8 ms·
Instead of responding to everything s%&t about cubicles, organisations made all those things even worse by going with open plan. Good heuristic on these trends
by harry8 8y ago
Instead of responding to everything s%&t about cubicles, organisations made all those things even worse by going with open plan.
Good heuristic on these trends. "Will everyone absolutely hate it?" If so, it'll get really popular.
Hotdesking. Oh yeah! It'll drive everyone nuts!
What else you got?
- throes_death 8y agoHot terminals?
- auiya 8y agoWhomever came up with the concept of hot terminals and/or desking needs to be strapped to a tree and beaten with a bag of hammers. "Oh we can oversubscribe our desks now? Sweet we'll just make 'em all work a compressed 4x10 schedule to shoehorn as many of 'em in there as we can. Work life balance? Pfffftt overrated."
- slowmovintarget 8y agoCollaborative seating. (Basically a lunch table with a bunch of chairs in the hallway). Bring your laptop, hope you have a cord long enough to reach the outlet. No partitions at all. Though globally remote is worse. You're expected to be able to jump on cam at all hours. Have your cap nearby to cover up the bedhead.
- Johnny555 8y agoThough globally remote is worse. You're expected to be able to jump on cam at all hours I think that's the price you pay for being globally remote. We have some overseas support staff, and they knew before they took the job when they'd need to be expected to dial-in for team meetings, and they all seem to be fine with it.
- cableshaft 8y agoYou can 'dial in' without a webcam. We do it all the time at my job, which went fully remote six months ago. Half the people in our various Webex meetings use their phones to dial in, even. My boss originally wanted people to use their webcam when joining those meetings when we first went fully remote. That initiative lasted about two weeks before no one did it anymore, including him. I just wear a headset, and half the time I can leave it on mute anyway (especially if the puppy decides now is the time to chew on her squeakiest toy, or bark at some people running down the path beyond our back yard).
- Johnny555 8y agoIs the video the real issue with dialing in at all-hours, or is it the "all-hours" part?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoYes.
- learc83 8y agoIs the webcam a west coast thing? I work remotely for a NYC based company, and in the hundreds of meetings I've had both internally and with people from other companies, not once has someone turned on a webcam (or requested it).
- taurath 8y agoIt’s a tech vs non tech thing. Everyone in older companies tend to be used to communicating by phone.
- Aeolun 8y agoI don’t know. Without a webcam I am missing about 100% of all your nonverbal communication. I can see why one would be handy. Is it really that hard to put on a shirt for your meetings?
- microcolonel 8y agoI am too social for that, when I see people's faces I want to talk to them. I need to have a corner where I can put my monitor and do that part of my job. I can always do the social part of my job standing up, away from my desk; but if I have no permanent desk and corner, then I can not benefit from it.
- rorykoehler 8y agoRemote CTO here. We hardly ever use cam for calls and if we do it's 100% opt-in. We also have agreed upon business hours when people are available and generally book things in Google Calendar if there is a meeting unless it's a (rare) outage that requires immediate attention in which case pagerduty automates the process.
- andrew_ 8y agoAside: My ambition is to someday rise to that role, while staying remote. I would love to read your thoughts on how one can pursue and move into a CTO role remotely.
- rorykoehler 8y agoSee reply to sibling comment.
- danesparza 8y agoSeriously: If you have a blog I can follow, or a book I can read that describes your story of becoming (and staying) a remote CTO, please share.
- rorykoehler 8y agoI don't have anything published but it seems like this is something that could have an audience. I do have extensive notes which I've been collecting to put into some sort of coherent form and publish so maybe it's time to do that.
- denimnerd42 8y agothat sounds great for ergonomics..
- wlll 8y agoI've done globally remote for 10 years with 3 companies. Never been expected to jump in any call that's inconvenient for me. It would take a lot for me to give it up for an office of any kind.
- lolsal 8y agoAnother anecdotal data point: I've been remote for about a decade and I've never expected to be on a call (visual or otherwise) outside business hours for my timezone (9-5). I work with folks in SF, London, Tel Aviv, Bangalaru.
- james_s_tayler 8y agoSo basically every possible configuration in which people can be made to work together is intolerably unbearable along some dimension or another. What have we learned? There isn't a configuration that is good, productive and cost effective. Pick any two.
- pmiller2 8y agoI doubt the cost of an office, whether private or a 6-8 person bull pen style, is more than a rounding error compared to the cost of salaries + benefits for most tech employees. Another commenter put forth a figure of $300/month/person. That’s less than the cost of those shiny new MacBooks seemingly everyone in SF carries around.
- yakshaving_jgt 8y ago> Another commenter put forth a figure of $300/month/person. That’s less than the cost of those shiny new MacBooks seemingly everyone in SF carries around. …But nobody is buying a new MacBook every quarter.
- CamperBob2 8y agoIf valued employees needed a new MacBook every quarter, the company would find a way to make it happen. For some reason I've never understood, that doesn't apply to office space.
- mulmen 8y agoValued employees also get offices if they want. It's the plebians that get stuck in open offices with four year old HP laptops with busted fans.
- RA_Fisher 8y agoIt's not just the office space. The commute is very costly as well. Employees add the commute and all the other annoyances to their salary requirements. It's good for the employer and employee to "keep the money on the field" aka maximizing the time happily making value for the customer.
- tokyodude 8y agoAnd yet WeWork is apparently the 4th highest valued company right now (by some metrics) and is a place where people voluntarily pay to be in open plans. No one is twisting their arms.
- m-i-l 8y agoHow about "desk utilisation monitoring"? Do an internet search for "occupeye". And then look to see if you've a spy cam under your hot desk.