21 ms·

Why It’s So Hard to Actually Work in Shared Offices

338 points by devy 9y ago

finaliteration 9y ago
I tried working from home five days a week for about a year and I hated it. I like being in the office and having spur of the moment conversations that lead to productive brainstorming (rather than the mostly dry Slack or Teams conversations that occur). That being said, I don’t think I’d an enjoy a WeWork setup where there is constant buzz and activity. I think balance is key and finding work that’s flexible where you can possibly even change work contexts whenever you want (which is something I realize I’m very, very fortunate to have).
mv4 9y ago
Having worked in traditional offices, open offices, at home, at Starbucks, and at various coworking spaces - I still don't know how to feel about shared offices. I am using one right now on trial basis, and I can tell once or twice a week is about right for me. It's great for putting together a marketing presentation, not so great for coding. I also ran a tech coworking space for a couple of years. I shut it down. I will be happy to share what I learned if anyone is interested.
- benjaminasmith 9y ago
  I'd be interested to hear about those experiences running the tech co-working space.
  - mv4 9y ago
    We had a relatively small footprint: 4 offices (2..3 desks each), a conference room + projector, 10 dedicated desks, plus some shared space for up to 10 more people. I wanted to focus on tech startups, so we also had a small datacenter on premises, VPN, and everything was wired with subnets etc. I also made accelerator deals with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon so we could award cloud credits to those who needed it. Additionally, we got some lawyers to provide legal advice to members for free. We wanted to provide a good environment for building and launching an MVP (and beyond) [1]. What actually happened: * we did attract a few startups, and we helped them launch * many people were so early in the process, they had no use for cloud credits (or on-site infrastructure) * we did a series of free events (with pizza and beer), and those attracted a lot of people - but did not convert to memberships * we were hoping to get some interest and support from the state (CT) at least in terms of visibility and potential grants for members - but that didn't happen, as the State only wanted to invest in their official incubator in Stamford (which they sank a lot of money into, and ended up evicting the people who ran it [2]) * most trials didn't convert * several more coworking spaces opened in the area, so people began hopping around * attracted a few dreamers, who were constantly in pitching mode - and had no desire to actually sit down and build something (also usually the ones with money problems) Overall, this was a great learning experience. [1] a writeup someone did in on us back in 2013: https://www.smallbizdaily.com/so-youre-thinking-of-starting-a-small-business-incubato/ https://www.smallbizdaily.com/so-youre-thinking-of-starting-... [2] the State-funded "competitor": https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Old-Town-Hall-agency-to-evict-Stamford-Innovation-9963706.php https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Old-Town-Hall...
- sdw1 9y ago
  I'm also interested in what you learned, and curious as to why you decided to pull the plug.
  - mv4 9y ago
    I just posted some details below. I think my main mistake was trying to be an accelerator as opposed to simple shared space for rent. We couldn't find a way to make it work financially, considering the amount of time and energy it was demanding. I also underestimated the lack of interest in innovation and startups here in CT.
    - sdw1 9y ago
      I appreciate your detailed response (and candor)! Sounds like a great idea on paper -- I would think a "built-in" legal team and infrastructure support would have attracted more interest. Sorry to hear it didn't pan out. Sounds like some shady circumstances around the state-sponsored incubator, on the other hand...
      - mv4 9y ago
        Thanks. Yeah, part of the learning experience was figuring out local politics, and getting completely disgusted by it.
nathanaldensr 9y ago
They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the common themes of rap are in tune with the company’s mission.”) While we created, cleaning crews in WeWork T-shirts quietly restocked the citrus water and wiped up our spilled drinks. If this is the future of tech work, then I guess I'd better find another career--perhaps gardening or wood-working?
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  I mean really, developers tapping away on MacBook Airs? ... Don’t let Jony catch wind of this, he'll use it as fodder to abolish MacBook Pros and their ungainly fan noises
- gambiting 9y ago
  I can't imagine worse environment for a tech job than the one where you have music playing out of speakers. Also - working on your laptop? Without proper monitors and upright sitting position? Nope, thank you.
  - howard941 9y ago
    I'll trade my great guy who's hard of hearing telephonic tech support dude in adjacent cube for your music but you're right about the lappie.
  - munificent 9y ago
    Two of the most productive times in my life were when I had a tiny office to myself and was able to play music on speakers instead of through headphones. I got a lot less ear fatigue that way, and the ambient background music really helped me get in the zone. Having a space to myself certainly helped too. Of course, this only worked because the work I was doing during those times also required very little coordination and communication with other people. I'm introverted enough that if I have my own space but need to get out of it to talk to someone, I'll find myself procrastinating doing that. Having a shared open plan office makes it harder for me to focus, but easier for me to interact with people. I'm not sure if that's a net win for my productivity or not.
gnclmorais 9y ago
> WeWork offers freelancers a chic workspace and beer on tap—but are people productive? Not really. That was my experience at a WeWork space in London. It was not quiet (glass walls), it was hard to focus, social events starting at 4pm (who finishes work at that time?), and if you end up being close to the common spaces, near the kitchen… well, I suggest you get a good pair of sound cancelling headphones.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  Noise cancelation does nothing for kitchen noises. They only silence things like fans or HVAC systems.
  - AlphaSite 9y ago
    He passive noise blocking helps for that sort of thing.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    Massive difference on planes and trains of course, but the beat type of noise cancelling is noise removal.
- LandR 9y ago
  I finish at 4... But everything else you say is correct. Headphones are a must in a shared office.
  - dorian-graph 9y ago
    From my experience, finishing at 4pm in London is not common.
    - isostatic 9y ago
      8-4 for parents, to beat the rush home 10-6 for youngsters, then to the bar to beat the rush home.
dwc 9y ago
That's not a shared office, it's a coworking space or something. I've shared an office with a teammate before, and it was very productive. It was a great mix of heads-down work and the ability to discuss issues/design as needed. OTOH, someone I know started a coworking space a few miles away from my home. I popped in there a couple of times to check it out and decided it was very much not for me. Too much "collaboration" and background noise for me personally, though some thrive on that. The clincher for me was one time there was supposed to be a presentation that sounded interesting, and well after it was supposed to start someone announced that it had been canceled last minute. "Well, I'll do a little work then," I thought. Then they announced that since the presentation wasn't happening they'd be playing talks from YouTube. Great, no work after all, big screen video and blaring audio of something I can watch myself at any time, because why? I dunno. Just not for me.
- walshemj 9y ago
  Id agree my first job we had 2 or 3 people in each office and that worked well. We had some interesting brainstorm sessions how do you measure the efficiency of a toilet flush. Though when I was in a portacabin next to the hanger where they tested executive jets it could get a bit loud :-)
- cle 9y ago
  It's more like a narcissistic frat than a co-working space. Or maybe more of a "co-space", since actually getting work done in a WeWork can be a challenge. (Note: I've actually spent a good deal of time in a WeWork.)
  - matte_black 9y ago
    WeWorks are hell, ironically I would only work there if I wanted to do some “casual work” – writing a few lines of code, play some ping pong, drink a beer, living the startup life, chat with some people. When I actually needed to do some serious business I got the hell out and went to my real office.
CodeCube 9y ago
This is definitely the most common response I hear to shared/open offices ... but dang it, I love them (part time)! I go into a co-working space once or twice a week, and wfh the rest of the time. When I'm there, I enjoy being around people who can relate to what I'm doing (even if it's just as simple as a knowing nod when I comment on a tough bug I'm troubleshooting). And if I need to focus, headphones easily place me in my own acoustic palace. I totally get that everyone is different, and thrives in different environments ... but don't crap on this type of shared experience as if it's universally hated by everyone, because it's not.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > (part time) That is a too important distinction to be left on a small parenthesis without relevance. Yes, part time shared/open offices are good. I would still argue that real offices let you create a better interactive environment than those, but they are perfectly ok for the amount of time you must go out and talk to somebody. Just don't expect anybody to create anything when forced to work on one of those full time.
  - CodeCube 9y ago
    I parenthesized it on purpose ... because _for me_, it's a small detail; personally, I really enjoy being in open office environments, even if it was full time ... and I feel fully productive there. The part time thing is more a mix of laziness and enjoying going to lunch with my wife ;) But back to the point I was trying to make, this works _for me_; and I acknowledge that it doesn't work for others. I was only trying to balance the discussion such that it's not assumed that everyone despises open office plans, because it's not universal.
