4 ms·

There are plenty of companies without open layouts, add remote workers to that and self selection is a big factor. Add to that the possibility that people aren'

There are plenty of companies without open layouts, add remote workers to that and self selection is a big factor. Add to that the possibility that people aren't comfortable complaining to someone who is very obviously pro open layout. Also every survey I can find says that employees don't want open office layouts by a large margin. There's clearly something else going on beyond autistic programmers complaining.

magduf 7y ago
I don't know why AmericanChopper keeps getting modded down; his points are absolutely valid. I'm not a fan of open offices either, but I've worked in a bunch of different places over the years, and he's right on many points. There aren't many places left that don't have open offices of some kind, and I have not met many people who complained about them. Usually, I'm the biggest complainer. I would take surveys with a grain of salt; of course complainers like me are going to be happy to voice their opinions in surveys like this, while other people probably don't bother taking the survey. I also find that my younger coworkers seem to really enjoy the open layouts. At my current workplace where I work in a closed lab, the complaint is about the lack of windows, not the noise or the lack of privacy. Some people will make comments about certain teams having meetings that are extremely loud, or about how quiet the lab is when those teams are in their meeting, so there does seem to be some desire for a little more quietness, but these same people have no trouble having a fairly noisy conversation while people are trying to work. In my view, Americans are just loud and extroverted in general, and this extends to the current workers in this field.
- learc83 7y ago
  >I don't know why AmericanChopper keeps getting modded down They're getting modded down because the argument is: people don't complain to me about open offices, therefore everyone is happy with open office layouts except people with autism. > There aren't many places left that don't have open offices of some kind Depends on what you mean by open office. Not many places have dedicated private offices for each developer, but cubicles, small team rooms, temporary private spaces etc... are very common. >I have not met many people who complained about them. Usually, I'm the biggest complainer. I would take surveys with a grain of salt; of course complainers like me are going to be happy to voice their opinions in surveys like this, while other people probably don't bother taking the survey. So take surveys with a grain of salt, but not anecdotal evidence? It's much more likely that you're suffering from selection and confirmation bias than it is that every survey I can find online is. We're not talking about online polls open to anyone, but randomized samples. Here's one where they hired an independent research agency that randomly sampled over 4k adults in the US. 66% of the office workers want a closed office layout. That's a huge margin--big enough to overcome any minor issues with the survey. And definitely stronger evidence than 2 people on hacker news saying that people don't complain to them. https://files.getroom.com/ROOM-2018-Open-Office-Woes-Report.pdf https://files.getroom.com/ROOM-2018-Open-Office-Woes-Report.... > In my view, Americans are just loud and extroverted in general, and this extends to the current workers in this field. You are definitely suffering from confirmation bias here. Also basically every study that has been done on open office layouts shows that it's detrimental to business and moral.

magduf 7y ago

I don't know why AmericanChopper keeps getting modded down; his points are absolutely valid. I'm not a fan of open offices either, but I've worked in a bunch of different places over the years, and he's right on many points. There aren't many places left that don't have open offices of some kind, and I have not met many people who complained about them. Usually, I'm the biggest complainer. I would take surveys with a grain of salt; of course complainers like me are going to be happy to voice their opinions in surveys like this, while other people probably don't bother taking the survey. I also find that my younger coworkers seem to really enjoy the open layouts. At my current workplace where I work in a closed lab, the complaint is about the lack of windows, not the noise or the lack of privacy. Some people will make comments about certain teams having meetings that are extremely loud, or about how quiet the lab is when those teams are in their meeting, so there does seem to be some desire for a little more quietness, but these same people have no trouble having a fairly noisy conversation while people are trying to work. In my view, Americans are just loud and extroverted in general, and this extends to the current workers in this field.

learc83 7y ago
>I don't know why AmericanChopper keeps getting modded down They're getting modded down because the argument is: people don't complain to me about open offices, therefore everyone is happy with open office layouts except people with autism. > There aren't many places left that don't have open offices of some kind Depends on what you mean by open office. Not many places have dedicated private offices for each developer, but cubicles, small team rooms, temporary private spaces etc... are very common. >I have not met many people who complained about them. Usually, I'm the biggest complainer. I would take surveys with a grain of salt; of course complainers like me are going to be happy to voice their opinions in surveys like this, while other people probably don't bother taking the survey. So take surveys with a grain of salt, but not anecdotal evidence? It's much more likely that you're suffering from selection and confirmation bias than it is that every survey I can find online is. We're not talking about online polls open to anyone, but randomized samples. Here's one where they hired an independent research agency that randomly sampled over 4k adults in the US. 66% of the office workers want a closed office layout. That's a huge margin--big enough to overcome any minor issues with the survey. And definitely stronger evidence than 2 people on hacker news saying that people don't complain to them. https://files.getroom.com/ROOM-2018-Open-Office-Woes-Report.pdf https://files.getroom.com/ROOM-2018-Open-Office-Woes-Report.... > In my view, Americans are just loud and extroverted in general, and this extends to the current workers in this field. You are definitely suffering from confirmation bias here. Also basically every study that has been done on open office layouts shows that it's detrimental to business and moral.