8 ms·

>There's enough background noise in the open office that I keep headphones on most of the time while I'm at my desk. I still don't get how we as a species went

>There's enough background noise in the open office that I keep headphones on most of the time while I'm at my desk. I still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. I'll buy the "being close together works better" argument, but I still can't grasp how that offsets all the distractions in the modern office.

the_only_law 4y ago
I used to keep the clip as a joke, because I was constantly going into the office early so I could get some work done before the constant chatter. https://youtube.com/shorts/4whlr2dVDws?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/4whlr2dVDws?feature=share
- colpabar 4y ago
  I really wish stuff like this was illegal. It's so disgusting to wait at someone's house just to harass them every single day, celebrity or not.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  I did the same and I barely function before the sun is up. Got a solid 1-2 hours in doing way better work than the hours spent not half asleep but with the noise. Was able to do it the other way around a few times and found my late hours were even better, but managers were a little eager to apprehend me for coming in "late".
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    Yes I might think about finding a job on the other end of the country, that would allow me a sleep schedule that feels less forced.
Ataraxic 4y ago
I feel like the unicorn where I both enjoyed my colleagues in the office and had a lot of fun. Was it _more_ productive? Hard to say but I could easily put on my headphones and work. The lack of visual privacy I realize but I would never say it hindered my work. Then again nobody was on me if I went on reddit for a bit because the tests are running. I think a bunch of people on hacker news are discounting how much more you can learn in an office with helpful colleagues. When I was a new developer I absorbed so much information in the office just from being able to ask people questions in person. Just from people overhearing a conversation I was having and saying "I think you probably want to do it like X instead" and explaining! In my opinion many people are discounting the development of newer engineers. I'm sure it can happen remotely but remote work requires more intentional coordination and that's one area that I doubt it's happening more effectively than in an office (on the whole). I'm not saying in person meetings are awesome but comparatively, interacting with other people is easier and more enjoyable as opposed to having the same meeting digitally.
- urthor 4y ago
  I agree, but it depends on a few factors. A hot desking setup where you can't sit next to your colleagues like OP described is a total waste of time.
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  I'm with you. I was at least as productive, and much happier. I never had audiovisual privacy, and it never bothered me. If I really needed to do something in private I could go to an empty meeting room or booth, or even just find a secluded couch spot or something. I was also able to learn a lot more from my peers and to build work type relationships much more efficiently, many of which have paid dividends over the course of my career. I can also clearly see that the junior engineers at my company are developing much slower than they did when we were in office. I'm pretty sure that can be rectified with better process, but I think it's really significant that being remote makes those sorts of things much harder, and when things are hard orgs will often get them badly wrong.
- MrStonedOne 4y ago
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  If individuals can function under these circumstances or even like it, cool, fine, great. I just don't think it should be assumed everyone functions under these circumstances, or that someone who doesn't is dysfunctional, as pre-COVID almost made it seem. Managers seemed all to eager to discount anyone as "not a viable programmer" the moment they balked at the sound of an open office. >I think a bunch of people on hacker news are discounting how much more you can learn in an office with helpful colleagues It's tradeoffs, which I alluded to. It's not "you're forgetting X", it's more "are you really, really sure trading X against Y is the better deal here?" I'm young enough to have started in open offices, it was okay in the first few weeks and afterwards I started wondering whether being open to literally any passerby was worth the upgrade from IM to physical presence. The moment I heard open offices reduced personal interaction compared to cubicles was the moment I casted doubt on anything regarding open offices and their efficacy.
silicon2401 4y ago
I agree entirely. As a relatively misanthropic person, this was one of the many reasons why working in the office was miserable for me, and why the covid era has been the best time of my entire life. Moving forward I will exclusively consider remote positions, and I think other people should consider the benefits of doing so too.
RestlessMind 4y ago
Because "we as a species" evolved to work in groups. Humans are not loners. We eat, work, recreate and live in groups. To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. Only in the last few decades, and only a minority of Human population in that period, has there been so much emphasis on "privacy".
- Johnny555 4y ago
  To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. My company shipped several ground breaking projects during COVID enforced WFH where there was not even the possibility of getting together in person. And now as we've grown we've added teams all over the globe (3 offices in the USA, one in Canada, 2 in Europe and one coming online soon in Australia), so collaboration on a complex project means communicating with teams that are asleep during your working hours.