- loco5niner 9y ago
  > And if I need to focus, headphones easily place me in my own acoustic palace. Yeah, that used to work for me until I started getting ringing in my ears from headphone use.
tribune 9y ago
"People don't buy products, they buy better versions of themselves." $500/month is a lot of money for a chair at a noisy table. On the other hand, $500/month is easier to stomach if it comes with the feeling of being successful.
- silverbax88 9y ago
  That's what they are selling people. I've been thinking of renting out some space to local startups, but my approach is completely different - barebones for people who want to just pay a low amount but have a spot to actually work.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  As someone who has worked at co-working spaces in places not urbane enough to have a WeWork, $500 a month strikes me as ridiculous. I'm paying $150 a month at my current place for a dedicated desk (so not just shared table space). I do this because I'm able to be more productive than I would be working from home, so the $150 a month easily pays for itself, but I highly doubt I'd be over four times more productive paying $700 a month for the same thing at a WeWork. Granted, this place doesn't have beer on tap, but it has free-flowing coffee, and that's all I really need. You be you, so pay WeWork's prices if the value fits you, but if you're considering joining shared workplaces for the first time, note that you can probably find a much better deal.
  - woolvalley 9y ago
    Usually its around ~$350/month, even in the expensive bay area.
- jpindar 9y ago
  $500 a month? Daaaamn I'm in the wrong business. Would anyone like to rent a private office in walking distance of beautiful Hampton Beach, NH? (Price negotiable.)
jlemos 9y ago
YMMV, but my current workplace sits in a co-working space (although we are big enough to have our own exclusive office within it) and the noise levels on the common areas from what I have seen are ok most of the time. No music being pumped anywhere. The place described in the article sounds like a dystopian nightmare, but I doubt its the norm... Also, if you are a freelancer or a tech founder that wants to work on his own thing, what is the alternative? Working on a coffee shop brings pretty much the same noise problems + no guarantee of power supply/fast Wifi. Working from home all the time can get lonely. Renting an office? Too expensive...so co-working spaces fill a nice niche.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Public libraries are a good alternative, too.
jefurii 9y ago
Maybe that's just WeWork, maybe it's a culture that develops in certain places. I've worked at CrossCampus in Pasadena for awhile and there are a bunch of programmers, writers, and other types who need to be able to concentrate who have made the shared-table space work for us. Together we've made it more of a "study hall" atmosphere. We asked management to turn the music down to an acceptable volume in our part of the floor, and we apply social pressure on people who talk too loud or are otherwise too distracting. In my experience shared-table or open-plan offices didn't work when I was at a company, but they work pretty well in a coworking space. One aspect of this is the lack of a power dynamic: you're not sharing an open-plan office with your manager. You can also leave (or threaten to leave) a coworking space if it doesn't work for you. Members have more power over their environment if they can organize. WeWork is a huge chain now, so maybe this works better at smaller coworking spaces that have less corporate inertia.
- specialist 9y ago
  I covet a law library style heads down quiet work zone. I’m not crazy about shared office, cafe tables. They have to be library style heavy, solid to dampen heavy typing, pencl tapping, regular jostling.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    Have you tried working in an actual library? Most public libraries have WiFi these days.
    - jefurii 9y ago
      I love libraries and my city has some truly beautiful ones. The problem with working there is that unless you work in a group you have to basically pack up your whole setup if you want to go to the bathroom or get a cup of coffee. The coworking space I'm at has physical access controls and the members/residents/inmates all know each other.
    - specialist 9y ago
      Our public libraries are now homeless encampments. As the other reply noted, no bathroom / stretch breaks. Our local university libraries are pretty good, when I still had wifi access. My laptop camping secret is hospitals. Free wifi, pretty good cheap food, clean bathrooms. I've also found a few local companies which have their own cafes, which are still open to the public. I'd probably pay $5/hr to laptop camp. I generally "pay rent" where ever I'm camping with tips, treats, and coffee. I'd rather just pay outright. A cafe, event space, or study zone that allocates hours for quiet time will clean up. I imagine all the vacant 2nd and 3rd story retail getting repurposed. Maybe even mall vacancies, kinda like the board game retailers & hosters are now doing.
avoutthere 9y ago
I am by far most productive when working alone from home. It isn't even close.
cup-of-tea 9y ago
I "work" in an open office type space. My ears are filled with people on the phone or just talking about work they could do. In my peripheral vision is a colleague and various other movements. I'm here to do only very simple work because I can't think very deeply. Any serious work is done at home where I am many times more productive. For some work this type of setup might be fine, but for anything resembling engineering it's impossible.
- deleted 9y ago
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- kerkeslager 9y ago
  I've worked as a software engineer for over a decade and most of that time was spent in open office spaces. I am most productive in that environment. I don't doubt that you are more productive in a different environment, but it's a pretty big leap to assume that every engineer is going to be productive in the same environment. Different people work different ways, and the answer is to find a workspace that suits you, not try to apply the work environment that works for you to the entire industry.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    The problem is, workspaces are all trending to cater to you.
  - opo 9y ago
    There is pretty much overwhelming research that people are more productive and healthy at work when they have some privacy and don't have distractions. One example - a study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology of more than 40,000 workers in 300 US office buildings: "...Enclosed private offices clearly outperformed open-plan layouts in most aspects of IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality), particularly in acoustics, privacy and the proxemics issues. Benefits of enhanced 'ease of interaction' were smaller than the penalties of increased noise level and decreased privacy resulting from open-plan office configuration." https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-... This article talks about some of the other research on the health effects and other effects on productivity: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-... >...and the answer is to find a workspace that suits you, not try to apply the work environment that works for you to the entire industry. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be to apply the open office design to all environments which is hurting people. The best environments I have seen are when there are individual offices with plenty of open areas and conference rooms for people to meet.
LandR 9y ago
I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk, and people would routinely bang the cupboard doors. I sort of fixed this by putting felt and rubber on the doors to stop the loud banging, but I shouldn't have had to do this. * People are noisy, people whistle, walk around talking loudly on their phones. Some people I'm sure talk loudly on purpose just to try and look like they are important in front of strangers. One guy makes random trumpet noises with his mouth... * No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness. I often see two people in the kitchen area from different companies and it can be a bit like a comedy sketch as they try to get their kitchening done without acknowledging the other person exists. Absurd, why don't people talk to each other. Especially people you see every day! * When you are remotely working and the only person from your company you have no one to talk to and this is quite isolating and depressing. Especially worse if you end up in a room with 10 others and they are all from the same company. Then they start looking at you like you are in their space. * The kitchen area, despite being an office staffed with supposed professionals, is always a mess. How does this happen? Our office space is also open to a throughfare to conference rooms and such, so you randomly get random people walking through the office, again noisily. But working here I at least don't have all the distractions of working from home.
- MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
  > No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness Haha yeah. It helps to have a few women around, but especially when there are lots of male IT coworkers present this is definitely a thing.
  - creep 9y ago
    Yes! Men and women actually work better together than groups composed of just men or just women [1] [2] The thinking is, men prefer taking risks, while women prefer to limit risks. In cooperation, men can push women to see the benefit of a risk (and in turn she gains more experience of risk), and women can push men to hold off of risks that might be detrimental. Women are good at synchronizing group thought, in that they make a space for others to talk and they generate talking points by asking important questions, while men generally like taking the floor. So for the man who does not take the floor of his own accord, women are more likely to create a space where he can talk. Personally, in an environment like WeWork, I can see men and women having more conversations and opening up the place a little. 1. https://www.td.org/insights/women-and-men-working-together-more-sustainable-successful-work-environments https://www.td.org/insights/women-and-men-working-together-m... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/01/gender.world https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/01/gender.world
acd 9y ago
