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Open offices are a dead end
- rom1v 7y agoWhat about libre offices?
- andreygrehov 7y agoI hate open offices. What software companies offer at least cubicles?
- dominotw 7y agoi would be shocked if any did.
- Ecoturtle 7y agomine does /shrug
- tetraca 7y agoFind a place away from the coasts that isn't trying to be cheap/trendy. I had half-height cubes at my last few jobs.
- chrisseaton 7y agoOracle still has individual, soundproof, locking offices, with real doors and walls, in their HQ. I had one, with a mountain view, as an intern.
- haditab 7y agoLast I heard Microsoft still have it's engineers individual offices.
- FineTralfazz 7y agoI'm not sure how widespread it is (it might just be a few teams), but I've seen a few Microsoft engineers complaining about moving to open offices over the past few weeks. Ex: https://twitter.com/NerdPyle/status/1174732849699704833 https://twitter.com/NerdPyle/status/1174732849699704833
- undefined3840 7y agoIf you’re going to choose a company based on whether they offer cubicles you’re going to be very disappointed.
- andreygrehov 7y agoThat is why I ask first.
- mrmonkeyman 7y agoNice to see we now _want_ cubicles.
- smt88 7y agoI spent two weeks on-site with a client at WeWork. They had a large, glass-windowed open office overlooking the city. It was a beautiful office and view. It had a relaxed, social atmosphere. Predictably, despite all those things, everyone fought over the tiny, phone-booth-sized desks that WeWork offered in the hallway. There was barely enough room for a single person and laptop -- basically an upright coffin with a glass door. And yet they were always occupied, even by people who weren't on calls. Basically the most pleasant open office experience I've had, and people were still fighting for cubicles.
- bradstewart 7y agoWe have actual offices with doors at Silicon Labs in Austin.
- war1025 7y agoI work for a no-name company in the midwest. Have my own office with a door. Pretty nice.
- altmind 7y agoRemember "The office space" where they were making laughs on cubicles? Guess what, now we're dont even have this.
- amyjess 7y agoI don't really like talking about real life too much, so I'm hesitant to mention the company by name (you can probably find it in my history though), but I work for an enterprise ISP, and we have cubicles. I'm very happy here.
- adamnemecek 7y agoI wonder if remote work will become standard.
- MadWombat 7y agoIt is already becoming much more accepted than it was a few years ago, but remote work comes with its own set of problems and nuances. Companies tend to worry about accountability a lot more, mixing work life and off work life is hard, especially if you have a family with kids, having to define your own structure is hard etc.
- fwsgonzo 7y agoNot only that but you won't get all the information, the informal stuff, and you will never get promoted. Still, it's better than the alternative.
- MadWombat 7y agoI think information flow can be designed to accommodate remote work, especially if the company is focusing on remote workers. Same goes for promotions, if the company is focusing on remote work (i.e. would prefer to have more remote workers than office workers) it can and will sort out promotions. The problems I mentioned seem to me a bit more fundamental, problems of personally coping with working remotely rather than company attitude towards remote workers.
- cameronbrown 7y agoNot gonna happen. Working in an office is cultural, and as long as the majority of jobs require presence (read: almost every non knowledge-worker job) it won't change. Personally I don't like the idea of remote work anyway - I think we're missing a lot of valuable bandwidth. We're social creatures and no amount of technology will change that. That being said, I think the option should be there for those who disagree with me. A good middle ground would be a mix of remote and in-person work.
- 7y ago
- duxup 7y agoI have a visceral response to that photo in the article. I do not need folks right on top of me like that. My solution is that I often wear Shooting Earmuffs (you guys who listen to music all the time, i don't get it, i can't do that) to lower my awareness of all the chatter... even when I do have an office. Fortunately folks around me are understanding.
- big_chungus 7y ago> you guys who listen to music all the time, i don't get it, i can't do that Basically, it's just background noise to drown out other people. I don't listen to the music I really like when I'm working, I listen to quiet stuff that won't distract me; rather than what I most enjoy and on which I would want to focus.
- duxup 7y agoI do use background noise like rainy mood when I want to so I get that. But songs with words or that go too fast for my liking, can't do it.
- big_chungus 7y agoYep, my music is moderately-paced and doesn't have words. It's not that different from background noise with a little tonality. I tried rain and slower music, but they made me somewhat drowsy.
