That's great. What I'd love is to not hear their ratatat as they drum to their music. And I do not fault them for that, because I love to ratatat to my own music when I'm listening to it as well. A place to be myself while I work, what an odd concept.
  - alangpierce 9y ago
nfriedly 9y ago
If you really want a private office, there are a couple of spaces available right next to mine for $225/month each - http://www.klopferbuilding.com/ http://www.klopferbuilding.com/ ;) Obviously you'd need to live nearby (Northwest of Dayton, OH), but houses here go for ~ $120k - https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-Hill https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-Hill You could literally retire here and work on whatever you what with a few year's worth of bay area salary. (Which is, more or less, what I intend to do.)
- sogen 9y ago
  Hi, what's the crime rate there? Does it snow a lot?
  - nfriedly 9y ago
    The crime rate is so low that the town closed the police department a few years ago. (Now we contract with the sheriff.) I think I've locked my house twice in four years. We do usually get a couple of good snows each winter.
    - sogen 9y ago
      Thanks!, last question, how's the tech employment in there? Which TBH doesn't really matter since i like to work remotely.
      - nfriedly 9y ago
        Yea, there isn't much in Pleasant Hill. There's an Air Force base, a couple of hospitals, a couple of software/web agencies, and a few other things around Dayton, though. I work remotely for IBM, and also have a side business that's mostly wound down now.
        sogen 9y ago
        Thx, sorry to hear about the business.
CydeWeys 9y ago
At work, I currently sit in an enclosed room that fits eight SWEs, all of whom are on my team. We have sliding glass doors on the room that we only use when we're having our stand-ups so as to not disturb the people outside the room. Incoming noise never seems to be a problem. All of the conversations I overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me. I also have my back facing a wall. I consider this a near ideal working environment, even better than everyone having private offices, as that seriously hampers spontaneous discussion. In another month we'll be moving out from our room into the general open office seating area, which I'm not looking forward to. It's not even the noise that bothers me, it's the raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back. I get horribly distracted in a big open area when people are moving around behind me, and I thus can't concentrate effectively. I also feel self-conscious about what others can see on my screen, and can never relax. I feel a low-level anxiety from it throughout the entire work day.
- andrewflnr 9y ago
  > raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back Finally, someone else who gets it. When I've mentioned this, people tend to assume it's just about what's on your screen, but that's really not the heart of it.
  - dleslie 9y ago
    I once was placed with my back to the entrance doors of the office, which frequently had people coming and going. HR and IT were both in arms when I rotated my desk around.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      That desk situation sounds like my worst nightmare.
    - zebraflask 9y ago
      Why would HR get upset over that? Aside from the obvious answer that it's HR.
feketegy 9y ago
Steve Jobs saw a productivity increase when he was at Pixar according to Ed Catmull's book (Creativity Inc.) The problem is that what Mr. Catmull described as open space for creative people to let them mingle and bounce off creative ideas. That's the whole premise of an open office space. Now, programming can be a creative field, but most of the time when I code I'd like to be quiet around me. If anybody distracts me that's an instant 15 minutes loss (at least) of whatever I was doing. At least for me.
- exodust 9y ago
  Pixar is "open" only in the sense of having a central atrium and common areas to encourage chance encounters and interaction. The rest of the building where work is done is nooks and crannies, studios and offices. Creative people doing the grunt work of raw design and animation will need and want isolation from distraction just like programmers do.
dvdhnt 9y ago
The article links to a previous article on the local impact of the campus that is also interesting: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-foster-partners-sucks-wired-magazine-review/ https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-fost... Edit: clarification
sogen 9y ago
Chicken farm
acty1 9y ago
Once you work remotely (and you have your own office, in your own house) you feel bad, terribly sorry for anyone that stays in an open office "cultured" tech company making 200k+ per year. The quality of life and lack of freedom you exchange for the "next 100k" above and beyond a 100k base Salary is never worth it. Time and health is your most precious resource and asset. And many are deluded into thinking it's ok to trade that for (what they mistakingly) thing is a lot of money (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into account)
- flachsechs 9y ago
  > (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into account) this is important to keep in mind. the people who are the true high earners are making 500k+, sometimes married to someone else who also does. the real outliers make millions. they are the ones buying multi-$million houses in the bay area, LA, NY, etc. it's not mysterious overseas chinese and arab buyers. it's high earning americans taking home 30, 40 thousand dollars a month or who struck it big with equity. it's a scam. don't fall for it. if you want to make millions, go for it, but don't commit slow suicide over the marginal difference in a high-tax state. furthermore, 200k is NOT a stepping stone between 100k and 500k. that's not how it works for the vast majority of people, i.e. people who are not gifted at management and corporate politics. if you're in the true high earner range, you did a LOT of stuff to get there, such as medical school, law school, or similar, or busted your ass starting your own company years ago, or were simply granted some kind of employee stock which you had very little control over (good for you, not so good for anyone else on a normal salary).