A better example would to have private offices with a shared space in the middle for working together. I think the truth is that office space is very expensive in Sillicon valley startups. Thus to lower the operating costs shared space is used but it is not fully productive and has lots of distractions for workers. Google is probably a company that has actual productivity data about working in private work spaces vs shared work spaces.
- collyw 9y ago
  I am pretty sure plenty of people would be happy to work from home.
sokoloff 9y ago
>a company offering “non-traditional lifestyle swag” was looking to barter its featured deals for business expertise That struck me as hilarious. Hat tip to the author.
deleted 9y ago
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kerkeslager 9y ago
There's a bias toward the negative in writing, which I think comes from the fact that people write as an attempt to solve problems. So you're always going to see more negative reporting on shared offices than positive. But I'm old enough to remember when private offices were still common, and there was a lot of negative writing about those too. As someone about to enter the software industry, I was very concerned that I'd be lonely and depressed from working alone in front of a screen all day. I think the truth behind all this is that the people writing this negative writing are all mismatched with the offices they're in. If you put a bunch of introverts in a shared office, they're going to be distracted and stressed. And if you stick a bunch of extroverts in private offices, they're going to be lonely and depressed. The answer for employers is to create mixed workspaces that are conducive to both forms of work, and make explicit the fact that nobody should be pressured to work in one space or another. The answer for individuals is to know yourself and where you work best, and work at jobs that will allow you to work in a work environment that works for you. Complaining about shared workspaces or private workspaces is counterproductive--it's just trying to force the kind of workspace that works for you onto a diverse industry that doesn't necessarily work the same as you. Personally, I get a lot done in shared offices. I can relate to a lot of what the author complains about, but a lot of the problems he brings up are problems with startup culture, not with shared workspaces. We extroverts aren't idiots, we know that stuff like "the common themes of rap are in tune with the company’s mission" is ridiculous.
- dalyons 9y ago
  This is 100% the truth. I don’t know why it’s so hard to recognize different people have different working preferences, there’s no absolute correct arrangement. HN (rightfully) shoots down “anecdata”, but on this issue everyone’s fine with a sample size of 1? don’t just shout your preferences at everyone else, it turns these threads into useless repetitive noise.
  - izacus 9y ago
    Probably because research dating back to 1980s (see Peopleware) shows that shared offices are objectively less productive and result in less happy workforce?
nimbius 9y ago
Because Hollywood and overzealous architectural design firms dont understand acoustics...many of them have only recently come to realize the hubris of their ideas. I once worked for a $web_company in a cubeless open office with hard flooring and lots of glass. It was so bad you could hear a fart in the bathroom from the kitchen. Developers routinely recommended brands of noise cancelling headphones. In the sysadmin pool we were virtually un-addressable unless you talked to us on IRC. The office was just too damned loud. and thats not all, things dropped on the floor never survived. they didnt just break, they went off like a bomb. I remember a tech-support coworker dropped her novelty coffee mug and someone thought it was gunfire. We hired a sound control company to fix most of the problems when an executive was overheard in his office addressing our devops lead by a homophobic slur.
- deleted 9y ago
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- majewsky 9y ago
  I would've hired a new executive instead.
  - dbcurtis 9y ago
    Doing both is an option.
  - metalliqaz 9y ago
    Executive decided it was best that he keep his job.
randomerr 9y ago
Sounds like a common room in college. How much studying did you get there?
- Piskvorrr 9y ago
  Not a whole lot, library was much better.
megaman22 9y ago
I think I'd rather commit seppuku or eat Tide pods than work in an open office as described. Hopefully there is an eighth circle of hell in the afterlife reserved for management that inflicts such things on their workforce, full of gibbering, odoriferous, chronically sneezing demons that will pelt them with whiteboard markers and constantly ask for TPS reports.
- specialist 9y ago
  People clipping their nails in public is my kryptonite. Tuneless whistling is also irritating.
twunde 9y ago
I always find that WeWork has a very weird vibe. It has all of these companies but nobody talks to each other. It feels oddly sterile. When I worked out of General Assembly, the big benefit was that these companies would talk to each other, make deals or just help each other out with business/tech problems. Investors would come in to meet one company and would end up talking to a few more.
fg8qfg8fg8 9y ago
In my previous job I had my own office and I could get real work done. My new job has a shared office so I have to work from home to get real work done, then go into the office for meetings.
_greim_ 9y ago
This article exploits anti-urban-hipster sentiment in order to replicate itself across social media. It has no actual data for or against various office space designs.
evanmoran 9y ago
I've worked at several different co-working spaces and it seems that the culture either becomes really loud (phone calls and open conversations) or library silent. Nothing in between seems to last long. I'd love to see this improve. It's like being in an elevator; it has a social weirdness that's hard to overcome — if that's even what people want. Finding a way to encourage conversation in some areas and silence in others would go a long way to making these places more enjoyable. How to do that? No idea. That's an open question and my guess is the alcohol centered parties are one attempt at trying to solve this.
collyw 9y ago
This sounds a bit like 42 floors. Whatever happened to them? Did they implode into a black hole with the weight of their own hype?
- meritt 9y ago
  I thought 42floors was just a slightly prettier Craigslist for office space to rent.
  - collyw 9y ago
    They certainly had a shitload of self generated hype on here a few years back. Then they laid off some people and went remarkably quiet. (I definitely see some similarities with the Solyent hype wagon, I just didn't hear of them laying off people yet).
logfromblammo 9y ago
Is this some kind of coastal culture thing, to add all kinds of stupid, non-productive crap to your work environment? Here in flyover country, you can rent an entire suite of multiple private offices in a strip of class B office-park units, including utilities, for less than what WeWork is apparently asking for just one private office. And that's without the insane brand-connected features like having beer kegs at work. Out here, a foosball table in the office is a red flag. People working on laptops on couches is a red flag. An untidy kitchenette is a red flag. Conducting an interview at a noisy restaurant is a double-red flag. (TSB. I was eating there with my family.) An open office plan is a red flag, unless it is clear that situation is aspirationally temporary, as the company is trying for ramen-profitability. People drinking beer at work is a triple-red flag. I have been in plenty of small-business service company or business incubator offices (for me, plenty = 2), and they looked just like regular large company offices, except the employees all worked for different companies and had the actual keys to their own lockable office. In one of them, instead of a data center in the secure area in the back of the building, there was a bio-chem lab. Neither were hard to work in, even in the rent-by-the-desk bullpen, because it was quiet. The tenants were mainly working from home and using the rented office only for customer contact, interviews, and the mailing address.
- unreal37 9y ago
  I don't consider Toronto "coastal". If it is, what coast is that exactly?
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The "Lake Ontario coast"?
- emagdnim2100 9y ago
  Are you talking about red flags from an investor or an employee perspective? Hard to argue with the latter, as it's completely personal, but I'm also from flyover country and I disagree with most of what you write.
creator_lol 9y ago
Try sharing a completely open office concept with 250 people on one floor, it's a joke. Now that I have worked in both a office with walls and this open office concept I can see that people get much more work done in a cubical with walls or an actual office where you can close a door and focus.
lowbloodsugar 9y ago
>“This is more like a bar or a club than a workspace,” said the local member of provincial parliament, taking in the scene. Sounds like a scene from Brave New World. Is everyone on soma?
kayall 9y ago
What do y'all think of the effect of 'beer on tap' on this atmosphere at Wework? Do any of you like to drink while working?
rhaps0dy 9y ago
I work in a shared office and it's OK. But that's just because we all know that focusing with other people speaking is basically impossible, so we all try hard to not make noise. If we have to talk we go to a conference room.
deleted 9y ago
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redm 9y ago
My experience working in a co-working space vs. working independent/remote. 1) I have more meaningful conversations with my team, more organic thought and creativity occurs, and we grow closer as a team. 2) I get less work done because the distractions are much greater.
metalliqaz 9y ago
Is it me or did the article not provide the answer promised in the title?
ashelmire 9y ago
My work has a number of private offices, cubicle space, and open space. There's a funny thing that happens: the private offices are always occupied and apparently work is getting done in them. The cubicles are a step down, with those workers stepping out occasionally for some fresh air away from the office. The open areas are only ever occupied by new employees or not at all. Nobody wants to work in them. And it's true that my workplace is full of introverts (basically exclusively). But it's telling, to me, that the offices are the most productive places.
bayonetz 9y ago