- war1025 7y agoI tend to pick an album and leave it on repeat for weeks / months. After a few days, you have all the words memorized and it acts as a pacing device as much as anything. Part of it is probably that I tend to listen to music with actual lyrics instead of catchy pop songs. It's just a big long story that you've heard a thousand times. Comforting, but also easy to ignore.
- soneca 7y agoI just recently discovered I have a super power: easily zoom out from a lot of chatter in a crowded small room. The secret is that I am a non-native English speaker working in the US. I can understand and speak very well... when I am focused on it. If I am not consciously making an effort to understand the chat in the room, it is almost like white noise.
- Ascetik 7y agoI got hit in the eye with a nerf dart once in an open office environment. Thank God I work remotely now. Open-offices are horrid.
- ssimpson 7y agoeveryone wants to have offices in all the trendy downtown areas. a lot of the cost of the office goes to rent, so even if a desire for cubes or offices was there (which generally management doesn't because they are expensive) the budget won't be.
- sct202 7y agoIn the four years at my current company we went full cubes -> half cubes (you get like 2-3 regular walls and one baby wall) -> open office -> open office no assigned desks. I can't wait to see the next iteration on this.
- tboyd47 7y agoDownsizing
- Bombthecat 7y ago10 seats. 20 employees. First come first serve. Saw that actually happen. (well they wanted to get rid of people though)
- CameronBarre 7y agoStacks of unassigned, multi-level scaffolding to fit more people in the room?
- Jaygles 7y agoI have an idea, break furniture apart into their fundamental pieces, such as chair legs or the top of a desk, and allow the employees to construct their workspace lego style
- eli 7y agoCubes are worse than open office IMHO. You get roughly the same noise and distraction but it's also harder to actually talk to or collaborate with your neighbors.
- scarface74 7y agoIf I could craft the perfect job for me, the one I work at would be it - an intelligent straightforward manager who will speak his mind bluntly and can take it just as well as he can dish it out. He’s mostly concerned with results not whether you kiss his ring. - small company without a lot of bureaucracy -- I have full access to our entire AWS infrastructure - relatively generous PTO - a decent free family health plan - Pay is line with the market - up to date with technology and great chances for resume building. - coworkers are decent - easy commute. But, I’m still debating on whether I should leave in a year and find either fully remote work, a job where I can have an office or at least a quiet work area because of our open office where you have sales people (B2b), customer support managers, and developers from different teams in one office where it gets noisy.
- zwieback 7y agoI have all that at my current job except for "up to date ...", we're in a mature/declining market so it doesn't feel as exciting.
- m_mueller 7y agoDo you own noise cancelling headphones? Mine are worth their weight in gold to me (Sony W-something 1000x Mk2).
- milkytron 7y agoFunny you mention this... I previously worked in an open office layout where it was discouraged and frowned upon to wear noise cancelling headphones. They wanted to support the ability of others to be able to come up to you without feeling like they were interrupting.
- clinta 7y agoThey wanted to support the ability of others to b̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ interrupt you without feeling like they were interrupting.
- not_a_cop75 7y agoThis sounds like a condemnation of startup culture. I've seen some great startups thrive with open offices.
- umvi 7y agoUnpopular opinion, but I actually think open offices make me more productive. When I'm in a private office, the temptation to watch YouTube, or otherwise read/do unrelated work stuff is much higher. However, I do like having a private office to eat lunch.
- smt88 7y agoUnpopular, yes, but you're not wrong because you're talking about only yourself. I think the point many people are trying to make is that open offices decrease productivity for most people.
- kerkeslager 7y ago> I think the point many people are trying to make is that open offices decrease productivity for most people. I don't think people stop there, however. Many people, including the author of the article, go the extra step to say that open offices are bad. I don't think you can argue against the fact that a significant portion of the population works well in open offices, so when you say stuff like "open offices are a dead end", that's a direct attack on the work habits of a significant part of the population. The combativeness, I think, comes from the fact that almost everyone has been forced to work in a situation that doesn't work for them. But the solution isn't to try to force everyone to use your favored office situation: that's just doing the same thing to others that was done to you. Instead, we should be focusing on finding office situations that work for each of us, and letting others choose office situations that work for them.
- nemetroid 7y ago> I don't think you can argue against the fact that a significant portion of the population works well in open offices Can you cite a study which asserts this fact?
- kerkeslager 7y agoYou've got numerous people on this page saying they work better in open offices. Do you have some reason for disbelieving them?