  - uhhhouses 9y ago
    Uhh, affording a house in LA/SF/NYC is an absolutely collosal amount of money. You sure ain't middle class anymore.
    - flachsechs 9y ago
      "uhhh", isn't that what i just said?
sitkack 9y ago
We have open plan, I revolted by never returning to my desk. I work from random location, old unoccupied desks, home, the cafeteria, but never my desk. You just burned that real estate.
- drdeadringer 9y ago
  At my current job, out of circumstance of the stuff I'm doing, I started going straight to the lab without stopping by my desk. On average, there will be 1-3 people in the lab including myself. At my desk? It's an open-office styled lab-converted loading area where one "wall" is a floor-to-ceiling roller door; loud rattling on windy days is only one perk. The lab is much nicer. Smaller, fewer people, generally quiet, a door, controlled environment [lights, temperature].
  - sitkack 9y ago
    Make the space you need by what ever means necessary.
- drkstr 9y ago
  YMMV. I ended up losing my job of 7 years after proving incapable of sitting in a high-traffic area cubicle. Had a single unit office up until they decided to hand those out to the new hires in sales/marketing. They even complimented me on the quality of my work on the way out. Go figure.
andrewflnr 9y ago
> Similarly, Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more likely to innovate if they had access to a range of spaces supporting different working styles – including private, semi-private and open-plan environments. This is my favorite part, because it confirms an intuition I've held for a long time: both open areas and private offices have their uses, so provide both. The only downside I can see is that it's expensive to implement, which is, I'll grant, non-trivial.
- dpkonofa 9y ago
  And this is the part that I don't understand. According to most articles about this, they do offer private, shared offices. They're shared in that anyone can badge into them and use it privately but they're not assigned to any individual. That seems like a great compromise and yet it's rarely mentioned in articles like this.
  - cxseven 9y ago
    What about something in between where teams can work together?
    - dpkonofa 9y ago
      Isn't that what's being referred to by the shared working offices? I thought the whole point of the article was that these spaces are what people are complaining about. They're on a team that needs to collaborate but they want it to be swapped around from the default. They want private spaces for everyone and a shared area for team work. Apple wants them to work in teams for most of their time and to have private spaces for the rarer occasions where they really need to be alone and focus on individualized tasks. I think they're making the debatable assumption that the most valuable work is done collaboratively and that the menial work is done individually. As for the engineering team that got moved to their own building, I don't see how or why a private area for everyone would make their jobs better. If everyone's coding and not talking to anyone else, then what's there to distract? If people need to talk, they go to the collaborative space. If they don't want to hear people talk, they can go in one of the private spaces. Some people will simply spend more time in the private space or will work from home.
RijilV 9y ago
I'm one of the outliers who likes open floor plans, BUT at densities much lower than what makes economical sense. 1 person per thousand square feet would be my minimum and I'd really like half again as much space. Problem is the economics of it. Open floor plans I see on blogs are often side by side working stations with less than 200sqft per worker. That's not really open floor plan in my mind, just removing the walls to recoup a couple of inches to cram more people in.
masonicb00m 9y ago
They just need to get a pair of DND Shades™ for everyone (http://www.dndshades.com http://www.dndshades.com). Problem solved.
krayis 9y ago
First world problems
throwaway140917 9y ago
Apple people: Don't quit, just refuse to work in unpleasant conditions. If they fire you, sue. See my relevent comment yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333 (But do talk to an attorney before taking internet advice.)
tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
I cannot believe how short sighted companies can be when it comes to these things, but I don't think it's malice per se, it's usually a variation of the person who makes the decision does not have to live with it and so doesn't have any incentive outside of spending as little as possible. It's like how in many cases the desktops/monitors for developers come out of the IT budget, so the IT department tries to buy the crappiest things possible (24" single 1080p monitors, because they can't find anymore the 22" 900p they had before, 500 gig hard drives, etc.) because it does not impact them if developers are happy or not or are hampered by having to work with substandard tools. In several past companies when we moved offices or had an office redesign, it was always up to the facilities department to deal with this, and developers were involved only at the very end when it was time to pick the seating and by that time all the design was locked, contractors hired and so on and so there was no way to change anything of significance anymore. If I ever had a company I would make it a rule that any decision has to be made by the department / people affected by it. Other departments can offer support as needed, but I would never have IT control which hardware the developers get, or facilities decide for open office/cube height/chairs, or the CTO decide for the code review tool, etc. etc.
erdojo 9y ago
In all my 25+ years in the valley, I've seen office trends come and go. None have been more hated than the open floor plan. Especially when you don't have a wall behind you. It's why I now work from home. Why many work from home. Open offices are not comfortable, collaborative, friendly, or enjoyable. They make people feel watched, interrupted, and stressed. Want me to come back to work in the office? Give me walls.
justin1364 9y ago
Where will they go? Facebook/Google? That won't solve their problem... maybe Oracle?

