4 ms·

I only prefer working remotely as an alternative to an office with open-air seating. Give me an office with a window and a door, and I would quite willingly wor

I only prefer working remotely as an alternative to an office with open-air seating. Give me an office with a window and a door, and I would quite willingly work from an office. My employer has, for over a decade, refused to build anything but open-air seating. So everything thinks I prefer to work remotely, because their own feelings taint their perceptions of my actions, but they don't ask my actual motivations and take for granted that I support their views. Please take care not to frame everyone who prefers working from an office as people who would "impose" their views on others. I work from home rather than impose my views on others, but your argument makes a very good point. I should probably step up and begin pressuring for better office design, since that would remove a crutch that the remote-work movement is unaware it's being propped up by. Yes, some will still prefer to work remotely, but I've done offices, and I've done remote, and it's clear there are pros and cons to each that vary per project and per team. It's time for office design to be given due credit for how it drives people into remote work, so that we can stop confusing a desire for a healthy working environment with a desire to work from our homes.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago
I'm reminded of an old bit by Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow, where he outlines — in extreme detail — his designs for the old Fog Creek offices. It's very clear that he put more thought into these designs than the work that most interior architects I've encountered have bothered to perform. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-in-private-offices/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i... (remarkable that cubicles used to be our idea of office hell, and now just seem like an unimaginable amount of personal space)
- shagie 5y ago
  If you ever hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Mary Silverstein (the book that inspired Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) it is an interesting read. Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office. For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=PA690&dq=a+pattern+language+146&source=bl&ots=S8pGqy6mbW&sig=ACfU3U3K1850NIpiyZXdh0rTlqcDdyBbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJh7i_y6z0AhUOH80KHS0HCYoQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=a%20pattern%20language%20146&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=... It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.
jnwatson 5y ago
In my 23 year career, I’ve gone from having my own office room, to office room with a nice view, to shared with 1 other person, to a cubicle, then a bullpen. We’re not going in the right direction. If I wasn’t working remote, I’d have a worse office environment than when I was a 16-year-old kid doing IT for a mom-and-pop.
- my_usernam3 5y ago
  I actually did that in a matter of 4 years. Was rather incredible in hindsight. First part time internship had an office with a door and my freaking name on the front. Second internship had a nice private high walled cubicle. That internship turned into a full time job, and they moved us into a large 4 person area's where each screen faced a different direction, and the walls weren't as high. Finally after two years they moved us into the open office, all next to each-other, and gave us the shittiest beats headphones $100 could buy. Audio quality aside, they squeezed the head into a migraine. Comically bad.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago

I'm reminded of an old bit by Joel Spolsky of Stack Overflow, where he outlines — in extreme detail — his designs for the old Fog Creek offices. It's very clear that he put more thought into these designs than the work that most interior architects I've encountered have bothered to perform. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-in-private-offices/ https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i... (remarkable that cubicles used to be our idea of office hell, and now just seem like an unimaginable amount of personal space)

shagie 5y ago
If you ever hunt up a copy of A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Mary Silverstein (the book that inspired Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software) it is an interesting read. Patterns 146, 151, and 152 get into the design of the office. For example, 146 - Flexible Office - https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=PA690&dq=a+pattern+language+146&source=bl&ots=S8pGqy6mbW&sig=ACfU3U3K1850NIpiyZXdh0rTlqcDdyBbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJh7i_y6z0AhUOH80KHS0HCYoQ6AF6BAgVEAM#v=onepage&q=a%20pattern%20language%20146&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=FTpxDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA690&lpg=... It is a fascinating book to read (and you don't need to consume it all at once). There are things in there that helped me understand why my house (it had its stairs reversed in the 1920s) has a flow to it that leads to certain rooms getting less use than they were designed for - the staircase from the 2nd floor living space now goes to the back door (rather than the center of the house) which means 2nd floor to garage is an easy transition while 2nd floor to front door is a harder one. That in turn makes it more natural (for this design of the house) to go out the garage door and along the sidewalk past light commercial when going down town than out the front door and past neighbors through the residential roads.

jnwatson 5y ago

In my 23 year career, I’ve gone from having my own office room, to office room with a nice view, to shared with 1 other person, to a cubicle, then a bullpen. We’re not going in the right direction. If I wasn’t working remote, I’d have a worse office environment than when I was a 16-year-old kid doing IT for a mom-and-pop.

my_usernam3 5y ago
I actually did that in a matter of 4 years. Was rather incredible in hindsight. First part time internship had an office with a door and my freaking name on the front. Second internship had a nice private high walled cubicle. That internship turned into a full time job, and they moved us into a large 4 person area's where each screen faced a different direction, and the walls weren't as high. Finally after two years they moved us into the open office, all next to each-other, and gave us the shittiest beats headphones $100 could buy. Audio quality aside, they squeezed the head into a migraine. Comically bad.