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    During COVID, we relied on the existing relationships and the shared context to get things done. In fact, it was a once in a century event and was easy to rally troops, the same way it is easy to unify a society when there is a war. Now that most of the team is churned, I am observing a steep drop in productivity. New members have neither any shared context nor any meaningful bonds between them. If I were to bet, I would put my money on in-person teams easily outperforming fully-remote teams. Looking forward to see some data in the next few years.
    - shawnb576 4y ago
      This is exactly right. At the start of the pandemic, my company (a large well known Bay-Area tech company) saw improvements in our developer productivity metrics. Over 2020, they faded. I'm at a new company now, we have done a lot of hiring, seen a lot of churn, and it is really hard to get "think big" projects running.
- skirmish 4y ago
vel0city 4y ago
> I still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. Throughout history a huge chunk of us as a species did not have audiovisual privacy at work, and a massive percentage of the jobs throughout history never had it and still don't. Its immensely rare for us as a species to have full audiovisual privacy at our workplace, and has been for a long, long time. Do teachers have audiovisual privacy for the majority of their workday? Chefs? Construction jobs? Factory workers? Retail workers? Even back in the day tons of white collar jobs had large spaces with open desks for "computers" (the people, not the machines) or typists or drafters. Do these scenes of design spaces and other offices seem like quiet places with private offices for each worker? https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/02/98/cb02981dccefb68f67cd9adf8402905a.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/02/98/cb02981dccefb68f67cd... https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/d5/b9/99d5b92533e332fbaa5c66e04d25a5e8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/d5/b9/99d5b92533e332fbaa5c... https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8d/c1/45/8dc145b0a90fb4509238aa145e3ec964--vintage-office-office-office.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8d/c1/45/8dc145b0a90fb4509238aa145... https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/17/07/3017075666fb55b875bc4fcd759f3444.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/17/07/3017075666fb55b875bc... https://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/UWA_Dexter_Horton_National_Bank_c._1920_SEA_1048_OM.JPG https://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/UWA_Dexter_Horton_Nat... And those are just of "white collar" office workers. Do these look like private spaces? https://www.tshaonline.org/images/handbook/entries/TT/textile_mill_scene.jpg https://www.tshaonline.org/images/handbook/entries/TT/textil... https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc5MDg2NDM0NzU1OTEz/printing-press-2.jpg https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc5MDg2NDM0NzU1O...
- skirmish 4y ago
  Sure, doing repetitive thoughtless work is more fun with other people milling around. But when you are at your cognitive limit trying to consider various ways this code could be failing, conversations about weekend plans are immensely distracting and rage inducing.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    I'm mostly going against the extreme hyperbole of "we as a species" as if software developers in private offices are a species on to themselves. The percentage of humanity who did not have a private office for their main workspace vastly outnumbers those who did, and its been this way since probably the beginning of civilization. Its absurd to suggest that "open offices" are some recent fad from the 90s or even 80s...offices have had open spaces with multiple people in them since we've had workplaces! And even then, many of those offices had highly skilled people working on difficult engineering problems, and they often didn't have private offices either. Plus, its not like non-repetitive thought-engaging work is only done in offices, tons of challenging work is also done in the field or in labs or elsewhere. Are brickmakers and steelworkers and mechanics and factory workers and lab techs and pharmacists a different species because they never gave up the loss of audiovisual privacy at their workplace? No. Its an absurd and vastly insulting statement BlargMcLarg was making.
rhino369 4y ago
Cubicals were much better but they were "lame" and "soulless."
- zer0-c00l 4y ago
  agreed. My favorite office environment was a cube farm, and I’d argue that it was less “soulless” than the myriad open offices I’ve worked at since because people actually personalized their spaces.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    I hated cubicle offices back in the days when I had one -- and we had the nice high cubes that you couldn't easily see over. It didn't offer much auditory privacy (I could easily hear coworker's calls), and limited real privacy since it had no door and anyone could stand on their toes and peer over the top. But at least I had my own personal space, I could pin photos to the wall and make it my own. Now when I go to the office, I sit in a row of 6 desks, with nothing blocking me from the person in front of me but a monitor, I long for the days of cubicles
guenthert 4y ago
> I'll buy the "being close together works better" argument No, it's some real estate agents convincing spineless C-level execs that they need a new office because Facebook did it. Having a small team, say less than 8 in the same sufficiently large room may work great, assuming that synergy translates to 30+ people who neither know nor care for each other is beyond daft.