178 points by merraksh 9y ago

Such a failure to learn. The US school system went through this with "open classrooms". Schools were built to support the idea of no walls between classrooms. For years, teachers trying to maintain sanity erected temporary dividers. These days, most of those schools have been rehabbed to include actual walls, or they've been demo'd. Such a waste.

MBCook 9y ago
They just built a new school like that near me, and my understanding is that many teachers didn’t want to work there because of it. I can’t believe they’re still trying that stuff.
yardie 9y ago
I went to one such school. Our walls were made from blackboards and the teachers had installed nets to catch the occasional paper plane and flying pencils.
madengr 9y ago
Ugh, I went to a horrible elementary school like that, in the 70's, in rural VA. When my parents complained, she was told "these kids were destined for factory work, so the noise was not an issue". That shithole of a school is still there. I wonder if they added interior walls? http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us They pulled me out of 2nd grade and put me in private school where we had an orderly array of desks facing a black board. Had to start over again in 1st grade, since they were much ahead. The teacher kept our class in order; it was peaceful and quiet. I really excelled in that environment.
jnwatson 9y ago
That's a great point. All three schools I attended growing up were designed like that. The school district spent a lot of money on separating the rooms out again. Climate control never worked after that. It would be a shame for Apple to divide up the pretty space with ugly cubicle walls.

Shivetya 9y ago

we had a web group to great fan fare had all new work area created for them, open ceilings, glass walled conference rooms, and open-plan in general. I am not sure if anyone like it. from lack of perceived "my space" to simple increase in noise. plus if the computer setups are not well planned out it just looks wrong. for me, it reminds me of one especially bad contract where we worked on school lunch room tables. five of us in a row facing a wall with one phone at the end. amazing after spending our hourly rate what they thought they could save without realizing the impact on productivity if not turn over. people deride cubicles now but they are last safe haven, just like dogs and other animals, there is a lot to be said from the subconscious feeling you have from the walls of the cube and single entrance

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> people deride cubicles now Yeah, I don't understand where the hate comes from. I suspect it's just about using cubicles as symbols of corporate environment in general. Because from a floor-plan standpoint, they're a fucking great invention. It's a perfect compromise between the need to give everyone their personal space, and the need to fit in lots of people cost-effectively. Today, if a company offered me a cubicle to work in, I'd consider it as hugely positive about them.
- amalag 9y ago
  Cubicles were considered the worst of both worlds. No proper privacy because there is not enough sound blocking and the faux walls isolate people and prevent collaboration.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    I wonder why. I think they provide enough privacy for a workplace (as long as you're allowed to use headphones for extra sound blocking, and as long as the entry is to your side, not behind you) - the only way to get even more would be closed-door offices, but that takes much more floor space. As for "collaboration", at this point I consider talking about it as a negative thing about a place. I mean, frankly, I know "collaborating" is fun and games, but at some point somebody has to sit down, focus, and write the fucking code.

heisenbit 9y ago

Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me. On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How was that supposed to preserve and foster the engineering culture? Apple is the company where walls and secrets are not accident but carefully designed. I could imagine a part of the organization going to open floor but the whole building?

