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There are thousands of examples if you work for a paternalistic megacorp. Case in point, our office now lets people "hotel" at desks, but we have to reserve the

There are thousands of examples if you work for a paternalistic megacorp. Case in point, our office now lets people "hotel" at desks, but we have to reserve them for time slots. We could, like the library, just sit and use unoccupied desks. But they add this level of control that's geared towards toddlers that can't operate in a shared public space.

baxtr 4y ago
Must be annoying… Sounds like a poorly communicated capacity planning thing though?
- anonymoushn 4y ago
  Does the company need capacity planning in the form of making everyone do extra work instead of making one person glance around and report on the level of free desks or making a button one can click only when they tried to find a desk and couldn't?
  - baxtr 4y ago
    So the extra work part is infantalizing? I am not here to judge, just genuinely trying to understand. PS: Should be obvious by now that I don’t work for a “paternalistic megacorp”…
    - powerhour 4y ago
      It's not the extra work, it's the requirement to ask for permission to have a desk to do the work they're asked to do.
      - kuboble 4y ago
        Let's say you are a company that hires a lot of flexible-remote workers? The deal is that everyone works from home but can come to the office if they want to have a real meeting or if they feel like it. Makes prefect sense they should book a desk if they intend to work from the office. What am I missing?
        powerhour 4y ago
        For some, hybrid work is becoming mandatory. Having to beg for space to work in the office when it is required is infantilizing. Further, being forced to be in the office so the boss can see you're busy (and thus having your location tracked) is clearly infantilizing. That's what we went through in school as children. A lot of us expect better treatment as adults. In any case, I don't personally find the argument that there is a reason compelling. There's plenty of things that have a reason but are unreasonable.
  - rlayton2 4y ago
    Agree, and nothing tells an employee they aren't valued more than not providing them an adequate workspace
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > Does the company need capacity planning in the form of making everyone do extra work Serious question - is it a hard process? Or do you just have to check a box that says "I will be in the office and not WFH tomorrow"? Because it definitely seems like it's a minor inconvenience at worst.
    - anonymoushn 4y ago
      I don't know about this company, but I've used something similar at other companies, and it involved loading a web site that's unbearably slow and picking a desk on a map of the floor plan daily. Maybe 6 clicks and 10 seconds of waiting for the thing to load if everything goes well and you don't have to zoom around the map or change buildings or floors. What's flow anyway?
      - HWR_14 4y ago
        That sounds like a horrible interface given the most common use is likely to be "same desk tomorrow please". Although I wonder how that impacts flow. Presumably you can do it anytime during the day, so you can do it when you were taking a break anyway. Unless it opens at a specific time and you have to make sure your desk isn't sniped!
theshrike79 4y ago
Yep, my dad was forced to this "hotel" crap too. ...but he works in a field where stuff is still 80% on paper and he has colleagues with self-purchased reference books and the ilk literally from floor to ceiling. He spent a week clearing out his office and will be going into full retirement now. There's no way he'll be spending time lugging around a pallet worth of books to a new hotel desk every morning - nor will he give his own books to the company.
brailsafe 4y ago
This killed my spirit at one of my previous gigs at a stupid megacorp. I needed the cash and told myself it was worth a shot, even though I had a hunch thay had ADHD and it just wouldn't work. I needed to isolate myself to get work done, but I was looked at almost in horror when I brought my laptop to a quiet space away from my desk. I didn't use spare offices because those were reserved ahead of time like you say. So many wasted resources. Back at my desk there was the constant clacking of keys and jackass on his bluetooth headset making sales calls from his open cubicle, and typing away on his mechanical keyboard, or buddy eating chips. It could have been a really interesting technical experience, because the frontend was an absolute nightmare, but it serviced millions of people daily and billions in transactions annually. But I just couldn't catch up with so much bullshit. The best time was when nobody was there, so sometimes I'd work later, but then I'd be chastised for not showing up to the fucking standup on time.
- solardev 4y ago
  Not to distract from your main point, but just an aside, have you ever looked into misophonia? A few friends of mine have it and your post heavily reminded me of them (the chips and keyboard, especially). For them, earplugs and/or ANC headphones made a world of difference in being able to focus on their work and not be driven crazy. The open-layout office is hell for people who need quiet for focused work :( Sorry you had to deal with that.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    Yes, it's something I've known about for a few years, and for that I'm very grateful for the move to remote work. At this point I attribute it to a comorbidity with some other bigger thing that results in momentary ramp up of anxiety, because it's not always a problem, but when it is I need to find somewhere else to be and it's really derailing. Headphones only help if I already had them on, I can't use headphones or any other sound dampening devices to drown it out if I've already tuned into it. I've literally tried everything I could find. Concerta seems to help
  - cudgy 4y ago
    We all “need quiet for focused work.” Focused work should be challenging or at least require a person’s dedicated attention, which is not possible when distractions are a normal occurrence in a workplace regardless of whether someone has a mental or physical condition that makes them less functional in a “normally” loud workplace.
no_wizard 4y ago
This is only useful when headcount exceeds available office space (cubicles / desks). If that isn’t the case I agree it’s infantilizing
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  I think it's more than that. It's a factor of: 1. Having bad actors in the social group that will behave selfishly to the group's overall detriment. 2. Having ineffective mechanisms for punishing bad behavior. I've been at a few different startup where we had a shortage of office space because of our growth. But instead of some reservation system and official corporate guidelines we all managed to share effectively. I don't remember anyone hoarding the short space but even if they had I imagine that someone would have pulled them aside and pointed out their behavior.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  if you plan for it in advance, you lower the desk count to where its useful so as to save money. My current employer has started talking about moving to a new office building and hot desking etc. I've already started looking for a new job.