>A member of the cleaning staff— a young Spanish-speaking woman with a tight ponytail— was one of the few people actually working. She moved quietly, picking up the dirty mugs that people had left lying about and stacking them into the dishwasher. Her shirt was emblazoned with the company slogan: Do What You Love. How about that little gem of a closer?
- movedx 9y ago
  I thought that too. What a great closer -- speaks volumes in twelve or so words.
juddlyon 9y ago
I've worked in numerous coworking places across the US, from the local mom-and-pops to the larger global companies. All of them have private offices for rent, which curtails the noise issue. All have meeting rooms to book. Most have phone cubby-holes. My experience has also been that you can socialize as little or as much as you'd like, it's up to you. You can attend events, or not. You can drink, or not. That said, there are large cultural differences between the younger, startup-scenester spots and the more diverse small-business ones. The latter usually skew older and include non-tech businesses like attorneys and realtors. I prefer these and have enjoyed the "cross-pollination" of ideas and focus on turning a profit.
turc1656 9y ago
Am I the only one who has grown to absolutely despise the term "creative" when used as a type of worker/employee? As in, for example (from the article) "members of the creative class" and "young creative types". Makes my skin crawl for some reason. I envision a bunch of people who stand around smelling each other's farts like they are at a wine tasting. I realize this comment isn't really productive and doesn't really contribute to the conversation but am I curious if anyone else hates that term.
- chimpburger 9y ago
  It is quite pretentious.
zaidf 9y ago
I admire anyone who can do serious deep work from a WeWork location.
ortusdux 9y ago
99% Invisible did a great piece on the invention of air conditioning and its role in modern architecture. The part of the story discussing the battle for the ideal office temperature reminded me of the open vs. closed office debate. Some memorable excerpts: "And some architects, like Lisa Heschong, see this as problematic — “you will never achieve a static environment where 100 percent of the people are happy,” she says. “There is a huge amount of individual variation in what people experience and what they prefer,” based on factors like age, sex and the kind of climate we are used to. All of this runs against the idea of targeting a single static indoor temperature." And "Brager says we could save enormous amounts of energy by letting the temperatures in buildings fluctuate over a wider range, and giving people more tools to heat and cool themselves. To accomplish this, Brager advocates a take a combination of high and low tech approaches. A window that you can open right by your desk is a great personal cooling device. A sweater is a pretty good personal heating device. But Brager and her team are also developing low energy desk fans, foot-warmers, and chairs that can heat or cool." I for one am very happy to have my own office with windows that open and an individual thermostat. That's not to say that I would say no to a self heating and cooling office chair... https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/
philippeback 9y ago
I hate open offices for being productive. They are cool for chatting and socializing. My pair of Bose QC20 are a must if I want to get anything done. Actually I ended up having my own 3 storey building where I can actually site/lounge/work my way and invite people to come to work with me on an as needed basis. Productivity is at least 3x vs open office. I go to client offices to catch up base and be around the people but productive work of mine occurs elsewhere.
woodandsteel 9y ago
Here's my way of explaining to managers why software developers need to be left undisturbed. Software developers on average write only about ten lines a day. The reason the process is so slow is that for each new line of code, you are trying to accomplish a task, and their are a great many different specific ways to do it. However, you can't pick just any way of doing it. That's because any line of code will impact on dozens of different things in the program, and generally in bad ways. So you have to figure out a line of code that will accomplish the specific thing you are trying to do, but without having any bad consequences for the rest of the program. This is a complicated puzzle, and to solve it you have to have the whole program, or at least a lot of it, in your mind all at once. But few if any programmers are smart enough to keep it all in their mind all the time, so for each new line of code they have to sit and think about the program, look up lots of specifics about it, and then get it all organized in their minds. That takes a whole lot of focused attention. Any interruption causes all this to disappear from the programer's mind, and they have to start all over again. Now I am not a programmer myself, so I may not have this all right. Maybe someone could improve it. Also, it would be helpful to have an analogy for something similar the manager does.
- aarongough 9y ago
  > Software developers on average write only about ten lines a day That is far too low of an estimate for any productive programmer. Perhaps when trying to solve some sort of insanely complex bug perhaps?
  - CryoLogic 9y ago
    Depends on the type of software you are writing. If you are hooking up a bunch of libraries you installed with NPM on your node project you will be much more productive than if you are debugging a compiler or working on a hardware level device driver.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    If anything, good programming may result in a negative amount of avg. lines/day. Depends on job though, of course.
orthoganol 9y ago
Will be buried, but fantastic "fear and loathing in WeWork" kind of article. Loved it. WeWork basically parodies itself.
az123zaz 9y ago
This narrative seems to be common these days about WeWork: - it has a high valuation - nobody there really works - everyone there is a stupid startup that won't pan out - WeWork is a scam In the past, I've worked at fortune 50 companies in private office, at startups in open office, rented space personally at various coworking spaces, and currently rent a hot desk in a WeWork in Brooklyn. Where I work, on any given weekday the shared workspace of about 45 desks is 60% full with people working silently or talking very quietly. It is a great environment for technical work. The music doesn't play in the shared work space but it does in the common eating area / kitchen where people frequently do work and talk to one another. I think this "trash the new unicorn" mentality is fun to write about but in my experience, WeWork really is better. One example of something they do extraordinarily well is that their phone booths actually work and give real privacy. The internet is always perfect. Things like that matter when you want to be productive. There is paper shredding service. The mugs are always clean. The snack bar is cheap and always stocked. There are also network effects. I frequently have meetings in Manhattan spread throughout the day. No matter what part of town I'm in, I almost always can rent a desk at a location nearby for free (or for $25 if I've done it a lot that month). This is just my experience but IMO WeWork is definitely worth it. I pay $350/mo. Maybe it's not for everyone but I am happy giving them my money for what I get in return.
- fragmede 9y ago
  There's a (currently) $20 billion valuation on the line, expect to see quite a lot more press (positive and negative) in 2018 as they press towards an IPO. It's not about "trashing the unicorn" (eg, Dropbox has managed to keep negative press to a minimum). It's that there's yet to be anything substantive that examines what people are doing that isn't "a stupid start up that won't pan out" that justify paying $350/mo for a desk, when a coffee shop will do. The prejudice is not that that your "stupid start up that won't pan out" won't, err, pan out, but that eventually the entire industry will collapse and we'll all have to go back to doing serious work at serious jobs. No more getting paid to make a dating app for people with dogs with a floppy left ear. Despite evidence to the contrary, WeWorks isn't selling office space, they're selling convenience and a lifestyle (two things people are willing to pay a premium for). If you've got an niche business with revenue that lets you afford $350/mo, and you're getting value out of WeWorks, good for you! Keep that niche your secret though.
awl130 9y ago
My startup leases a big private office and we did it because it made really good economic sense. no deposit, major curb appeal that impresses potential clients for zero capex on our part, and flexible in a way in which traditional leases could never compete. There are now so many weworks in our city that whenever our team expands we just move to another office across the hall or to another wework building. Wework is happy to accommodate and roll over our lease. it's an easy move -- no furniture, just desktops computers and personal effects - 24 hours tops. Meanwhile, potential clients walk into the common area, hear the indie rock and think we're this super high-end, hip, "urban" company filled with creative young people. The reality is that we only step out into the kitchen and ping pong tables when we get bored. We have the option to retreat to our sanctuary any time. It's incredible. Tell me a better solution! There is none! But as this backlash indicates, the hot desks are the big scam -- essentially younger, non-salaried individuals who are essentially paying for the privilege of providing atmosphere and brand for us, the private suite tenants. Wework gets the valuation, i'm guessing, because in addition to the typical rental income from the private offices (albeit, these aren't long term leases, but with scale, they don't have to worry about that), they are collecting $500/mo from the hot desks in the lobby area, an area that would normally sit empty. Wow! what a business model. Bravo Wework.
Gatsky 9y ago
I once worked in an open plan office with a guy that had Tourette's syndrome. As you can imagine, for him the open plan office was a particular kind of torture that should only be reserved for the worst members of humanity.
- loco5niner 9y ago
  I'm curious what it was specifically about his Tourette's that caused him problems in the open office. I ask because I suspect I have mild Tourette's, and absolutely hate the open office my work moved us into. For me it is the incessent people-noise. Loud-laughers, sounds of chewing, constant self-talk, etc. If it was just light-industrial noise, it wouldn't be so bad.