Cacti 9y ago
Who wants to get 3/4 of the way through the construction and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? Easier to just shove everyone in. Apple is usually a smart company, but it is always a large company, and large companies are prone to making broad one-size-fits-all mistakes.
- tempodox 9y ago
  > ...and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? How do companies believe in ever-lasting growth and then not reflect that in their plans on usage of space? Feels like cognitive dissonance to me.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    If it were a person, sure, but it's a company so it's just shitty leadership exposing a lack of coordination among various discrete entities.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Just do what Amazon is doing, and build another one. Not enough room? Erect another skyscraper. And another one. Then a third. And then when you start facing the prospect of your employees getting lynched by locals who are furious about their rent, ask some other cities if they might have room. My prediction for the future: Amazon's internal transfer process is extremely smooth. Seattle is not gonna weather the opening of this second HQ well, once it gets up and running. But the point is, you gotta keep moving forwards - it's always day 1, right?

Spooky23 9y ago

I have a really bad feeling about Apple and this building. Companies tend to have bad things happen when they build or move HQ anyway, and the fetishization of Apple Park is a level beyond. Even their product marketing is distracted by talking about how awesome the building is. How much time has been wasted in the company on the topic?

desireco42 9y ago
My thought exactly, nature of many organizations changed when they moved to new fancy offices. Being in crammed offices, sharing and collaborating with your colleagues makes things special.

noir_lord 9y ago

I'm moving my office at work from a nice office next to the production office (noisy, people banging in and out all day) to a much bigger windowless space on the other site across the road just because of the noise. Boss keeps asking if I'm OK with no windows and I keep saying "Have you ever seen me with the blinds open?", It's amazing how even good managers don't get that for some of us a cave with fast internet is the best environment.

wpietri 9y ago
Yes, noise is a total productivity killer for me. I can't think, and thinking is most of my job! And what people designing offices never seem to understand is that noise is situational, relational. Some of my best working experiences have been in open-plan space with shared tables. And some of my worst have too. The difference is whether the people around me share the same definitions of "signal" and "noise". If the only people in earshot are my team, we quickly work out a shared sense of what's good to talk about in the team space. But if the people in earshot are on different teams, it's a fucking nightmare. We have very different understandings of what "signal" is. E.g., to a recruiter or someone in sales, "signal" is loud, emotionally intense conversations. But to me that's the worst kind of noise. And there's little social context for negotiating shared use.

tempodox 9y ago

I guess, once you're big enough, you can afford to have people quit and let the rest work inefficiently, just for the vanity of a “design” chief.

bjourne 9y ago

> "Judging from the private feedback I've gotten from some Apple employees, I'm 100 per cent certain there's going to be some degree of attrition based on the open floor plans, where good employees are going to choose to leave because they don't want to work there," Gruber said. But where are they going to go? Is there a single company left that hasn't adopted the open floor plan ideology? If so, are they hiring because I'd like to send in my resume. :/

TeMPOraL 9y ago
This. I so strongly wish companies would start including their office arrangement in the job description. It would make it easier for me to avoid open-plan places, and it would let those who like them avoid offices/cubicles - thus making it more likely employees will feel good and thus work at peak productivity. It would also let the industry gather some real feedback about people's preferences. I don't really see a downside of including that info.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  Microsoft did this when they promoted their private offices in the 80s. Unfortunately, I can't find a copy of this newspaper job ad on google, but I saw it internally on Yammer.
- amelius 9y ago
  Or better yet, offer both styles of workplace.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    That would be best, sure, but not every company can (and owners can subscribe to their own philosophies of workplace). All I'm saying is that providing this information would help potential candidates self-select to environments they find comfortable, which is beneficial both for employees and the company.
    - amelius 9y ago

mirekrusin 9y ago

In EU all those glass doors would have to have matt texture/stickers around eye level so you don't enter them by accident - I'm surprised in US there's no such requirement?