- sytse 7y agoI think offices are a dead end. With 4G, Slack, Zoom, and Google Docs we're able to work from anywhere. No need to commute anymore. And no need to constrain your team to the city you have an office in. The only thing is that remote should not be an afterthought but you should organize for it https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/ https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/ just like you invest time to run an office.
- TheMerovingian 7y agoI agree to an extent. I think remote work is a swing in the opposite direction of open offices, but it can go too far. Remote work does not allow developers to collaborate easily; sometimes getting several people at a white board is necessary and efficient. Offices or very small cube farms (of 4-6 people in an enclosed area) seem an ideal middle ground where people working on the same thing can talk while not being bothered by others that have nothing to do with their current team/task.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago> Remote work does not allow developers to collaborate easily Laughable; phones have worked for decades. Your brain and mouth and ears don’t stop working, do they? Furthermore you are greatly overestimating the proportion of high intensity local collaboration to grunt work. The vast majority of tech jobs could be remote overnight and nothing would even slow down. These jobs are not hard or collaboration intense regardless how cool your employer makes you feel about coming into the office. It’s just hard work like any job, and in person collaboration is a miniscule part of that. In reality people like their offices and that’s 100% fine, just don’t ask me to move to your city so you can feel more comfortable asking me how something is going or what I think about x idea. I think acceessibility is a broader issue with remote work—remote desktops don’t play well for the blind.
- scarface74 7y agoI worked at a satellite office where all of my team worked 200 miles away. We worked well together, but there was nothing like the times I would drive up there and we could be in a room, at a whiteboard and drawing things out.
- sillyquiet 7y agoopen offices are plain and simple about two things, neither of which is related to worker health or productivity. cost: open offices, once built out are cheap in terms of cog pers square foot. marketing: airy, light, trendy open office make great photos. I knew my present company had succumbed to the disease when a request for whiteboard desk dividers was denied because, to paraphrase: 'they don't fit in with the airy flow we were going for'
- zwieback 7y agoWe still have cube walls, seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
- Rainymood 7y agoI don't have an issue with open offices per se but the person in front of me is from another culture and is literally 24/7 in skype calls which distracts me to no end, and the worst part is the he/she is literally /burping and farting/ without any shame. And I don't mean once a day, no, constantly burping and farting, it's honestly disgusting. /rant
- mdgrech23 7y agoSo this was happening in my office too. Turns out the person didn't know how to do their job and was interfacing w/ someone back home to get the answers if you will. Basically the overseas contracting house figured it out was profitable to just get someone hired and have a team of people that actually know what they're doing that can provide support working back home. It's a pretty interesting model but sucks if you get stuck w/ someone like this on your team.
- Rooster61 7y ago> I don't have an issue with open offices per se Sounds like you do. An open office would be just fine if I was the only one in there, but that is what is intrinsically bad ( or at least the main thing) about them. You aren't alone in there.
- orev 7y agoSo, in other words, you do have a problem with open offices. The fact that everyone has a different idea of what’s acceptable behavior in a group setting is pretty much the whole issue with open offices.
- stevesearer 7y agoIn some ways open office designs are a symptom of company cultures that do not value deep work more than the perceived value open plans offer such as cost savings or "collaboration". From my vantage, there are quite a few more companies installing places for deep work in offices. But even if companies install these spaces, if the company does not value deep work away from your primary desk, employees will feel discouraged about using those facilities. It was probably the same culture disconnect for companies who would put a ping-pong table in the office even though deep down they would not actually want staff spending time utilizing them during the day as opposed to sitting at their desk working.
- socrates1998 7y agoIn my city, mid-sized city in a larger metropolitan area with a few million people, I tried to work at one of the We-Work type places and found it completely overpriced. If I can work from anywhere, then I don't see the advantage to renting an office for the day. The real appeal for an office is that you can leave stuff there and use it for a multitude of things. We-Work type places seem to be good for one thing, giving a desk to remote workers that don't like working at coffee shops or libraries? Do sales people like them? What exactly are the type of professionals that like We-Work type offices?
- ivl 7y agoI think I'd have a less negative reaction to open offices if it weren't for the attempt to sell it as a productivity booster. The article even mentions how they're "sold to workers as a boon to collaboration — liberated from barriers, stuffed in like sardines, people would chat more and, supposedly, come up with lots of brilliant new ideas". Thankfully the author also quickly refuted that. Yet the insanity remains, and people (often times the Agile evangelist types companies hire) continue to try to convince developers that open offices are good. I could buy into it if the rational is it's far cheaper to fit more employees in less space. That's a fine reason. It sucks to work in, but I can at least hear that without rolling my eyes and dismissing everything else that person says as incredulous.
