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I actually like going to the office, compared to working from home (good for putting a clear divide between work and home, and it means I don't have to squeeze
by ardy42 6y ago
I actually like going to the office, compared to working from home (good for putting a clear divide between work and home, and it means I don't have to squeeze two home offices in my living space). I just hope COVID-19 spells the end of open offices, at least for a a decade or two. Besides the increased disease transmission (which exists for colds, flu, and covid), I don't like how noisy and visually distracting the spaces are. They're really not conductive to focused work like software development [1].
With social distancing, there's literally no reason to not surround employee workspaces with tall cube walls, besides a desire to replace personal privacy with distraction.
[1] For a good discussion of this, see Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams.
- jcadam 6y ago> I just hope COVID-19 spells the end of open offices Open offices are cheap. Re-configuring office space isn't cheap. So, no. Some places are probably still hot-desking.
- ardy42 6y ago> Open offices are cheap. Re-configuring office space isn't cheap. So, no. I think that's pre-covid thinking. The OP speaks about 1) companies dropping their office footprints due to increased WFH and 2) companies reducing office density and making other changes to accommodate social distancing. Both of those require office reconfiguration. We'll be dealing with this pandemic for at least another year, and the psychological effects will last longer, so monomaniacal bottom-line focused thinking will have to accommodate it.