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I just want my own office. That's all. I'd be pretty okay with going in if I had my own office with 4 walls. First job of my career, they told me I would have

I just want my own office. That's all. I'd be pretty okay with going in if I had my own office with 4 walls. First job of my career, they told me I would have an office of my own. First day I come back do for full time (I had interned there too with my own office), they tell me they're switching buildings to go open office in about a month's time. I got a precious few weeks with a personal office, and then it was all gone. I hated this change of scenery mmediately, but I guess I got used to it after a few years. Working from home took me back to that zen. I didn't even know how much I missed it - how much I needed my own space to feel productive. I've since changed jobs, and I kinda dread having to go to the open office nightmare once this is all over. The facilities are way nicer than my last job, but it's still an open office. Open. Office. As. Implemented. In. Our. Industry. Is. Stupid.

IvanAchlaqullah 5y ago
Yes, working from home is much better than working at open office. However there is some scenario where middle manager can make WFH as hellish as working at open office: by mandating everyone to install invasive spyware so they can "manage" you remotely. Bonus point if the company didn't want to give/loan company devices, so you have to install it on your own personal devices.
- curiousigor 5y ago
  That's a huge red flag for me though. If you're employed (so not working as a freelancer for the company), the employer is supposed to provide the equipment you can work on. For them to expect usage of personal devices and then have a requirement of installing these kind of tools on it wouldn't be expectable to me.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > Bonus point if the company didn't want to give/loan company devices, so you have to install it on your own personal devices. Oh i would NEVER. That sounds horrible.
- pawelwentpawel 5y ago
  How common is having to install such spyware though? I hear stories about it but none of people that I know actually had to put up with it (or maybe they didn't know?). The closest I got to this situation was being told that if I want to do work on my personal laptop I'd have to install some software that would allow the IT department to wipe it out in case it gets stolen. While I understand the reason, it was an obvious nope from me.
- alfiedotwtf 5y ago
  That's a 2-weeks notice event
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  Eh. I use Linux at home, and the work stuff happily lives in a Windows VM; but installing work software on my personal mobile devices? too much liability, just no.
beardface 5y ago
I work remotely and rent an office in town. It's a 15 minute walk from my house, a decent size (~22m^2), all my own, and well set up. I love it and pay gladly but I it's not possible for everyone. I used to have a garden office but my wife now needs her own space for her work so I took the rented space. A dedicated space is a must if you're working remotely. Either at home or offsite. I have no objection to going into the office for well defined, productive meetings like project kick-offs though. I still believe they're the best way to collaborate on big planning tasks, even after having worked remotely for over 10 years.
- DrBazza 5y ago
  > I work remotely and rent an office in town. I live in a semi-rural commuter town outside London, and I've noticed on one of the few office-industrial estates around the town there's a new building which currently has the logo of one of those co-working companies. This isn't something I've ever seen outside of London (WeWork being the obvious one). I'm curious to see if that style of working catches on post-COVID.
- specproc 5y ago
  Yeah, I live somewhere that's very cheap indeed by the standards of most people reading this thread. I spend about USD 150 a month on a small office and it's brilliant. Get all the benefits of office space (i.e., time out of the house, different mental space) with none of the downsides. I've got a couple of spare desks, so if I'm working on something with other people, or just wanna have friends hang out and work it's all doable.
mikro2nd 5y ago
Indeed, this is backed by Real Data! Back in the 1970s or thereabouts, IBM did a study where they put one group in an open office and another in individual offices and quantified the productivity difference. The "individual office" group was (iirc) something like 15% more productive. All from memory, so I may have misremembered bits... As I recall it, they actually built purpose-designed buildings for the study, such was IBM's cashflow, power and arrogance back then.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Perhaps companies that require physical offices could try to offer a compromise incentive: personal offices or actual cubicles instead of open office layouts. At least that would solve many of the pain points of physically working in tech. Maybe personal offices are too expensive, but how much does it cost to set up cubes?
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  Flexibility is key, IMO. A cube/personal office might be desired, but it doesn't solve the time & cost problems associated with travelling into an office. And there will be some like me who prefer an open office environment to an enclosed space.
- cebert 5y ago
  The biggest contributor to me loathing returning to the office every day is the open office floor concept. It’s a distracting environment for software engineers who need to focus when doing their work. As I’ve become more senior, it’s become even worse because I feel like I have a constant flow of individuals standing behind me to ask questions. It’s very difficult to get an hour or two of uninterrupted time every day.