TeMPOraL 9y ago
As someone who managed to crash into a glass wall by accident (someone was really good at cleaning them), I second the suggestion - such stickers are a good idea.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  I went to a mall in Manila, walked into a glass door that had just been cleaned really well. I felt like a bird for awhile.

proyb 9y ago

I think it’s easy to reversed TOP floor for quiet working environment and noisy environment at lower level. Looking at Singapore has an office look similar to Apple Park spaceship. Directors, professors and councillors are working in open space, I don’t see why not?

StronglyTyped 9y ago

Where are they gonna go, though? The whole Valley has succumbed to this fad.

tinus_hn 9y ago
Yeah, all those idiot successful companies succumbing to this fad. It's probably some kind of conspiracy!
- bitlax 9y ago
  Maybe now Apple will be a successful company!

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Open plan “offices” need to go away. I’m a professional and the products I develop make my company lots of money. Telling me if I need quiet I should put on headphones is insulting and is treating me like a child.

amelius 9y ago
Yes, open workspaces make me feel like I'm back in college.
- jdbernard 9y ago
  It's worse. In college I could work in the lab with partners when we needed to collaborate but then work from "home" when I really needed focus. And I got to choose when I went to each.
- closeparen 9y ago
  I'd take a significant pay cut to have a permanent desk in something like a university library (expectation of quiet on the floor, no conference rooms around the edges with booming teleconference speakers, go to another floor if you need to collaborate).

gdulli 9y ago

Why bother working for a company that has that much money and still won't invest it back in giving employees proper working conditions?

codyb 9y ago

Good. Apple is one of my favorite companies. I just absolutely love what they're doing and have done in terms of personal privacy. I'm really disheartened that they've moved to an open office layout. It's a surefire way to lose huge amounts of productivity from their engineers. Open office layouts are a travesty. They make literally no fucking sense. As engineers we're expected to maintain abstractions in our minds which can span hundreds if not thousands of lines of code. So why would you put us in the middle of a fucking zoo? I can hear sports TV while I try to work. I can hear my friends/coworkers shoot the shit about the new South Park or Game of Thrones episode while I work. I can hear people talk about their weekend plans while I work. I can hear my coworkers planning projects I'm not involved in as I work. And here I am, expectected, as a full stack engineer, to abstract complex data flows while all of this is going on. To produce, while all of this is going on. And do not forget that even if every single person was a deaf mute, their mere presence can knock me out of the zone. I remember college. I remember working on projects and losing track of time. Because back then I had a room where I could work without distraction. Boy, how wonderful, to be so absorbed as to forget how much time has passed. I literally have never felt that in an open office layout. It sucks. I love what I do. Why take that pleasure away from us? It burns me out.

maxxxxx 9y ago
I work in cubicles but the noise is also driving me crazy. There is always some conversation going on somewhere. In the office I am having more and more trouble holding on to a complex thought and in the evening I am totally exhausted. On the other hand working from home feels like paradise. It's quiet and I can look out the window when I need a break. Because of the office environment I am now looking for a new job, either remote or an office. Open space has turned work from being interesting to plain misery and exhaustion for me.
- vslira 9y ago
  I know this may sound like a poor substitute to private corporate space, but I can't praise enough the combination of noise reducing earplugs and active noise cancelling over earphones. This combo plus somafm and a pomodoro timer app can instantly boost my productivity

pjc50 9y ago

I'm always reminded of those stock photos of typing pools or pre-computer accountants, where you had a vast noisy field of people (usually gender-segregated) clattering away on typewriters: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-pool-1930s-high-res-stock-photography/10075686 http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-pool-1... Really if there is to be a change in the industry it has to be led at the biggest, most fashionable employer. Everyone else will then be able to follow suit without the tedious need to actually think about the problem. (Maybe there will even be a union threatening a strike over working conditions?)