- nilkn 7y agoI think I'd have a less negative reaction if people actually had a decent amount of personal space in these floorplans. In the photo at the top of the article, two people could scarcely yawn and stretch at the same time without making physical contact. If you're towards the end and you want to just take a bathroom break, you'd have to physically weave around people and chairs to get out. My home office that I use for playing video games is nearly as large as that space that houses presumably four working professionals. How is this reasonable? How does anyone think this is a good way of investing in your expensive staff? If this is all the space you can afford, I absolutely sympathize, but maybe at that point it's time to let people work from home.
- mukti 7y agoThat's the kicker for me - when I talk to people who are complaining about open floor plans, they typically work in a place similar to the one pictured in the article. Now, that's not to say that more space necessarily makes it better for productivity, but it will certainly make some difference (at least, to me). Where I work, we have an open floor plan, and we have a good amount of space around our desks. I personally like it, but I can see how its not for everyone. If I were crammed in a tiny space, I would definitely be clamoring for an office.
- 7y ago
- inanutshellus 7y agoI disagree. The headline photo looks claustrophobic -- we aren't sardines -- but I'm a fan of the "team pod" setup. The primary alternative--the high walled land of cubicles--is a depressing, lonely world. Yes, I get pulled out of flow more often than I would if I had an office or a cube, and I'm occasionally annoyed by chatter, but I'd rather have some humans to coexist with and occasionally interrupted than depressed and flowing.
- big_chungus 7y agoI never see this mentioned, but one of the things I hate most about open offices is having people always looking at my screen. To be clear, I don't waste much time. Does this bother any one else as much as it gets to me? Regardless of what I'm doing, I'm not comfortable being constantly observed doing it. I previously worked in an open office where the manager would basically creep up on people, walking quietly throughout the office and looking to see who was doing what. Creepy as all get-out.
- diablerouge 7y agoAs someone who started out working in an open office and now works someplace with half-cubes, I honestly prefer the open office. The ability for an open office to foster pair-programming and intense collaboration was a real benefit, though it certainly doesn't suit everyone. On the other hand, the half-cubes have all the same problems with regard to distractions, but are also major hindrances to working together in my experience. Developers are farther away, the space feels a little claustrophobic, and there are comparatively few good pairing stations.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago> The ability for an open office to foster pair-programming and intense collaboration was a real benefit, though it certainly doesn't suit everyone. How much of your day do you spend in intense collaboration?
- kerkeslager 7y agoI've been at companies where I spent perhaps 7 out of 8 hour in a day pair programming, and it was the most productive I've ever been. As the parent comment said, it's not for everyone. Nothing is for everyone--there are many different work styles.
- martinpw 7y agoThat sounds like a great argument against open offices. I could not handle sitting near two people pair programming the whole day. If they went to a private office to do it that would seem ideal.
- kerkeslager 7y ago> That sounds like a great argument against open offices. I could not handle sitting near two people pair programming the whole day. If they went to a private office to do it that would seem ideal. I don't understand. You can't handle working in an open office, so your solution is to force people who work well in an open office to work in a private office? Why can't you go work in a private office if that works well for you, and let people who work well in open offices work in open offices?
- gregmac 7y agoThere's a lot of hate for open offices, yet they're everywhere. There's high demand for developers, and accordingly, the salaries are high. Open offices mainly exist due to cost savings (lower sqft per employee), yet for most businesses salary costs will completely dwarf the cost of office space. Something doesn't add up. Do places with open offices have a harder time finding people? I was trying to find some comparisons of average salary at places with open offices vs private spaces, but I can't come up with anything. Intuitively, I'd think the salaries would on average be higher at places with open offices, but perhaps that's not a consideration of most people. How much more money would you need to be paid to make working in an open office worth it? Conversely, would you accept 5% less to get a private space? 10%?
- new2628 7y agoThe term that may answer your dilemma is "investor story-time" -- open offices tell a story to investors, acquirers, etc. of a docile team that collaborates in a creative way, without too much annoying individualism. This story is in fact quite accurate. Possible cost savings are just extra.
