4 ms·

I find it very hard to concentrate while listening to music, but even harder while overhearing other people's conversations, so occasionally the headphones must

I find it very hard to concentrate while listening to music, but even harder while overhearing other people's conversations, so occasionally the headphones must go on. Of course, headphones also mildly discourage others from interrupting, but that's no way to live your life.

hkon 16y ago
Oh the joy of an open office landscape!
InclinedPlane 16y ago
For the life of me I don't understand why cubicles are the norm for developer offices. There have been numerous studies showing the productivity effects of open offices vs individual offices. And many more studies on the importance of concentration and the destructive power of interruptions. Do people value programmer productivity so little that they're willing to throw so much of it away to save a few dollars in real estate costs?
- randallsquared 16y ago
  I used to be an individual office partisan, but after working for a coupla years in cubes with walls that come to a sitting person's neck, I find that there are a lot of benefits: I can just turn (and scoot across my cube, if necessary) to ask or answer questions of a co-worker; I can hear when people begin chattering, which is a sign that something is going on that I need to pay attention to, like the site being down or a discussion about some coding question; I have long lines of sight in at least some directions, which is nice for my psychological well-being, especially in contrast to some office without an outside window. The main thing, though, is serendipity: overhearing party A ask party B a question to which party B doesn't know the answer, but I do, or hearing people planning to have a meeting I'd want to be in, but which they don't know I'd want to attend, etc. A closed office would be slightly more useful when head-down coding for hours or days at a time, but so much of my time as a developer is spent chatting about coding, helping people solve language or environment problems, talking with users who wander in looking for help, and other miscellaneous interpersonal activity that a closed office would hamper my job quite a lot.
  - puredemo 16y ago
    Those benefits are not worthwhile to me personally. I want to code, not constantly overhear office chatter.
    - gbog 16y ago
      Then you could work at home, no? For me development is teamwork, and we do it in a war room, wich like extreme cubicle. It works very well, just isolate with headphones and heavily use chat, even for people at your desk. Ask the team to receive calls outside and to talk softly to each other.
      - puredemo 16y ago
        Yep, working from home is great. Or within an office with an actual door.
  - quanticle 16y ago
    My question is how many of those cited benefits are actually benefits. For example, it may be very convenient for you to scoot across your cube to ask questions of your co-worker, but is it convenient for him or her? Are you making sure that you're not interrupting anything important (and remembering that asking for interruption is an interruption in itself)? Overhearing and acting on conversations might be nice, but it might be equally troublesome, especially where one might be seen as meddling. I'm not minimizing the importance of communication, but I'm wondering whether the benefits you've cited are actually worth the costs to yourself and others.
  - JeffL 16y ago
    Are those benefits that you wouldn't get in an open office? Personally, I prefer the open office, with 2-4 people in a room together, and feel like cubicles are the worst of both worlds. With the cubicle, it's like you're cut off from everyone else, but without the benefits of actual privacy.
- eftpotrm 16y ago
  I've tried having this conversation so many times at my current place! We don't just have an open plan office, we have a huge open plan office with a mix of developers, client facing staff, managers, secretaries, phones going off, people wandering through to the kitchen or toilets, small meetings going on around tables.... It's a terrible work environment for actually getting to focus on what you're doing, yet any suggestion that we might do better with more secluded, private space is met with ridicule. A new head honcho is not long in post, and has decided to make his mark by moving the entire department into newly refurbished offices at a cost I understand that's about equal to 3 months salary per head. The plan is for long rows of desks so we'll have even higher density and less private space. I'm not optimistic for its effects on the department.
  - puredemo 16y ago
    It's even worse if, like me, you're diagnosed with adult ADD. Something that would take me 5-20 minutes in a quiet environment can easily take me a half day in a distraction-prone open office environment.
    - gaustin 16y ago
      I got evaluated for adult ADD because of similar productivity issues. It turns out I'm just really bored and unmotivated by the work I'm doing.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    Does that head honcho sit out there with all of you, or does he/she have a private office? Just curious.
    - docgnome 16y ago
      Not sure about the parent poster, but in my case, yes. Well. The head honcho's for that department anyway.
  - docgnome 16y ago
    I work in an open plan office as well... And it is a mix of client facing staff and developers. For them it works really well. Not so much for us devs. Sennheiser CX300-B's are a real life saver. I tend to listen to Daft Punk or other music that I know really well (with the general exception of classical). I have found that brown noise also works very well.
anonymous246 16y ago
Brown noise (from simplynoise.com) works wonders for me. I can work in a room with the TV on!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

hkon 16y ago

Oh the joy of an open office landscape!