MBCook 9y ago
Apple is hardly the first to do this, many other large companies already have. The problem is the people doing typing pools or accountants weren’t doing creative work, they were doing more rote tasks. They weren’t trying to come up with complex abstract thoughts or get into a state of flow so the additional noise wasn’t as big a deal.

yosito 9y ago

Every time I hear someone complain about open offices, I want to say "Shhh! They'll send us all back to our cubicles and chain us to our desks!". Seriously, if you have an open office it's not that hard to put headphones in or pop into a side office for some focus time. But being required to spend 40 hours a week alone in a tiny box is my personal definition of hell.

edwhitesell 9y ago
There are some environments where headphones are discouraged, sadly I worked in one that was semi-open (more of a bullpen). The reality is some people work fine in open environments, some don't. If you really want to have happy, productive team members, you need to offer some different options.
- steego 9y ago
  This. I don't understand why more companies don't copy university libraries and create a mix of spaces for different tasks. Sometimes you want small collaborative rooms, sometimes you want a quiet cubicle.
kps 9y ago
> pop into a side office for some focus time Maybe that works where you are, but my desk is bolted to the divider and probably wouldn't even fit down the aisle between my coworkers.
maxxxxx 9y ago
Some people don't like headphones on while working. Just give me a quiet room with a window.
detaro 9y ago
Either "side office" is a weird word for "toilet stall" or your open office is fancier than many.

thinbeige 9y ago

I am no fan of open-plan office or just going to an office but there is a huge difference between a cramped open-plan office and one where you have so much space around your and your peer's desk that you need a hoverboard to get to the next couple of coworkers. Also carpets, semi-wall, calling booths can make a difference. So what I want to say is that every open-plan offices is different and yes, most are terrible. But I guess that if somebody made them right it must be Apple?!

SethMurphy 9y ago

If as an engineer your only Job is to write code based on perfectly written functional specs, then open offices may not be the best. However, In larger project communication and transparency is an as important part of the job. While many people are more comfortable alone, you are part of a team and not just a coder. I find it selfish for people to feel their alone time is more important than learning how to work as a team. Noise canceling headphones do wonders when you need to focus.

phkahler 9y ago
>> I find it selfish for people to feel their alone time is more important than learning how to work as a team. Noise canceling headphones do wonders when you need to focus. Wow. That's a fairly narrow view you have there. The core work of engineering is done individually. People having ad-hoc meetings next to you ruins concentration and it's not just the noise. It's the visual distraction as well as a psychological distraction - you may wonder if something pertinent to you is being discussed and you should stop and participate. The notion of "just put on headphones" and it will all be better is - to use your own word - selfish. How about some degree of privacy by default. In a traditional cube farm you can have 1 or perhaps 2 people stop in for discussions and go to a conference room for larger discussions that involve the team. I guess the simplest way to show how wrong it is: in most open offices, the management still get offices. Sure, they have reasons like a need for private discussions (people conflicts, compensation, etc) but they could just grab a conference room for that stuff right? Nope, they hate being in the open too.
codyb 9y ago
Hm. Maybe I'm nuts but I have literally no idea what desiring a private and quiet space for concentration does to ruin a persons ability to work as a teammate. My coworkers love their noise canceling ear phones. That's great. What I'd love is to not hear their ratatat as they drum to their music. And I do not fault them for that, because I love to ratatat to my own music when I'm listening to it as well. A place to be myself while I work, what an odd concept.
- alangpierce 9y ago

nfriedly 9y ago

If you really want a private office, there are a couple of spaces available right next to mine for $225/month each - http://www.klopferbuilding.com/ http://www.klopferbuilding.com/ ;) Obviously you'd need to live nearby (Northwest of Dayton, OH), but houses here go for ~ $120k - https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-Hill https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-Hill You could literally retire here and work on whatever you what with a few year's worth of bay area salary. (Which is, more or less, what I intend to do.)

sogen 9y ago
Hi, what's the crime rate there? Does it snow a lot?
- nfriedly 9y ago
  The crime rate is so low that the town closed the police department a few years ago. (Now we contract with the sheriff.) I think I've locked my house twice in four years. We do usually get a couple of good snows each winter.
  - sogen 9y ago
    Thanks!, last question, how's the tech employment in there? Which TBH doesn't really matter since i like to work remotely.
    - nfriedly 9y ago
      Yea, there isn't much in Pleasant Hill. There's an Air Force base, a couple of hospitals, a couple of software/web agencies, and a few other things around Dayton, though. I work remotely for IBM, and also have a side business that's mostly wound down now.
      - sogen 9y ago
        Thx, sorry to hear about the business.