the_only_law 4y ago

I used to keep the clip as a joke, because I was constantly going into the office early so I could get some work done before the constant chatter. https://youtube.com/shorts/4whlr2dVDws?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/4whlr2dVDws?feature=share

colpabar 4y ago
I really wish stuff like this was illegal. It's so disgusting to wait at someone's house just to harass them every single day, celebrity or not.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
I did the same and I barely function before the sun is up. Got a solid 1-2 hours in doing way better work than the hours spent not half asleep but with the noise. Was able to do it the other way around a few times and found my late hours were even better, but managers were a little eager to apprehend me for coming in "late".
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Yes I might think about finding a job on the other end of the country, that would allow me a sleep schedule that feels less forced.

Ataraxic 4y ago

I feel like the unicorn where I both enjoyed my colleagues in the office and had a lot of fun. Was it _more_ productive? Hard to say but I could easily put on my headphones and work. The lack of visual privacy I realize but I would never say it hindered my work. Then again nobody was on me if I went on reddit for a bit because the tests are running. I think a bunch of people on hacker news are discounting how much more you can learn in an office with helpful colleagues. When I was a new developer I absorbed so much information in the office just from being able to ask people questions in person. Just from people overhearing a conversation I was having and saying "I think you probably want to do it like X instead" and explaining! In my opinion many people are discounting the development of newer engineers. I'm sure it can happen remotely but remote work requires more intentional coordination and that's one area that I doubt it's happening more effectively than in an office (on the whole). I'm not saying in person meetings are awesome but comparatively, interacting with other people is easier and more enjoyable as opposed to having the same meeting digitally.

urthor 4y ago
I agree, but it depends on a few factors. A hot desking setup where you can't sit next to your colleagues like OP described is a total waste of time.
tomtheelder 4y ago
I'm with you. I was at least as productive, and much happier. I never had audiovisual privacy, and it never bothered me. If I really needed to do something in private I could go to an empty meeting room or booth, or even just find a secluded couch spot or something. I was also able to learn a lot more from my peers and to build work type relationships much more efficiently, many of which have paid dividends over the course of my career. I can also clearly see that the junior engineers at my company are developing much slower than they did when we were in office. I'm pretty sure that can be rectified with better process, but I think it's really significant that being remote makes those sorts of things much harder, and when things are hard orgs will often get them badly wrong.
MrStonedOne 4y ago
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
If individuals can function under these circumstances or even like it, cool, fine, great. I just don't think it should be assumed everyone functions under these circumstances, or that someone who doesn't is dysfunctional, as pre-COVID almost made it seem. Managers seemed all to eager to discount anyone as "not a viable programmer" the moment they balked at the sound of an open office. >I think a bunch of people on hacker news are discounting how much more you can learn in an office with helpful colleagues It's tradeoffs, which I alluded to. It's not "you're forgetting X", it's more "are you really, really sure trading X against Y is the better deal here?" I'm young enough to have started in open offices, it was okay in the first few weeks and afterwards I started wondering whether being open to literally any passerby was worth the upgrade from IM to physical presence. The moment I heard open offices reduced personal interaction compared to cubicles was the moment I casted doubt on anything regarding open offices and their efficacy.

silicon2401 4y ago

I agree entirely. As a relatively misanthropic person, this was one of the many reasons why working in the office was miserable for me, and why the covid era has been the best time of my entire life. Moving forward I will exclusively consider remote positions, and I think other people should consider the benefits of doing so too.

RestlessMind 4y ago

Because "we as a species" evolved to work in groups. Humans are not loners. We eat, work, recreate and live in groups. To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. Only in the last few decades, and only a minority of Human population in that period, has there been so much emphasis on "privacy".