InclinedPlane 16y ago

For the life of me I don't understand why cubicles are the norm for developer offices. There have been numerous studies showing the productivity effects of open offices vs individual offices. And many more studies on the importance of concentration and the destructive power of interruptions. Do people value programmer productivity so little that they're willing to throw so much of it away to save a few dollars in real estate costs?

randallsquared 16y ago
I used to be an individual office partisan, but after working for a coupla years in cubes with walls that come to a sitting person's neck, I find that there are a lot of benefits: I can just turn (and scoot across my cube, if necessary) to ask or answer questions of a co-worker; I can hear when people begin chattering, which is a sign that something is going on that I need to pay attention to, like the site being down or a discussion about some coding question; I have long lines of sight in at least some directions, which is nice for my psychological well-being, especially in contrast to some office without an outside window. The main thing, though, is serendipity: overhearing party A ask party B a question to which party B doesn't know the answer, but I do, or hearing people planning to have a meeting I'd want to be in, but which they don't know I'd want to attend, etc. A closed office would be slightly more useful when head-down coding for hours or days at a time, but so much of my time as a developer is spent chatting about coding, helping people solve language or environment problems, talking with users who wander in looking for help, and other miscellaneous interpersonal activity that a closed office would hamper my job quite a lot.
- puredemo 16y ago
  Those benefits are not worthwhile to me personally. I want to code, not constantly overhear office chatter.
  - gbog 16y ago
    Then you could work at home, no? For me development is teamwork, and we do it in a war room, wich like extreme cubicle. It works very well, just isolate with headphones and heavily use chat, even for people at your desk. Ask the team to receive calls outside and to talk softly to each other.
    - puredemo 16y ago
      Yep, working from home is great. Or within an office with an actual door.
- quanticle 16y ago
  My question is how many of those cited benefits are actually benefits. For example, it may be very convenient for you to scoot across your cube to ask questions of your co-worker, but is it convenient for him or her? Are you making sure that you're not interrupting anything important (and remembering that asking for interruption is an interruption in itself)? Overhearing and acting on conversations might be nice, but it might be equally troublesome, especially where one might be seen as meddling. I'm not minimizing the importance of communication, but I'm wondering whether the benefits you've cited are actually worth the costs to yourself and others.
- JeffL 16y ago
  Are those benefits that you wouldn't get in an open office? Personally, I prefer the open office, with 2-4 people in a room together, and feel like cubicles are the worst of both worlds. With the cubicle, it's like you're cut off from everyone else, but without the benefits of actual privacy.
eftpotrm 16y ago
I've tried having this conversation so many times at my current place! We don't just have an open plan office, we have a huge open plan office with a mix of developers, client facing staff, managers, secretaries, phones going off, people wandering through to the kitchen or toilets, small meetings going on around tables.... It's a terrible work environment for actually getting to focus on what you're doing, yet any suggestion that we might do better with more secluded, private space is met with ridicule. A new head honcho is not long in post, and has decided to make his mark by moving the entire department into newly refurbished offices at a cost I understand that's about equal to 3 months salary per head. The plan is for long rows of desks so we'll have even higher density and less private space. I'm not optimistic for its effects on the department.
- puredemo 16y ago
  It's even worse if, like me, you're diagnosed with adult ADD. Something that would take me 5-20 minutes in a quiet environment can easily take me a half day in a distraction-prone open office environment.
  - gaustin 16y ago
    I got evaluated for adult ADD because of similar productivity issues. It turns out I'm just really bored and unmotivated by the work I'm doing.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  Does that head honcho sit out there with all of you, or does he/she have a private office? Just curious.
  - docgnome 16y ago
    Not sure about the parent poster, but in my case, yes. Well. The head honcho's for that department anyway.
- docgnome 16y ago
  I work in an open plan office as well... And it is a mix of client facing staff and developers. For them it works really well. Not so much for us devs. Sennheiser CX300-B's are a real life saver. I tend to listen to Daft Punk or other music that I know really well (with the general exception of classical). I have found that brown noise also works very well.

anonymous246 16y ago

Brown noise (from simplynoise.com) works wonders for me. I can work in a room with the TV on!

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]