- xemdetia 7y agoI think the trouble is more that open office is generally not something that most people can stomach as a deal killer as a seeking employee. You also generally are deep into the interview process by the time you see the quality of the open office space, and the place you would work maybe doesn't look miserable but its one desk reorg away from making you utterly miserable. There's also the comparative misery- is this more miserable than the job that you are trying to leave? Of all the jobs I looked into in urban northeast areas all but one was open plan, and the last one was cubes. I didn't really have much of a choice.
- alanfranz 7y agoEditorialized title: should be Open Offices Are a Capitalist Dead End
- cdeonier 7y agoI'm not a fan of open office spaces, but I don't think the article fully captures the problem that the open office space is addressing. Our company has a team dedicated to the design of our office space, and they're trying to balance against multiple stakeholders' needs, from different functions (engineering vs legal), to work environment needs (1:1 vs meeting room vs quiet place), all shoved into a fixed and (relatively) small space. The result is you have to do trade-offs, just like normal engineering problems. From my understanding, it's easier to scale environments that are open-office. For a startup that's always have to contend with finding space for their ever-growing teams, I can see why executives may reach for an understood solution to that problem, even knowing the downsides. My guess is there's a necessary iteration to work environments in the future, since I don't think open offices truly optimize for knowledge workers. Presumably knowledge-based companies (e.g., tech) will eventually start thinking about how to optimize their internal efficiency as a lever to growth in addition to their product development.
- scarface74 7y agoFrom my understanding, it's easier to scale environments that are open-office. For a startup that's always have to contend with finding space for their ever-growing teams, I’m sure there is plenty of space if they let everyone work from home or come in on an ad gov basis.
- SkyPuncher 7y agoI know this is an odd opinion, but I actually like open offices. It's akin to working in a coffee shop or public space. I listen to music 90%+ time I'm working. I'm either using in-ear or closed-back headphones, so background noise isn't an issue. Having people milling around feels nice to me.
- kerkeslager 7y agoThat's not odd at all! It's entirely predictable that people have different work styles--some will thrive in an open office, and some will thrive in private spaces.
- tombert 7y agoThese kinds of articles surface every couple of months, and when they do I always leave a comment about how much I hate the open office design. I have trouble focusing with people talking around me (like most people), and I have trouble focusing on coding when I'm listening to music. I don't have an office, so how am I supposed to get stuff done exactly? I could work from my basement office at home, and I do sometimes, but at that point, wouldn't it be better to have just given me a proper office (or at least cubicle) so that I'm actually in the building if people need me?
- rootusrootus 7y agoOf all the places I have worked over the years, my preferred office layout so far is conference rooms. That is, each team has their own room. Open within, closed to noise from other teams. Depending on how well you get along with your teammates, you can turn on some music, decorate however you like, etc. Of course it won't work for everyone, or for every type of job, but as a developer it is the arrangement that I enjoyed the most. And anecdotally, my coworkers also seemed to prefer it to either open space or cubicles.
- bityard 7y agoThis is the arrangement at the place I've been working at for the last 9 years and I have to say, I prefer it to everything else. Our team is all in the same room so useful impromptu conversations happen semi-regularly. We don't have to reserve a conference room for daily stand-up. Asking questions (e.g. useful interruptions) is encouraged. If you want to be in the Zone for a few hours with no interruptions, there are places in the building where no one will bother you, or you can work from home that day. Certainly, it's not for every kind of personality. But that's why companies evaluate for cultural fit as well. If you can't stand being interrupted ever for any reason, you're probably better off with a remote gig working from home. It doesn't work for extroverts who are compelled to strike up conversations regularly or who can't think without also talking because these things interrupt the whole team.
- Zelphyr 7y agoI've worked in a situation like that and felt productive but that was only because we were all basically on a tiger team locked in a room together to work on the same project. Me and one other developer, a tech writer, a QA person, and a PM. In the end we were successful and it was a successful product for the company. Compare that with being thrown in an office with long rows of desks working with everyone in the company. That's not productive. That's a din of noise and people either interrupting your flow or interrupting the flow of the people immediately next to you, thus interrupting your flow. That, for lack of a better term, is a sweat shop.
- chasely 7y agoMy preference is the ones I have experienced in national labs. Probably too many meetings, but when you are done with your meetings you get to go to a dedicated office where you can close the door and get your "deep work" done. This is counter to my experience in a _dedicated_ WeWork office. Have a neighbor that takes calls throughout the day, you'll need to wear headphones because it's basically being in an open office. Have an office on a busy corridor? Get ready for people walking and talking past you all day. The sound design at WeWork is pretty awful, to the point it is non-existent. I made a complaint at one point before moving offices because the music was too loud during nights and weekends in the lobby. I was told they would see what they could do but that the CEO [Neumann] preferred there to be loud music in the lobby.