Johnny555 4y ago
To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. My company shipped several ground breaking projects during COVID enforced WFH where there was not even the possibility of getting together in person. And now as we've grown we've added teams all over the globe (3 offices in the USA, one in Canada, 2 in Europe and one coming online soon in Australia), so collaboration on a complex project means communicating with teams that are asleep during your working hours.
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  During COVID, we relied on the existing relationships and the shared context to get things done. In fact, it was a once in a century event and was easy to rally troops, the same way it is easy to unify a society when there is a war. Now that most of the team is churned, I am observing a steep drop in productivity. New members have neither any shared context nor any meaningful bonds between them. If I were to bet, I would put my money on in-person teams easily outperforming fully-remote teams. Looking forward to see some data in the next few years.
  - shawnb576 4y ago
    This is exactly right. At the start of the pandemic, my company (a large well known Bay-Area tech company) saw improvements in our developer productivity metrics. Over 2020, they faded. I'm at a new company now, we have done a lot of hiring, seen a lot of churn, and it is really hard to get "think big" projects running.
skirmish 4y ago

vel0city 4y ago

> I still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. Throughout history a huge chunk of us as a species did not have audiovisual privacy at work, and a massive percentage of the jobs throughout history never had it and still don't. Its immensely rare for us as a species to have full audiovisual privacy at our workplace, and has been for a long, long time. Do teachers have audiovisual privacy for the majority of their workday? Chefs? Construction jobs? Factory workers? Retail workers? Even back in the day tons of white collar jobs had large spaces with open desks for "computers" (the people, not the machines) or typists or drafters. Do these scenes of design spaces and other offices seem like quiet places with private offices for each worker? https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/02/98/cb02981dccefb68f67cd9adf8402905a.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/cb/02/98/cb02981dccefb68f67cd... https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/d5/b9/99d5b92533e332fbaa5c66e04d25a5e8.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/d5/b9/99d5b92533e332fbaa5c... https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8d/c1/45/8dc145b0a90fb4509238aa145e3ec964--vintage-office-office-office.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8d/c1/45/8dc145b0a90fb4509238aa145... https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/17/07/3017075666fb55b875bc4fcd759f3444.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/30/17/07/3017075666fb55b875bc... https://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/UWA_Dexter_Horton_National_Bank_c._1920_SEA_1048_OM.JPG https://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/UWA_Dexter_Horton_Nat... And those are just of "white collar" office workers. Do these look like private spaces? https://www.tshaonline.org/images/handbook/entries/TT/textile_mill_scene.jpg https://www.tshaonline.org/images/handbook/entries/TT/textil... https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc5MDg2NDM0NzU1OTEz/printing-press-2.jpg https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc5MDg2NDM0NzU1O...

skirmish 4y ago
Sure, doing repetitive thoughtless work is more fun with other people milling around. But when you are at your cognitive limit trying to consider various ways this code could be failing, conversations about weekend plans are immensely distracting and rage inducing.
- vel0city 4y ago
  I'm mostly going against the extreme hyperbole of "we as a species" as if software developers in private offices are a species on to themselves. The percentage of humanity who did not have a private office for their main workspace vastly outnumbers those who did, and its been this way since probably the beginning of civilization. Its absurd to suggest that "open offices" are some recent fad from the 90s or even 80s...offices have had open spaces with multiple people in them since we've had workplaces! And even then, many of those offices had highly skilled people working on difficult engineering problems, and they often didn't have private offices either. Plus, its not like non-repetitive thought-engaging work is only done in offices, tons of challenging work is also done in the field or in labs or elsewhere. Are brickmakers and steelworkers and mechanics and factory workers and lab techs and pharmacists a different species because they never gave up the loss of audiovisual privacy at their workplace? No. Its an absurd and vastly insulting statement BlargMcLarg was making.

rhino369 4y ago

Cubicals were much better but they were "lame" and "soulless."

zer0-c00l 4y ago
agreed. My favorite office environment was a cube farm, and I’d argue that it was less “soulless” than the myriad open offices I’ve worked at since because people actually personalized their spaces.
- Johnny555 4y ago
  I hated cubicle offices back in the days when I had one -- and we had the nice high cubes that you couldn't easily see over. It didn't offer much auditory privacy (I could easily hear coworker's calls), and limited real privacy since it had no door and anyone could stand on their toes and peer over the top. But at least I had my own personal space, I could pin photos to the wall and make it my own. Now when I go to the office, I sit in a row of 6 desks, with nothing blocking me from the person in front of me but a monitor, I long for the days of cubicles

guenthert 4y ago

> I'll buy the "being close together works better" argument No, it's some real estate agents convincing spineless C-level execs that they need a new office because Facebook did it. Having a small team, say less than 8 in the same sufficiently large room may work great, assuming that synergy translates to 30+ people who neither know nor care for each other is beyond daft.