338 points by devy 9y ago

I tried working from home five days a week for about a year and I hated it. I like being in the office and having spur of the moment conversations that lead to productive brainstorming (rather than the mostly dry Slack or Teams conversations that occur). That being said, I don’t think I’d an enjoy a WeWork setup where there is constant buzz and activity. I think balance is key and finding work that’s flexible where you can possibly even change work contexts whenever you want (which is something I realize I’m very, very fortunate to have).

mv4 9y ago

Having worked in traditional offices, open offices, at home, at Starbucks, and at various coworking spaces - I still don't know how to feel about shared offices. I am using one right now on trial basis, and I can tell once or twice a week is about right for me. It's great for putting together a marketing presentation, not so great for coding. I also ran a tech coworking space for a couple of years. I shut it down. I will be happy to share what I learned if anyone is interested.

benjaminasmith 9y ago
I'd be interested to hear about those experiences running the tech co-working space.
- mv4 9y ago
  We had a relatively small footprint: 4 offices (2..3 desks each), a conference room + projector, 10 dedicated desks, plus some shared space for up to 10 more people. I wanted to focus on tech startups, so we also had a small datacenter on premises, VPN, and everything was wired with subnets etc. I also made accelerator deals with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon so we could award cloud credits to those who needed it. Additionally, we got some lawyers to provide legal advice to members for free. We wanted to provide a good environment for building and launching an MVP (and beyond) [1]. What actually happened: * we did attract a few startups, and we helped them launch * many people were so early in the process, they had no use for cloud credits (or on-site infrastructure) * we did a series of free events (with pizza and beer), and those attracted a lot of people - but did not convert to memberships * we were hoping to get some interest and support from the state (CT) at least in terms of visibility and potential grants for members - but that didn't happen, as the State only wanted to invest in their official incubator in Stamford (which they sank a lot of money into, and ended up evicting the people who ran it [2]) * most trials didn't convert * several more coworking spaces opened in the area, so people began hopping around * attracted a few dreamers, who were constantly in pitching mode - and had no desire to actually sit down and build something (also usually the ones with money problems) Overall, this was a great learning experience. [1] a writeup someone did in on us back in 2013: https://www.smallbizdaily.com/so-youre-thinking-of-starting-a-small-business-incubato/ https://www.smallbizdaily.com/so-youre-thinking-of-starting-... [2] the State-funded "competitor": https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Old-Town-Hall-agency-to-evict-Stamford-Innovation-9963706.php https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Old-Town-Hall...
sdw1 9y ago
I'm also interested in what you learned, and curious as to why you decided to pull the plug.
- mv4 9y ago
  I just posted some details below. I think my main mistake was trying to be an accelerator as opposed to simple shared space for rent. We couldn't find a way to make it work financially, considering the amount of time and energy it was demanding. I also underestimated the lack of interest in innovation and startups here in CT.
  - sdw1 9y ago
    I appreciate your detailed response (and candor)! Sounds like a great idea on paper -- I would think a "built-in" legal team and infrastructure support would have attracted more interest. Sorry to hear it didn't pan out. Sounds like some shady circumstances around the state-sponsored incubator, on the other hand...
    - mv4 9y ago
      Thanks. Yeah, part of the learning experience was figuring out local politics, and getting completely disgusted by it.

nathanaldensr 9y ago

They want an office that matches their personality. And apparently, that means beer on tap and lots of it. The office looked like the lobby of a hipster hotel. Over the next few weeks, we showed up each day and tapped away on MacBook Airs to the sounds of Portuguese house music and old-school hip hop piped in through speakers. (“Rap is urban, and so is WeWork,” the company explains online. “But more profoundly, the common themes of rap are in tune with the company’s mission.”) While we created, cleaning crews in WeWork T-shirts quietly restocked the citrus water and wiped up our spilled drinks. If this is the future of tech work, then I guess I'd better find another career--perhaps gardening or wood-working?

BoorishBears 9y ago
I mean really, developers tapping away on MacBook Airs? ... Don’t let Jony catch wind of this, he'll use it as fodder to abolish MacBook Pros and their ungainly fan noises
gambiting 9y ago
I can't imagine worse environment for a tech job than the one where you have music playing out of speakers. Also - working on your laptop? Without proper monitors and upright sitting position? Nope, thank you.
- howard941 9y ago
  I'll trade my great guy who's hard of hearing telephonic tech support dude in adjacent cube for your music but you're right about the lappie.
- munificent 9y ago
  Two of the most productive times in my life were when I had a tiny office to myself and was able to play music on speakers instead of through headphones. I got a lot less ear fatigue that way, and the ambient background music really helped me get in the zone. Having a space to myself certainly helped too. Of course, this only worked because the work I was doing during those times also required very little coordination and communication with other people. I'm introverted enough that if I have my own space but need to get out of it to talk to someone, I'll find myself procrastinating doing that. Having a shared open plan office makes it harder for me to focus, but easier for me to interact with people. I'm not sure if that's a net win for my productivity or not.

gnclmorais 9y ago

> WeWork offers freelancers a chic workspace and beer on tap—but are people productive? Not really. That was my experience at a WeWork space in London. It was not quiet (glass walls), it was hard to focus, social events starting at 4pm (who finishes work at that time?), and if you end up being close to the common spaces, near the kitchen… well, I suggest you get a good pair of sound cancelling headphones.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Noise cancelation does nothing for kitchen noises. They only silence things like fans or HVAC systems.
- AlphaSite 9y ago
  He passive noise blocking helps for that sort of thing.
- isostatic 9y ago
  Massive difference on planes and trains of course, but the beat type of noise cancelling is noise removal.
LandR 9y ago
I finish at 4... But everything else you say is correct. Headphones are a must in a shared office.
- dorian-graph 9y ago
  From my experience, finishing at 4pm in London is not common.
  - isostatic 9y ago
    8-4 for parents, to beat the rush home 10-6 for youngsters, then to the bar to beat the rush home.

dwc 9y ago

That's not a shared office, it's a coworking space or something. I've shared an office with a teammate before, and it was very productive. It was a great mix of heads-down work and the ability to discuss issues/design as needed. OTOH, someone I know started a coworking space a few miles away from my home. I popped in there a couple of times to check it out and decided it was very much not for me. Too much "collaboration" and background noise for me personally, though some thrive on that. The clincher for me was one time there was supposed to be a presentation that sounded interesting, and well after it was supposed to start someone announced that it had been canceled last minute. "Well, I'll do a little work then," I thought. Then they announced that since the presentation wasn't happening they'd be playing talks from YouTube. Great, no work after all, big screen video and blaring audio of something I can watch myself at any time, because why? I dunno. Just not for me.

walshemj 9y ago
Id agree my first job we had 2 or 3 people in each office and that worked well. We had some interesting brainstorm sessions how do you measure the efficiency of a toilet flush. Though when I was in a portacabin next to the hanger where they tested executive jets it could get a bit loud :-)
cle 9y ago
It's more like a narcissistic frat than a co-working space. Or maybe more of a "co-space", since actually getting work done in a WeWork can be a challenge. (Note: I've actually spent a good deal of time in a WeWork.)
- matte_black 9y ago
  WeWorks are hell, ironically I would only work there if I wanted to do some “casual work” – writing a few lines of code, play some ping pong, drink a beer, living the startup life, chat with some people. When I actually needed to do some serious business I got the hell out and went to my real office.