bariswheel 5y ago
An open office is cheaper to manage for the company. It's all about the bottom line. That's most likely the biggest reason it exists.
- MrDresden 5y ago
  True, but less office space is cheaper than even that. My employer is looking into allowing 3-4 days remote each week going forward and is then expecting they can downsize their offices to save money. Would 100% remote be better? For some. For others who don't have the means to work at home, they need the office. The open office environment is completely detrimental to good deep work though.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  It's only cheaper if you leave out the costs of degraded performance, higher turnover in personnel, and being less attractive as an employer. These are not easy to factor in, but the general gist of the last decade seems to be that the (unmitigated) open plan office has an impact on the bottom line. It's just hard to put a number on it, which you can do with concrete items such as floor space or the cost of adding a wall somewhere.
- beyondzero 5y ago
  Construction materials supplier here. That is not necessarily true. There are two major drivers for open office plans: 1) The notion in architecture that open plans, by literally removing barriers, figuratively remove them and create a more open and inclusive office environment. This is a popular belief in the biggest architectural firms in the world, even though the principals at those firms all have luxurious private offices. 2) Recently some offices have flipped to open plans to accommodate hybrid working. E.g. allowing employees to WFH 2-3 days / week but then expecting them to hot-desk when they come in. This reduces the total footprint required, which can reduce costs...except many firms are using the saved funds to enhance the office in other ways (more natural light, better furniture, plants and fountains, catering, etc.) in order to attract talent. Gensler has published a lot of this research and positioning publicly in reports and in their podcasts.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
zmmmmm 5y ago
100% My organisation just opted into open area hot desks instead of offices. One day in there and interrutped about 5 times in 30 minutes by people who otherwise would have pinged me on slack and allowed me to reply in a manner more respectful of my workload. They see this as a big advantage of the open area "instead of making meetings you can just go over and quickly chat to someone!" When you think about what software people do when they are most productive it is almost a deep trance-like state, I would compare it to meditation. Imagine proposing that people go and do their meditation out in the corridor where everybody is walking past and talking to each other, getting coffee and randomly interrupting you. It's insane anybody ever thought it was a good idea. Unfortunately closed offices are a huge status symbol now and asking for one is akin to declaring you think you're more important than everyone else in the office.
thevagrant 5y ago
1. An office with four walls, a door that can be closed is helpful but as a _minimum_ I'd also want: 2. Pristine bathrooms 3. Clean kitchen and good supply of tea/coffee (with ample space for those to store or prepare their food hygenically). The amount of places I've worked that can't provide 2 and 3 is saddening. Nothing worse than being stuck in a dirty smelly place, hanging around to get points for presenteeism. No I'm gonna get on a rant. Why is it that my home network is superior to the crappy wifi at the office? Why with my limited salary can I setup a better desk with much better screens / computing equipment than my employer provides?
- ElectricMind 5y ago
  //Pristine bathrooms// Thanks for pointing this out. I thought I was alone thinking this. I mean it tells lot about company right : how they keep toilet/bathroom ..
- chii 5y ago
  > I'd also want: ... a home provides all of those. So basically, you want to work from home!
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    I can't comment on your own home or that of GP commenter, but in my home the cleaning and supplies services seem to take 7 days off per week, so I keep having to deal with cleaning the bathroom and stocking up on tea and coffee myself. At the office these tasks are taken care of, and when I get home the state of it and its supplies are no worse than they were when I left in the morning.
- conductr 5y ago
  I once worked at a place with pristine bathrooms. Awesome in theory except any time nature called I ran into a “closed for cleaning” sign as they were deep cleaned 3-4 times a day. I always wanted to work with the janitorial staff to improve their timing and “system” as I don’t think they even realized sometimes they had all men’s rooms closed at the same time for significant amount of times. But I couldn’t bring myself to interject. Anyways I have an appreciation for availability these days. My office butts to toilet ratio is very high and I’m occasionally in a jam. I really wish people in the men’s room would only use the toilet to sit down. The seat should certainly rise without the weight of a butt on it, it’s the only time it belongs down despite what the women in all our lives have conditioned us to believe.
apple4ever 5y ago
This. I actually do enjoy being in the office. I would much rather the hours be a little better - like 6 hours not 8 to take into account the commute. But being in an open office and not in my own person office is painful. So many distractions. I had my own office (as a manager) for 2 years, and it was bloody glorious. After I switched jobs and still was a team lead / manager, I no longer did due to those companies cultures and it was so much worse.