- kerkeslager 7y agoThe best office layout is the office layout that fits the needs of the people working in it. Open offices aren't a dead end. I work really well in open offices. I can barely get any work done in a private office by myself. Yet there are many people who work well in private offices, and would be as non-productive in an open office as I am in a private office. It's obvious that people have different work styles. The problem here isn't open offices OR private offices, it's people who look only at their own work style and then extrapolate that out to the entire rest of humanity. The solution is to let people self-select the office situation that works for them. Ideally companies have a mix of open and private spaces that allow people to work in a way that's best for them, including the option to work remotely, but that's not always possible. Sometimes that means that someone isn't a good fit for a team, and should be self-aware enough to self-select to not work on that team.
- AgloeDreams 7y agoThis is hilariously accurate and reasonable from my experiences. Being surrounded by hard working people tends to help some work better.
- marsrover 7y agoFor some reason everywhere I’ve ever worked the POs get offices and devs don’t. Why are we treated like sweat shop workers? Why don’t devs get their own offices? We are paid so much money but have to sit in open offices or cubes like call center workers.
- GoToRO 7y agoOpen office, very little productivity. Individual office,a lot of productivity. The employer chooses what it wants. I see open office as a request to slack off. I'm still using 100% of my mental energy, but not on productive stuff.
- arminiusreturns 7y agoAt one point in ~2009 I put together a business plan for a wework-esque office space company that was centered around each worker having their own most self-sustaining space, minus restrooms, but including sinks. I still like the idea, because the more I have worked in unicorns the more I have hated their push for open office spaces.
- RocketSyntax 7y agoyou're a dead end
- acd 7y agoThere is a Harvard study which says "Your Open-Plan Office Is Making Your Team Less Collaborative". Open office plans lead to more email less collaboration. So it is better to have traditional office setup with collaboration areas than open office spaces. link to study: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2017.0239 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...
- save_ferris 7y agoI used to think that noise was the worst distraction to deal with in an open office until I took a job where a coworker in our open office decided not to practice basic hygiene. The smell is just horrible. It’s far and away the most distracting thing I’ve ever experienced in my career. They dress up and put in effort to look nice in the office, but everyone instantly knows when they walk into a room. Honestly, I’m hesitant to go to HR about it in case it’s a religious/cultural thing, but I will never, ever complain about noise again in my career after this. Woof.
- asdf21 7y ago>Honestly, I’m hesitant to go to HR about it in case it’s a religious/cultural thing Oy vey.. do you know how absurd that sounds?
- teddyh 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patchouli#Perfume https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patchouli#Perfume
- scarface74 7y agoAfter I checked the legality, I went as far as not hiring someone who was a smoker and told my manager exactly why I wasn’t hiring him. I didn’t want to be around the smell.
- utf985 7y agoI get a bit bewildered every time I see someone complaining about open offices as it always begs the question - what kind of alternative do they demand exactly? I have addressed this on many threads and comments but somehow I never gen an answer. Only thing I can think of are cubicles but to me they seem a lot worse than the open office and they're definitely not a thing here in Europe. Out of all the companies and interviews I've been to and people in the industry that I know, I have yet to see a cubicle outside of a hollywood movie. The other thing I suppose is where literally every employee gets their own office. But is that really a thing? Because I've never heard of something like that.
- ping_pong 7y ago> The other thing I suppose is where literally every employee gets their own office. But is that really a thing? Because I've never heard of something like that. This used to be the case. Companies like Microsoft gave everyone their own office (I'm not sure what the current policy is, I would assume they kept it the same). I for one hate cubicles the most. They have none of the privacy but also none of the social collaboration, you can't lean over and talk to your coworker.
- erik_seaberg 7y agoAn entry-level job gave me an office in 1992. Microsoft gave me half an office in 2005. Nobody else. > lean over and talk to your coworker There are no quick questions when you were concentrating. If we need to talk about the project, first we should step away from the desks, because everyone else is still trying to code.
- ping_pong 7y agoThat's your perspective, and that's fine. From my perspective and the way my team works, we lean over and chat. It doesn't bother our team because this is how we have been working. Your mileage may vary and that's perfectly reasonable to feel differently.