CodeCube 9y ago

This is definitely the most common response I hear to shared/open offices ... but dang it, I love them (part time)! I go into a co-working space once or twice a week, and wfh the rest of the time. When I'm there, I enjoy being around people who can relate to what I'm doing (even if it's just as simple as a knowing nod when I comment on a tough bug I'm troubleshooting). And if I need to focus, headphones easily place me in my own acoustic palace. I totally get that everyone is different, and thrives in different environments ... but don't crap on this type of shared experience as if it's universally hated by everyone, because it's not.

marcosdumay 9y ago
> (part time) That is a too important distinction to be left on a small parenthesis without relevance. Yes, part time shared/open offices are good. I would still argue that real offices let you create a better interactive environment than those, but they are perfectly ok for the amount of time you must go out and talk to somebody. Just don't expect anybody to create anything when forced to work on one of those full time.
- CodeCube 9y ago
  I parenthesized it on purpose ... because _for me_, it's a small detail; personally, I really enjoy being in open office environments, even if it was full time ... and I feel fully productive there. The part time thing is more a mix of laziness and enjoying going to lunch with my wife ;) But back to the point I was trying to make, this works _for me_; and I acknowledge that it doesn't work for others. I was only trying to balance the discussion such that it's not assumed that everyone despises open office plans, because it's not universal.
loco5niner 9y ago
> And if I need to focus, headphones easily place me in my own acoustic palace. Yeah, that used to work for me until I started getting ringing in my ears from headphone use.

tribune 9y ago

"People don't buy products, they buy better versions of themselves." $500/month is a lot of money for a chair at a noisy table. On the other hand, $500/month is easier to stomach if it comes with the feeling of being successful.

silverbax88 9y ago
That's what they are selling people. I've been thinking of renting out some space to local startups, but my approach is completely different - barebones for people who want to just pay a low amount but have a spot to actually work.
Cyberdog 9y ago
As someone who has worked at co-working spaces in places not urbane enough to have a WeWork, $500 a month strikes me as ridiculous. I'm paying $150 a month at my current place for a dedicated desk (so not just shared table space). I do this because I'm able to be more productive than I would be working from home, so the $150 a month easily pays for itself, but I highly doubt I'd be over four times more productive paying $700 a month for the same thing at a WeWork. Granted, this place doesn't have beer on tap, but it has free-flowing coffee, and that's all I really need. You be you, so pay WeWork's prices if the value fits you, but if you're considering joining shared workplaces for the first time, note that you can probably find a much better deal.
- woolvalley 9y ago
  Usually its around ~$350/month, even in the expensive bay area.
jpindar 9y ago
$500 a month? Daaaamn I'm in the wrong business. Would anyone like to rent a private office in walking distance of beautiful Hampton Beach, NH? (Price negotiable.)

jlemos 9y ago

YMMV, but my current workplace sits in a co-working space (although we are big enough to have our own exclusive office within it) and the noise levels on the common areas from what I have seen are ok most of the time. No music being pumped anywhere. The place described in the article sounds like a dystopian nightmare, but I doubt its the norm... Also, if you are a freelancer or a tech founder that wants to work on his own thing, what is the alternative? Working on a coffee shop brings pretty much the same noise problems + no guarantee of power supply/fast Wifi. Working from home all the time can get lonely. Renting an office? Too expensive...so co-working spaces fill a nice niche.

kerkeslager 9y ago
Public libraries are a good alternative, too.

jefurii 9y ago

Maybe that's just WeWork, maybe it's a culture that develops in certain places. I've worked at CrossCampus in Pasadena for awhile and there are a bunch of programmers, writers, and other types who need to be able to concentrate who have made the shared-table space work for us. Together we've made it more of a "study hall" atmosphere. We asked management to turn the music down to an acceptable volume in our part of the floor, and we apply social pressure on people who talk too loud or are otherwise too distracting. In my experience shared-table or open-plan offices didn't work when I was at a company, but they work pretty well in a coworking space. One aspect of this is the lack of a power dynamic: you're not sharing an open-plan office with your manager. You can also leave (or threaten to leave) a coworking space if it doesn't work for you. Members have more power over their environment if they can organize. WeWork is a huge chain now, so maybe this works better at smaller coworking spaces that have less corporate inertia.

specialist 9y ago
I covet a law library style heads down quiet work zone. I’m not crazy about shared office, cafe tables. They have to be library style heavy, solid to dampen heavy typing, pencl tapping, regular jostling.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Have you tried working in an actual library? Most public libraries have WiFi these days.
  - jefurii 9y ago
    I love libraries and my city has some truly beautiful ones. The problem with working there is that unless you work in a group you have to basically pack up your whole setup if you want to go to the bathroom or get a cup of coffee. The coworking space I'm at has physical access controls and the members/residents/inmates all know each other.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Our public libraries are now homeless encampments. As the other reply noted, no bathroom / stretch breaks. Our local university libraries are pretty good, when I still had wifi access. My laptop camping secret is hospitals. Free wifi, pretty good cheap food, clean bathrooms. I've also found a few local companies which have their own cafes, which are still open to the public. I'd probably pay $5/hr to laptop camp. I generally "pay rent" where ever I'm camping with tips, treats, and coffee. I'd rather just pay outright. A cafe, event space, or study zone that allocates hours for quiet time will clean up. I imagine all the vacant 2nd and 3rd story retail getting repurposed. Maybe even mall vacancies, kinda like the board game retailers & hosters are now doing.

avoutthere 9y ago

I am by far most productive when working alone from home. It isn't even close.

cup-of-tea 9y ago

I "work" in an open office type space. My ears are filled with people on the phone or just talking about work they could do. In my peripheral vision is a colleague and various other movements. I'm here to do only very simple work because I can't think very deeply. Any serious work is done at home where I am many times more productive. For some work this type of setup might be fine, but for anything resembling engineering it's impossible.

deleted 9y ago
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kerkeslager 9y ago
I've worked as a software engineer for over a decade and most of that time was spent in open office spaces. I am most productive in that environment. I don't doubt that you are more productive in a different environment, but it's a pretty big leap to assume that every engineer is going to be productive in the same environment. Different people work different ways, and the answer is to find a workspace that suits you, not try to apply the work environment that works for you to the entire industry.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  The problem is, workspaces are all trending to cater to you.
- opo 9y ago
  There is pretty much overwhelming research that people are more productive and healthy at work when they have some privacy and don't have distractions. One example - a study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology of more than 40,000 workers in 300 US office buildings: "...Enclosed private offices clearly outperformed open-plan layouts in most aspects of IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality), particularly in acoustics, privacy and the proxemics issues. Benefits of enhanced 'ease of interaction' were smaller than the penalties of increased noise level and decreased privacy resulting from open-plan office configuration." https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-open-plan-offices-destroy-productivity.html https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/science-just-proved-that-... This article talks about some of the other research on the health effects and other effects on productivity: https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-... >...and the answer is to find a workspace that suits you, not try to apply the work environment that works for you to the entire industry. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be to apply the open office design to all environments which is hurting people. The best environments I have seen are when there are individual offices with plenty of open areas and conference rooms for people to meet.

LandR 9y ago

I work in a shared office / coworking space. We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office. My experience of working in this shared space: * It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk, and people would routinely bang the cupboard doors. I sort of fixed this by putting felt and rubber on the doors to stop the loud banging, but I shouldn't have had to do this. * People are noisy, people whistle, walk around talking loudly on their phones. Some people I'm sure talk loudly on purpose just to try and look like they are important in front of strangers. One guy makes random trumpet noises with his mouth... * No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness. I often see two people in the kitchen area from different companies and it can be a bit like a comedy sketch as they try to get their kitchening done without acknowledging the other person exists. Absurd, why don't people talk to each other. Especially people you see every day! * When you are remotely working and the only person from your company you have no one to talk to and this is quite isolating and depressing. Especially worse if you end up in a room with 10 others and they are all from the same company. Then they start looking at you like you are in their space. * The kitchen area, despite being an office staffed with supposed professionals, is always a mess. How does this happen? Our office space is also open to a throughfare to conference rooms and such, so you randomly get random people walking through the office, again noisily. But working here I at least don't have all the distractions of working from home.

MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
> No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness Haha yeah. It helps to have a few women around, but especially when there are lots of male IT coworkers present this is definitely a thing.
- creep 9y ago
  Yes! Men and women actually work better together than groups composed of just men or just women [1] [2] The thinking is, men prefer taking risks, while women prefer to limit risks. In cooperation, men can push women to see the benefit of a risk (and in turn she gains more experience of risk), and women can push men to hold off of risks that might be detrimental. Women are good at synchronizing group thought, in that they make a space for others to talk and they generate talking points by asking important questions, while men generally like taking the floor. So for the man who does not take the floor of his own accord, women are more likely to create a space where he can talk. Personally, in an environment like WeWork, I can see men and women having more conversations and opening up the place a little. 1. https://www.td.org/insights/women-and-men-working-together-more-sustainable-successful-work-environments https://www.td.org/insights/women-and-men-working-together-m... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/01/gender.world https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/01/gender.world

acd 9y ago

A better example would to have private offices with a shared space in the middle for working together. I think the truth is that office space is very expensive in Sillicon valley startups. Thus to lower the operating costs shared space is used but it is not fully productive and has lots of distractions for workers. Google is probably a company that has actual productivity data about working in private work spaces vs shared work spaces.

collyw 9y ago
I am pretty sure plenty of people would be happy to work from home.

sokoloff 9y ago

>a company offering “non-traditional lifestyle swag” was looking to barter its featured deals for business expertise That struck me as hilarious. Hat tip to the author.

deleted 9y ago

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kerkeslager 9y ago

There's a bias toward the negative in writing, which I think comes from the fact that people write as an attempt to solve problems. So you're always going to see more negative reporting on shared offices than positive. But I'm old enough to remember when private offices were still common, and there was a lot of negative writing about those too. As someone about to enter the software industry, I was very concerned that I'd be lonely and depressed from working alone in front of a screen all day. I think the truth behind all this is that the people writing this negative writing are all mismatched with the offices they're in. If you put a bunch of introverts in a shared office, they're going to be distracted and stressed. And if you stick a bunch of extroverts in private offices, they're going to be lonely and depressed. The answer for employers is to create mixed workspaces that are conducive to both forms of work, and make explicit the fact that nobody should be pressured to work in one space or another. The answer for individuals is to know yourself and where you work best, and work at jobs that will allow you to work in a work environment that works for you. Complaining about shared workspaces or private workspaces is counterproductive--it's just trying to force the kind of workspace that works for you onto a diverse industry that doesn't necessarily work the same as you. Personally, I get a lot done in shared offices. I can relate to a lot of what the author complains about, but a lot of the problems he brings up are problems with startup culture, not with shared workspaces. We extroverts aren't idiots, we know that stuff like "the common themes of rap are in tune with the company’s mission" is ridiculous.

dalyons 9y ago
This is 100% the truth. I don’t know why it’s so hard to recognize different people have different working preferences, there’s no absolute correct arrangement. HN (rightfully) shoots down “anecdata”, but on this issue everyone’s fine with a sample size of 1? don’t just shout your preferences at everyone else, it turns these threads into useless repetitive noise.
- izacus 9y ago
  Probably because research dating back to 1980s (see Peopleware) shows that shared offices are objectively less productive and result in less happy workforce?

nimbius 9y ago

Because Hollywood and overzealous architectural design firms dont understand acoustics...many of them have only recently come to realize the hubris of their ideas. I once worked for a $web_company in a cubeless open office with hard flooring and lots of glass. It was so bad you could hear a fart in the bathroom from the kitchen. Developers routinely recommended brands of noise cancelling headphones. In the sysadmin pool we were virtually un-addressable unless you talked to us on IRC. The office was just too damned loud. and thats not all, things dropped on the floor never survived. they didnt just break, they went off like a bomb. I remember a tech-support coworker dropped her novelty coffee mug and someone thought it was gunfire. We hired a sound control company to fix most of the problems when an executive was overheard in his office addressing our devops lead by a homophobic slur.

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majewsky 9y ago
I would've hired a new executive instead.
- dbcurtis 9y ago
  Doing both is an option.
- metalliqaz 9y ago
  Executive decided it was best that he keep his job.

randomerr 9y ago

Sounds like a common room in college. How much studying did you get there?

Piskvorrr 9y ago
Not a whole lot, library was much better.

megaman22 9y ago

I think I'd rather commit seppuku or eat Tide pods than work in an open office as described. Hopefully there is an eighth circle of hell in the afterlife reserved for management that inflicts such things on their workforce, full of gibbering, odoriferous, chronically sneezing demons that will pelt them with whiteboard markers and constantly ask for TPS reports.

specialist 9y ago
People clipping their nails in public is my kryptonite. Tuneless whistling is also irritating.

twunde 9y ago

I always find that WeWork has a very weird vibe. It has all of these companies but nobody talks to each other. It feels oddly sterile. When I worked out of General Assembly, the big benefit was that these companies would talk to each other, make deals or just help each other out with business/tech problems. Investors would come in to meet one company and would end up talking to a few more.

fg8qfg8fg8 9y ago

In my previous job I had my own office and I could get real work done. My new job has a shared office so I have to work from home to get real work done, then go into the office for meetings.

_greim_ 9y ago

This article exploits anti-urban-hipster sentiment in order to replicate itself across social media. It has no actual data for or against various office space designs.

evanmoran 9y ago

I've worked at several different co-working spaces and it seems that the culture either becomes really loud (phone calls and open conversations) or library silent. Nothing in between seems to last long. I'd love to see this improve. It's like being in an elevator; it has a social weirdness that's hard to overcome — if that's even what people want. Finding a way to encourage conversation in some areas and silence in others would go a long way to making these places more enjoyable. How to do that? No idea. That's an open question and my guess is the alcohol centered parties are one attempt at trying to solve this.

collyw 9y ago

This sounds a bit like 42 floors. Whatever happened to them? Did they implode into a black hole with the weight of their own hype?

meritt 9y ago
I thought 42floors was just a slightly prettier Craigslist for office space to rent.
- collyw 9y ago
  They certainly had a shitload of self generated hype on here a few years back. Then they laid off some people and went remarkably quiet. (I definitely see some similarities with the Solyent hype wagon, I just didn't hear of them laying off people yet).

logfromblammo 9y ago

Is this some kind of coastal culture thing, to add all kinds of stupid, non-productive crap to your work environment? Here in flyover country, you can rent an entire suite of multiple private offices in a strip of class B office-park units, including utilities, for less than what WeWork is apparently asking for just one private office. And that's without the insane brand-connected features like having beer kegs at work. Out here, a foosball table in the office is a red flag. People working on laptops on couches is a red flag. An untidy kitchenette is a red flag. Conducting an interview at a noisy restaurant is a double-red flag. (TSB. I was eating there with my family.) An open office plan is a red flag, unless it is clear that situation is aspirationally temporary, as the company is trying for ramen-profitability. People drinking beer at work is a triple-red flag. I have been in plenty of small-business service company or business incubator offices (for me, plenty = 2), and they looked just like regular large company offices, except the employees all worked for different companies and had the actual keys to their own lockable office. In one of them, instead of a data center in the secure area in the back of the building, there was a bio-chem lab. Neither were hard to work in, even in the rent-by-the-desk bullpen, because it was quiet. The tenants were mainly working from home and using the rented office only for customer contact, interviews, and the mailing address.

unreal37 9y ago
I don't consider Toronto "coastal". If it is, what coast is that exactly?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  The "Lake Ontario coast"?
emagdnim2100 9y ago
Are you talking about red flags from an investor or an employee perspective? Hard to argue with the latter, as it's completely personal, but I'm also from flyover country and I disagree with most of what you write.

creator_lol 9y ago

Try sharing a completely open office concept with 250 people on one floor, it's a joke. Now that I have worked in both a office with walls and this open office concept I can see that people get much more work done in a cubical with walls or an actual office where you can close a door and focus.

lowbloodsugar 9y ago

>“This is more like a bar or a club than a workspace,” said the local member of provincial parliament, taking in the scene. Sounds like a scene from Brave New World. Is everyone on soma?

kayall 9y ago

What do y'all think of the effect of 'beer on tap' on this atmosphere at Wework? Do any of you like to drink while working?

rhaps0dy 9y ago

I work in a shared office and it's OK. But that's just because we all know that focusing with other people speaking is basically impossible, so we all try hard to not make noise. If we have to talk we go to a conference room.