CydeWeys 9y ago

At work, I currently sit in an enclosed room that fits eight SWEs, all of whom are on my team. We have sliding glass doors on the room that we only use when we're having our stand-ups so as to not disturb the people outside the room. Incoming noise never seems to be a problem. All of the conversations I overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me. I also have my back facing a wall. I consider this a near ideal working environment, even better than everyone having private offices, as that seriously hampers spontaneous discussion. In another month we'll be moving out from our room into the general open office seating area, which I'm not looking forward to. It's not even the noise that bothers me, it's the raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back. I get horribly distracted in a big open area when people are moving around behind me, and I thus can't concentrate effectively. I also feel self-conscious about what others can see on my screen, and can never relax. I feel a low-level anxiety from it throughout the entire work day.

andrewflnr 9y ago
> raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back Finally, someone else who gets it. When I've mentioned this, people tend to assume it's just about what's on your screen, but that's really not the heart of it.
- dleslie 9y ago
  I once was placed with my back to the entrance doors of the office, which frequently had people coming and going. HR and IT were both in arms when I rotated my desk around.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    That desk situation sounds like my worst nightmare.
  - zebraflask 9y ago
    Why would HR get upset over that? Aside from the obvious answer that it's HR.

feketegy 9y ago

Steve Jobs saw a productivity increase when he was at Pixar according to Ed Catmull's book (Creativity Inc.) The problem is that what Mr. Catmull described as open space for creative people to let them mingle and bounce off creative ideas. That's the whole premise of an open office space. Now, programming can be a creative field, but most of the time when I code I'd like to be quiet around me. If anybody distracts me that's an instant 15 minutes loss (at least) of whatever I was doing. At least for me.

exodust 9y ago
Pixar is "open" only in the sense of having a central atrium and common areas to encourage chance encounters and interaction. The rest of the building where work is done is nooks and crannies, studios and offices. Creative people doing the grunt work of raw design and animation will need and want isolation from distraction just like programmers do.

dvdhnt 9y ago

The article links to a previous article on the local impact of the campus that is also interesting: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-foster-partners-sucks-wired-magazine-review/ https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-fost... Edit: clarification

sogen 9y ago

Chicken farm

acty1 9y ago

Once you work remotely (and you have your own office, in your own house) you feel bad, terribly sorry for anyone that stays in an open office "cultured" tech company making 200k+ per year. The quality of life and lack of freedom you exchange for the "next 100k" above and beyond a 100k base Salary is never worth it. Time and health is your most precious resource and asset. And many are deluded into thinking it's ok to trade that for (what they mistakingly) thing is a lot of money (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into account)

flachsechs 9y ago
> (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into account) this is important to keep in mind. the people who are the true high earners are making 500k+, sometimes married to someone else who also does. the real outliers make millions. they are the ones buying multi-$million houses in the bay area, LA, NY, etc. it's not mysterious overseas chinese and arab buyers. it's high earning americans taking home 30, 40 thousand dollars a month or who struck it big with equity. it's a scam. don't fall for it. if you want to make millions, go for it, but don't commit slow suicide over the marginal difference in a high-tax state. furthermore, 200k is NOT a stepping stone between 100k and 500k. that's not how it works for the vast majority of people, i.e. people who are not gifted at management and corporate politics. if you're in the true high earner range, you did a LOT of stuff to get there, such as medical school, law school, or similar, or busted your ass starting your own company years ago, or were simply granted some kind of employee stock which you had very little control over (good for you, not so good for anyone else on a normal salary).
- uhhhouses 9y ago
  Uhh, affording a house in LA/SF/NYC is an absolutely collosal amount of money. You sure ain't middle class anymore.
  - flachsechs 9y ago
    "uhhh", isn't that what i just said?

sitkack 9y ago

We have open plan, I revolted by never returning to my desk. I work from random location, old unoccupied desks, home, the cafeteria, but never my desk. You just burned that real estate.