IvanAchlaqullah 5y ago

Yes, working from home is much better than working at open office. However there is some scenario where middle manager can make WFH as hellish as working at open office: by mandating everyone to install invasive spyware so they can "manage" you remotely. Bonus point if the company didn't want to give/loan company devices, so you have to install it on your own personal devices.

curiousigor 5y ago
That's a huge red flag for me though. If you're employed (so not working as a freelancer for the company), the employer is supposed to provide the equipment you can work on. For them to expect usage of personal devices and then have a requirement of installing these kind of tools on it wouldn't be expectable to me.
vineyardmike 5y ago
> Bonus point if the company didn't want to give/loan company devices, so you have to install it on your own personal devices. Oh i would NEVER. That sounds horrible.
pawelwentpawel 5y ago
How common is having to install such spyware though? I hear stories about it but none of people that I know actually had to put up with it (or maybe they didn't know?). The closest I got to this situation was being told that if I want to do work on my personal laptop I'd have to install some software that would allow the IT department to wipe it out in case it gets stolen. While I understand the reason, it was an obvious nope from me.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
That's a 2-weeks notice event
ASalazarMX 5y ago
Eh. I use Linux at home, and the work stuff happily lives in a Windows VM; but installing work software on my personal mobile devices? too much liability, just no.

beardface 5y ago

I work remotely and rent an office in town. It's a 15 minute walk from my house, a decent size (~22m^2), all my own, and well set up. I love it and pay gladly but I it's not possible for everyone. I used to have a garden office but my wife now needs her own space for her work so I took the rented space. A dedicated space is a must if you're working remotely. Either at home or offsite. I have no objection to going into the office for well defined, productive meetings like project kick-offs though. I still believe they're the best way to collaborate on big planning tasks, even after having worked remotely for over 10 years.

DrBazza 5y ago
> I work remotely and rent an office in town. I live in a semi-rural commuter town outside London, and I've noticed on one of the few office-industrial estates around the town there's a new building which currently has the logo of one of those co-working companies. This isn't something I've ever seen outside of London (WeWork being the obvious one). I'm curious to see if that style of working catches on post-COVID.
specproc 5y ago
Yeah, I live somewhere that's very cheap indeed by the standards of most people reading this thread. I spend about USD 150 a month on a small office and it's brilliant. Get all the benefits of office space (i.e., time out of the house, different mental space) with none of the downsides. I've got a couple of spare desks, so if I'm working on something with other people, or just wanna have friends hang out and work it's all doable.

mikro2nd 5y ago

Indeed, this is backed by Real Data! Back in the 1970s or thereabouts, IBM did a study where they put one group in an open office and another in individual offices and quantified the productivity difference. The "individual office" group was (iirc) something like 15% more productive. All from memory, so I may have misremembered bits... As I recall it, they actually built purpose-designed buildings for the study, such was IBM's cashflow, power and arrogance back then.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Perhaps companies that require physical offices could try to offer a compromise incentive: personal offices or actual cubicles instead of open office layouts. At least that would solve many of the pain points of physically working in tech. Maybe personal offices are too expensive, but how much does it cost to set up cubes?

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
Flexibility is key, IMO. A cube/personal office might be desired, but it doesn't solve the time & cost problems associated with travelling into an office. And there will be some like me who prefer an open office environment to an enclosed space.
cebert 5y ago
The biggest contributor to me loathing returning to the office every day is the open office floor concept. It’s a distracting environment for software engineers who need to focus when doing their work. As I’ve become more senior, it’s become even worse because I feel like I have a constant flow of individuals standing behind me to ask questions. It’s very difficult to get an hour or two of uninterrupted time every day.

bariswheel 5y ago

An open office is cheaper to manage for the company. It's all about the bottom line. That's most likely the biggest reason it exists.