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redm 9y ago

My experience working in a co-working space vs. working independent/remote. 1) I have more meaningful conversations with my team, more organic thought and creativity occurs, and we grow closer as a team. 2) I get less work done because the distractions are much greater.

metalliqaz 9y ago

Is it me or did the article not provide the answer promised in the title?

ashelmire 9y ago

My work has a number of private offices, cubicle space, and open space. There's a funny thing that happens: the private offices are always occupied and apparently work is getting done in them. The cubicles are a step down, with those workers stepping out occasionally for some fresh air away from the office. The open areas are only ever occupied by new employees or not at all. Nobody wants to work in them. And it's true that my workplace is full of introverts (basically exclusively). But it's telling, to me, that the offices are the most productive places.

bayonetz 9y ago

>A member of the cleaning staff— a young Spanish-speaking woman with a tight ponytail— was one of the few people actually working. She moved quietly, picking up the dirty mugs that people had left lying about and stacking them into the dishwasher. Her shirt was emblazoned with the company slogan: Do What You Love. How about that little gem of a closer?

movedx 9y ago
I thought that too. What a great closer -- speaks volumes in twelve or so words.

juddlyon 9y ago

I've worked in numerous coworking places across the US, from the local mom-and-pops to the larger global companies. All of them have private offices for rent, which curtails the noise issue. All have meeting rooms to book. Most have phone cubby-holes. My experience has also been that you can socialize as little or as much as you'd like, it's up to you. You can attend events, or not. You can drink, or not. That said, there are large cultural differences between the younger, startup-scenester spots and the more diverse small-business ones. The latter usually skew older and include non-tech businesses like attorneys and realtors. I prefer these and have enjoyed the "cross-pollination" of ideas and focus on turning a profit.

turc1656 9y ago

Am I the only one who has grown to absolutely despise the term "creative" when used as a type of worker/employee? As in, for example (from the article) "members of the creative class" and "young creative types". Makes my skin crawl for some reason. I envision a bunch of people who stand around smelling each other's farts like they are at a wine tasting. I realize this comment isn't really productive and doesn't really contribute to the conversation but am I curious if anyone else hates that term.

chimpburger 9y ago
It is quite pretentious.

zaidf 9y ago

I admire anyone who can do serious deep work from a WeWork location.

ortusdux 9y ago

99% Invisible did a great piece on the invention of air conditioning and its role in modern architecture. The part of the story discussing the battle for the ideal office temperature reminded me of the open vs. closed office debate. Some memorable excerpts: "And some architects, like Lisa Heschong, see this as problematic — “you will never achieve a static environment where 100 percent of the people are happy,” she says. “There is a huge amount of individual variation in what people experience and what they prefer,” based on factors like age, sex and the kind of climate we are used to. All of this runs against the idea of targeting a single static indoor temperature." And "Brager says we could save enormous amounts of energy by letting the temperatures in buildings fluctuate over a wider range, and giving people more tools to heat and cool themselves. To accomplish this, Brager advocates a take a combination of high and low tech approaches. A window that you can open right by your desk is a great personal cooling device. A sweater is a pretty good personal heating device. But Brager and her team are also developing low energy desk fans, foot-warmers, and chairs that can heat or cool." I for one am very happy to have my own office with windows that open and an individual thermostat. That's not to say that I would say no to a self heating and cooling office chair... https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/

philippeback 9y ago

I hate open offices for being productive. They are cool for chatting and socializing. My pair of Bose QC20 are a must if I want to get anything done. Actually I ended up having my own 3 storey building where I can actually site/lounge/work my way and invite people to come to work with me on an as needed basis. Productivity is at least 3x vs open office. I go to client offices to catch up base and be around the people but productive work of mine occurs elsewhere.

woodandsteel 9y ago

Here's my way of explaining to managers why software developers need to be left undisturbed. Software developers on average write only about ten lines a day. The reason the process is so slow is that for each new line of code, you are trying to accomplish a task, and their are a great many different specific ways to do it. However, you can't pick just any way of doing it. That's because any line of code will impact on dozens of different things in the program, and generally in bad ways. So you have to figure out a line of code that will accomplish the specific thing you are trying to do, but without having any bad consequences for the rest of the program. This is a complicated puzzle, and to solve it you have to have the whole program, or at least a lot of it, in your mind all at once. But few if any programmers are smart enough to keep it all in their mind all the time, so for each new line of code they have to sit and think about the program, look up lots of specifics about it, and then get it all organized in their minds. That takes a whole lot of focused attention. Any interruption causes all this to disappear from the programer's mind, and they have to start all over again. Now I am not a programmer myself, so I may not have this all right. Maybe someone could improve it. Also, it would be helpful to have an analogy for something similar the manager does.

aarongough 9y ago
> Software developers on average write only about ten lines a day That is far too low of an estimate for any productive programmer. Perhaps when trying to solve some sort of insanely complex bug perhaps?
- CryoLogic 9y ago
  Depends on the type of software you are writing. If you are hooking up a bunch of libraries you installed with NPM on your node project you will be much more productive than if you are debugging a compiler or working on a hardware level device driver.
- Balgair 9y ago
  If anything, good programming may result in a negative amount of avg. lines/day. Depends on job though, of course.

orthoganol 9y ago

Will be buried, but fantastic "fear and loathing in WeWork" kind of article. Loved it. WeWork basically parodies itself.

az123zaz 9y ago

This narrative seems to be common these days about WeWork: - it has a high valuation - nobody there really works - everyone there is a stupid startup that won't pan out - WeWork is a scam In the past, I've worked at fortune 50 companies in private office, at startups in open office, rented space personally at various coworking spaces, and currently rent a hot desk in a WeWork in Brooklyn. Where I work, on any given weekday the shared workspace of about 45 desks is 60% full with people working silently or talking very quietly. It is a great environment for technical work. The music doesn't play in the shared work space but it does in the common eating area / kitchen where people frequently do work and talk to one another. I think this "trash the new unicorn" mentality is fun to write about but in my experience, WeWork really is better. One example of something they do extraordinarily well is that their phone booths actually work and give real privacy. The internet is always perfect. Things like that matter when you want to be productive. There is paper shredding service. The mugs are always clean. The snack bar is cheap and always stocked. There are also network effects. I frequently have meetings in Manhattan spread throughout the day. No matter what part of town I'm in, I almost always can rent a desk at a location nearby for free (or for $25 if I've done it a lot that month). This is just my experience but IMO WeWork is definitely worth it. I pay $350/mo. Maybe it's not for everyone but I am happy giving them my money for what I get in return.

fragmede 9y ago
There's a (currently) $20 billion valuation on the line, expect to see quite a lot more press (positive and negative) in 2018 as they press towards an IPO. It's not about "trashing the unicorn" (eg, Dropbox has managed to keep negative press to a minimum). It's that there's yet to be anything substantive that examines what people are doing that isn't "a stupid start up that won't pan out" that justify paying $350/mo for a desk, when a coffee shop will do. The prejudice is not that that your "stupid start up that won't pan out" won't, err, pan out, but that eventually the entire industry will collapse and we'll all have to go back to doing serious work at serious jobs. No more getting paid to make a dating app for people with dogs with a floppy left ear. Despite evidence to the contrary, WeWorks isn't selling office space, they're selling convenience and a lifestyle (two things people are willing to pay a premium for). If you've got an niche business with revenue that lets you afford $350/mo, and you're getting value out of WeWorks, good for you! Keep that niche your secret though.

awl130 9y ago

My startup leases a big private office and we did it because it made really good economic sense. no deposit, major curb appeal that impresses potential clients for zero capex on our part, and flexible in a way in which traditional leases could never compete. There are now so many weworks in our city that whenever our team expands we just move to another office across the hall or to another wework building. Wework is happy to accommodate and roll over our lease. it's an easy move -- no furniture, just desktops computers and personal effects - 24 hours tops. Meanwhile, potential clients walk into the common area, hear the indie rock and think we're this super high-end, hip, "urban" company filled with creative young people. The reality is that we only step out into the kitchen and ping pong tables when we get bored. We have the option to retreat to our sanctuary any time. It's incredible. Tell me a better solution! There is none! But as this backlash indicates, the hot desks are the big scam -- essentially younger, non-salaried individuals who are essentially paying for the privilege of providing atmosphere and brand for us, the private suite tenants. Wework gets the valuation, i'm guessing, because in addition to the typical rental income from the private offices (albeit, these aren't long term leases, but with scale, they don't have to worry about that), they are collecting $500/mo from the hot desks in the lobby area, an area that would normally sit empty. Wow! what a business model. Bravo Wework.

Gatsky 9y ago

I once worked in an open plan office with a guy that had Tourette's syndrome. As you can imagine, for him the open plan office was a particular kind of torture that should only be reserved for the worst members of humanity.

loco5niner 9y ago
I'm curious what it was specifically about his Tourette's that caused him problems in the open office. I ask because I suspect I have mild Tourette's, and absolutely hate the open office my work moved us into. For me it is the incessent people-noise. Loud-laughers, sounds of chewing, constant self-talk, etc. If it was just light-industrial noise, it wouldn't be so bad.