4 ms·

Anyone else find themselves assessing office space when on interviews? Not things like looking for the pool table or seeing what craft beer they have on tap, or

Anyone else find themselves assessing office space when on interviews? Not things like looking for the pool table or seeing what craft beer they have on tap, or how fancy the giant wallboard behind reception is. I'm talking about going into an interview, taking a look at the space and asking yourself "Could I really stand working in this configuration for more than a month?". I ask, having gone into interview after interview in the last few years and just seeing ikea tables lined up with an equally absurd line of monitors and tiny 4x4 foot spaces, desperately decorated so workers can come in and quickly spot their little section of the subdivision, and ultimately deciding "No. I'm not gonna work like this". Just wondering.

llampx 8y ago
If more developers would put that line in their feedback to HR, I suspect change might come sooner rather than later.
- iamdave 8y ago
  See, that statement alone makes me think of something. If more developers put that line in their feedback to HR, and you analyzed that data, how much you want to bet the people who are fed up and tired with "open offices" trend on the older side? I'm much older than I was earlier in my developer years (turning 36 in a few months) and have come to form an appreciation for this kind of thinking. With age my patience for some of the crap these high-speed, energetic startups (and even some established companies looking to target the young and energetic worker by adopting startup-y tropes-like the open office) put their workers through has plummeted. I don't care about your beer. I care about your healthcare plan. Do you offer retirement benefits? Are you matching contributions? Hey that's a real nice pool table you've got there. There's a slim to none chance I'll ever be playing on it (partly because I'll mop the floor with anybody you throw at me over a game of 8-ball), do you support continuing education of your employees? How? Subsidized or can I expect to be reimbursed for taking a certificate course? Are you discussing met objectives with the workforce? What gets discussed in an all-hands meeting? Did we meet our monthly business goals or did we come up short? Or are the meetings just feel good moments of superlatives for someone who got a positive reaction on twitter? Don't get me wrong, this line of thinking kind of drifts away from the core discussion we're having about open-office spaces, but I look at the open office space as an indicator of QOL in the work place. I walk in for an interview and see rows and columns of monitors, surge protectors and switches, entire ecosystems of cables mashed under a desk and the only thing that looks like a wall separating one area from the next being a conference room with not enough chairs, and history has taught me to be very incredulous. Very good chance I'm not going to want to work there or will regret it in a few months.
loco5niner 8y ago
Assessing the office space will be high on my list next time I interview. Especially if they have a pool table. Am I going to have to listen to that all day???
- iamdave 8y ago
  Admittedly a pool table is probably on the extreme end of examples I could have given; been fortunate enough that in both places that actually did have a billiards table-they had dedicated game rooms so the clatter of a cue-ball breaking and scattering balls against each other was well contained.
  - loco5niner 8y ago
    At my open office, the CEO announced in a company-wide meeting that they would be putting a ping-pong table in the breakroom (very open, could be heard everywhere). Instant "No's" coming from everywhere. Just one example of the kind of and amount of thinking that went into designing this place. Well, the real problem is that this office was a last-minute rush-job :-( They ended up getting one that could go outside, but that was just to save face.

llampx 8y ago

If more developers would put that line in their feedback to HR, I suspect change might come sooner rather than later.

iamdave 8y ago
See, that statement alone makes me think of something. If more developers put that line in their feedback to HR, and you analyzed that data, how much you want to bet the people who are fed up and tired with "open offices" trend on the older side? I'm much older than I was earlier in my developer years (turning 36 in a few months) and have come to form an appreciation for this kind of thinking. With age my patience for some of the crap these high-speed, energetic startups (and even some established companies looking to target the young and energetic worker by adopting startup-y tropes-like the open office) put their workers through has plummeted. I don't care about your beer. I care about your healthcare plan. Do you offer retirement benefits? Are you matching contributions? Hey that's a real nice pool table you've got there. There's a slim to none chance I'll ever be playing on it (partly because I'll mop the floor with anybody you throw at me over a game of 8-ball), do you support continuing education of your employees? How? Subsidized or can I expect to be reimbursed for taking a certificate course? Are you discussing met objectives with the workforce? What gets discussed in an all-hands meeting? Did we meet our monthly business goals or did we come up short? Or are the meetings just feel good moments of superlatives for someone who got a positive reaction on twitter? Don't get me wrong, this line of thinking kind of drifts away from the core discussion we're having about open-office spaces, but I look at the open office space as an indicator of QOL in the work place. I walk in for an interview and see rows and columns of monitors, surge protectors and switches, entire ecosystems of cables mashed under a desk and the only thing that looks like a wall separating one area from the next being a conference room with not enough chairs, and history has taught me to be very incredulous. Very good chance I'm not going to want to work there or will regret it in a few months.

loco5niner 8y ago

Assessing the office space will be high on my list next time I interview. Especially if they have a pool table. Am I going to have to listen to that all day???

iamdave 8y ago
Admittedly a pool table is probably on the extreme end of examples I could have given; been fortunate enough that in both places that actually did have a billiards table-they had dedicated game rooms so the clatter of a cue-ball breaking and scattering balls against each other was well contained.
- loco5niner 8y ago
  At my open office, the CEO announced in a company-wide meeting that they would be putting a ping-pong table in the breakroom (very open, could be heard everywhere). Instant "No's" coming from everywhere. Just one example of the kind of and amount of thinking that went into designing this place. Well, the real problem is that this office was a last-minute rush-job :-( They ended up getting one that could go outside, but that was just to save face.