MrDresden 5y ago
True, but less office space is cheaper than even that. My employer is looking into allowing 3-4 days remote each week going forward and is then expecting they can downsize their offices to save money. Would 100% remote be better? For some. For others who don't have the means to work at home, they need the office. The open office environment is completely detrimental to good deep work though.
Freak_NL 5y ago
It's only cheaper if you leave out the costs of degraded performance, higher turnover in personnel, and being less attractive as an employer. These are not easy to factor in, but the general gist of the last decade seems to be that the (unmitigated) open plan office has an impact on the bottom line. It's just hard to put a number on it, which you can do with concrete items such as floor space or the cost of adding a wall somewhere.
beyondzero 5y ago
Construction materials supplier here. That is not necessarily true. There are two major drivers for open office plans: 1) The notion in architecture that open plans, by literally removing barriers, figuratively remove them and create a more open and inclusive office environment. This is a popular belief in the biggest architectural firms in the world, even though the principals at those firms all have luxurious private offices. 2) Recently some offices have flipped to open plans to accommodate hybrid working. E.g. allowing employees to WFH 2-3 days / week but then expecting them to hot-desk when they come in. This reduces the total footprint required, which can reduce costs...except many firms are using the saved funds to enhance the office in other ways (more natural light, better furniture, plants and fountains, catering, etc.) in order to attract talent. Gensler has published a lot of this research and positioning publicly in reports and in their podcasts.
ASalazarMX 5y ago

zmmmmm 5y ago

100% My organisation just opted into open area hot desks instead of offices. One day in there and interrutped about 5 times in 30 minutes by people who otherwise would have pinged me on slack and allowed me to reply in a manner more respectful of my workload. They see this as a big advantage of the open area "instead of making meetings you can just go over and quickly chat to someone!" When you think about what software people do when they are most productive it is almost a deep trance-like state, I would compare it to meditation. Imagine proposing that people go and do their meditation out in the corridor where everybody is walking past and talking to each other, getting coffee and randomly interrupting you. It's insane anybody ever thought it was a good idea. Unfortunately closed offices are a huge status symbol now and asking for one is akin to declaring you think you're more important than everyone else in the office.

thevagrant 5y ago

1. An office with four walls, a door that can be closed is helpful but as a _minimum_ I'd also want: 2. Pristine bathrooms 3. Clean kitchen and good supply of tea/coffee (with ample space for those to store or prepare their food hygenically). The amount of places I've worked that can't provide 2 and 3 is saddening. Nothing worse than being stuck in a dirty smelly place, hanging around to get points for presenteeism. No I'm gonna get on a rant. Why is it that my home network is superior to the crappy wifi at the office? Why with my limited salary can I setup a better desk with much better screens / computing equipment than my employer provides?

ElectricMind 5y ago
//Pristine bathrooms// Thanks for pointing this out. I thought I was alone thinking this. I mean it tells lot about company right : how they keep toilet/bathroom ..
chii 5y ago
> I'd also want: ... a home provides all of those. So basically, you want to work from home!
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  I can't comment on your own home or that of GP commenter, but in my home the cleaning and supplies services seem to take 7 days off per week, so I keep having to deal with cleaning the bathroom and stocking up on tea and coffee myself. At the office these tasks are taken care of, and when I get home the state of it and its supplies are no worse than they were when I left in the morning.
conductr 5y ago
I once worked at a place with pristine bathrooms. Awesome in theory except any time nature called I ran into a “closed for cleaning” sign as they were deep cleaned 3-4 times a day. I always wanted to work with the janitorial staff to improve their timing and “system” as I don’t think they even realized sometimes they had all men’s rooms closed at the same time for significant amount of times. But I couldn’t bring myself to interject. Anyways I have an appreciation for availability these days. My office butts to toilet ratio is very high and I’m occasionally in a jam. I really wish people in the men’s room would only use the toilet to sit down. The seat should certainly rise without the weight of a butt on it, it’s the only time it belongs down despite what the women in all our lives have conditioned us to believe.

apple4ever 5y ago

This. I actually do enjoy being in the office. I would much rather the hours be a little better - like 6 hours not 8 to take into account the commute. But being in an open office and not in my own person office is painful. So many distractions. I had my own office (as a manager) for 2 years, and it was bloody glorious. After I switched jobs and still was a team lead / manager, I no longer did due to those companies cultures and it was so much worse.