- reroute1 7y ago
- CuriouslyC 7y agoI refuse to work in an open office unless you're paying me to bother, er, "collaborate" with my coworkers. Want me to put my head down and focus? Give me an office.
- rdlecler1 7y agoI think they’d be more productive if they just left a basket of earplugs at the front. I use them and don’t have a problem in open office space—-and this coming from someone with ADD.
- ping_pong 7y agoI've worked in every type of office in Silicon Valley: private office, shared office, cubicle, cubicle with low walls, and open office. My favorite is open office. It's a different way to work, but I do find it more social and more collaborative. I don't get distracted that easily and I recover easily if someone asks me a question so for me it works fine. I can understand if others feel differently, but for me, open office is definitely my favorite.
- madenine 7y agoThe best office I ever worked in was an open office... with an open remote work policy. On any given day, only 15-30% of the office would be in; meaning while the office was "open", it was also usually empty and quiet. People came in when they had in-person meetings, and teams generally fell into a loose schedule to come in on the same days 1-2 times per week. I thought it provided a good balance; the company need to have a huge space to give people private offices etc, and it was quiet even if someone nearby was on a call.
- djhaskin987 7y agoAt my first job space was at a sort of premium, and we all worked at a bench with computers on it. But, there were walls that separated about 6-8 workers. I think this is a very nice happy medium. I can openly collaborate with my "pizza-sized" team, but there's enough separation from other teams that I have a modicum of privacy. That said, I quite appreciate my 6'x7' cube my current company has me in.
- osrec 7y agoAll you need is some guy to talk loudly on the phone next to you all day and you'll soon come to abhor open offices. Not to mention the scrutiny of others - keeping an eye on how you work, how much you work, when you arrive, when you leave, what you eat etc. It can really be quite horrible at times, especially if your office is quite politically charged. I run a small company in London, and we advertise our jobs with "closed" offices/remote as being a unique selling point! I think people prefer to work without being watched, and can really take ownership of their task without feeling conscious - they can get into that coveted state of "flow". As a manager, I also don't want to watch over my staff all day. I'm not their owner, I'm just their manager. My aim is to let them do what they're good at, and being comfortable enough to let them get on with things is the best way to keep them productive. And if someone isn't productive, it's obvious from their results. No open office/constant scrutiny required.
- stillworks 7y agoPossible to reveal the name of the company please ?
- redleader9345 7y agoPrivacy deprivation. It's cruel.
- samsolomon 7y agoProbably an unpopular opinion here, but I like open offices. It's nice being able to turn around and have quick meetings without wasting time looking for a room. It's also nice being able to scoot a chair over to work with a team member on a problem. As a general rule people don't interrupt others if they have headphones on. Maybe it's a problem for companies with product and engineering next to sales. Other than that I'm not entirely sure where all the hate comes from.
- shantly 7y agoThere's a difference between open team rooms and the kind of office where there's a whole floor of a building with nothing but structural obstructions from window to window. The former can be very nice, the latter is awful.
- loco5niner 7y ago> Maybe it's a problem for companies with product and engineering next to sales. Other than that I'm not entirely sure where all the hate comes from. Yep, that's the main problem for me.
- HashThis 7y agoCOMPETITION: A company should have some of each. Workers pick which they want. The problem is when open offices are crammed on workers. They should make half open offices, and half closed offices. Some places have rooms for 2 to 8 people to work in, which is a good alternative to open offices. See which workers select.
- puranjay 7y agoMaybe there are fields of work where being in an open space helps, but most of my work is best accomplished in complete isolation.
- abc_lisper 7y agoMuch as I hate open offices, I think Farhad overshot the premise. Open office culture didn't start with WeWork, neither will We's failure invalidate it.
- JohnFen 7y agoI've worked at three places that embraced the open office scheme. What I've learned from those experiences is that I do not operate well in those environments. So much so that I now know that if a company uses it, there's no point in exploring employment with them as right off the bat I know it's a poor fit for me.
- than0s 7y agoMore distractions have been introduced since open spaces had been “invented”. Simple as that.
- ijiiijji1 7y agoAs Felix Denis said, give people an office with a door. Also, keep meetings to a minimum.
- JaceLightning 7y agoI actually love open offices. Cubicles are too isolating.
- tibbydudeza 7y agoAnd thank the maker for noise cancelling headphones. I dunno how I would survive open plan office hell without it.