drdeadringer 9y ago
At my current job, out of circumstance of the stuff I'm doing, I started going straight to the lab without stopping by my desk. On average, there will be 1-3 people in the lab including myself. At my desk? It's an open-office styled lab-converted loading area where one "wall" is a floor-to-ceiling roller door; loud rattling on windy days is only one perk. The lab is much nicer. Smaller, fewer people, generally quiet, a door, controlled environment [lights, temperature].
- sitkack 9y ago
  Make the space you need by what ever means necessary.
drkstr 9y ago
YMMV. I ended up losing my job of 7 years after proving incapable of sitting in a high-traffic area cubicle. Had a single unit office up until they decided to hand those out to the new hires in sales/marketing. They even complimented me on the quality of my work on the way out. Go figure.

andrewflnr 9y ago

> Similarly, Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more likely to innovate if they had access to a range of spaces supporting different working styles – including private, semi-private and open-plan environments. This is my favorite part, because it confirms an intuition I've held for a long time: both open areas and private offices have their uses, so provide both. The only downside I can see is that it's expensive to implement, which is, I'll grant, non-trivial.

dpkonofa 9y ago
And this is the part that I don't understand. According to most articles about this, they do offer private, shared offices. They're shared in that anyone can badge into them and use it privately but they're not assigned to any individual. That seems like a great compromise and yet it's rarely mentioned in articles like this.
- cxseven 9y ago
  What about something in between where teams can work together?
  - dpkonofa 9y ago
    Isn't that what's being referred to by the shared working offices? I thought the whole point of the article was that these spaces are what people are complaining about. They're on a team that needs to collaborate but they want it to be swapped around from the default. They want private spaces for everyone and a shared area for team work. Apple wants them to work in teams for most of their time and to have private spaces for the rarer occasions where they really need to be alone and focus on individualized tasks. I think they're making the debatable assumption that the most valuable work is done collaboratively and that the menial work is done individually. As for the engineering team that got moved to their own building, I don't see how or why a private area for everyone would make their jobs better. If everyone's coding and not talking to anyone else, then what's there to distract? If people need to talk, they go to the collaborative space. If they don't want to hear people talk, they can go in one of the private spaces. Some people will simply spend more time in the private space or will work from home.

RijilV 9y ago

I'm one of the outliers who likes open floor plans, BUT at densities much lower than what makes economical sense. 1 person per thousand square feet would be my minimum and I'd really like half again as much space. Problem is the economics of it. Open floor plans I see on blogs are often side by side working stations with less than 200sqft per worker. That's not really open floor plan in my mind, just removing the walls to recoup a couple of inches to cram more people in.

masonicb00m 9y ago

They just need to get a pair of DND Shades™ for everyone (http://www.dndshades.com http://www.dndshades.com). Problem solved.

krayis 9y ago

First world problems

throwaway140917 9y ago

Apple people: Don't quit, just refuse to work in unpleasant conditions. If they fire you, sue. See my relevent comment yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333 (But do talk to an attorney before taking internet advice.)

tetraodonpuffer 9y ago

I cannot believe how short sighted companies can be when it comes to these things, but I don't think it's malice per se, it's usually a variation of the person who makes the decision does not have to live with it and so doesn't have any incentive outside of spending as little as possible. It's like how in many cases the desktops/monitors for developers come out of the IT budget, so the IT department tries to buy the crappiest things possible (24" single 1080p monitors, because they can't find anymore the 22" 900p they had before, 500 gig hard drives, etc.) because it does not impact them if developers are happy or not or are hampered by having to work with substandard tools. In several past companies when we moved offices or had an office redesign, it was always up to the facilities department to deal with this, and developers were involved only at the very end when it was time to pick the seating and by that time all the design was locked, contractors hired and so on and so there was no way to change anything of significance anymore. If I ever had a company I would make it a rule that any decision has to be made by the department / people affected by it. Other departments can offer support as needed, but I would never have IT control which hardware the developers get, or facilities decide for open office/cube height/chairs, or the CTO decide for the code review tool, etc. etc.

erdojo 9y ago

In all my 25+ years in the valley, I've seen office trends come and go. None have been more hated than the open floor plan. Especially when you don't have a wall behind you. It's why I now work from home. Why many work from home. Open offices are not comfortable, collaborative, friendly, or enjoyable. They make people feel watched, interrupted, and stressed. Want me to come back to work in the office? Give me walls.

justin1364 9y ago

Where will they go? Facebook/Google? That won't solve their problem... maybe Oracle?