baxtr 4y ago

Must be annoying… Sounds like a poorly communicated capacity planning thing though?

anonymoushn 4y ago
Does the company need capacity planning in the form of making everyone do extra work instead of making one person glance around and report on the level of free desks or making a button one can click only when they tried to find a desk and couldn't?
- baxtr 4y ago
  So the extra work part is infantalizing? I am not here to judge, just genuinely trying to understand. PS: Should be obvious by now that I don’t work for a “paternalistic megacorp”…
  - powerhour 4y ago
    It's not the extra work, it's the requirement to ask for permission to have a desk to do the work they're asked to do.
    - kuboble 4y ago
      Let's say you are a company that hires a lot of flexible-remote workers? The deal is that everyone works from home but can come to the office if they want to have a real meeting or if they feel like it. Makes prefect sense they should book a desk if they intend to work from the office. What am I missing?
      - powerhour 4y ago
        For some, hybrid work is becoming mandatory. Having to beg for space to work in the office when it is required is infantilizing. Further, being forced to be in the office so the boss can see you're busy (and thus having your location tracked) is clearly infantilizing. That's what we went through in school as children. A lot of us expect better treatment as adults. In any case, I don't personally find the argument that there is a reason compelling. There's plenty of things that have a reason but are unreasonable.
- rlayton2 4y ago
  Agree, and nothing tells an employee they aren't valued more than not providing them an adequate workspace
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > Does the company need capacity planning in the form of making everyone do extra work Serious question - is it a hard process? Or do you just have to check a box that says "I will be in the office and not WFH tomorrow"? Because it definitely seems like it's a minor inconvenience at worst.
  - anonymoushn 4y ago
    I don't know about this company, but I've used something similar at other companies, and it involved loading a web site that's unbearably slow and picking a desk on a map of the floor plan daily. Maybe 6 clicks and 10 seconds of waiting for the thing to load if everything goes well and you don't have to zoom around the map or change buildings or floors. What's flow anyway?
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      That sounds like a horrible interface given the most common use is likely to be "same desk tomorrow please". Although I wonder how that impacts flow. Presumably you can do it anytime during the day, so you can do it when you were taking a break anyway. Unless it opens at a specific time and you have to make sure your desk isn't sniped!

theshrike79 4y ago

Yep, my dad was forced to this "hotel" crap too. ...but he works in a field where stuff is still 80% on paper and he has colleagues with self-purchased reference books and the ilk literally from floor to ceiling. He spent a week clearing out his office and will be going into full retirement now. There's no way he'll be spending time lugging around a pallet worth of books to a new hotel desk every morning - nor will he give his own books to the company.

brailsafe 4y ago

This killed my spirit at one of my previous gigs at a stupid megacorp. I needed the cash and told myself it was worth a shot, even though I had a hunch thay had ADHD and it just wouldn't work. I needed to isolate myself to get work done, but I was looked at almost in horror when I brought my laptop to a quiet space away from my desk. I didn't use spare offices because those were reserved ahead of time like you say. So many wasted resources. Back at my desk there was the constant clacking of keys and jackass on his bluetooth headset making sales calls from his open cubicle, and typing away on his mechanical keyboard, or buddy eating chips. It could have been a really interesting technical experience, because the frontend was an absolute nightmare, but it serviced millions of people daily and billions in transactions annually. But I just couldn't catch up with so much bullshit. The best time was when nobody was there, so sometimes I'd work later, but then I'd be chastised for not showing up to the fucking standup on time.

solardev 4y ago
Not to distract from your main point, but just an aside, have you ever looked into misophonia? A few friends of mine have it and your post heavily reminded me of them (the chips and keyboard, especially). For them, earplugs and/or ANC headphones made a world of difference in being able to focus on their work and not be driven crazy. The open-layout office is hell for people who need quiet for focused work :( Sorry you had to deal with that.
- brailsafe 4y ago
  Yes, it's something I've known about for a few years, and for that I'm very grateful for the move to remote work. At this point I attribute it to a comorbidity with some other bigger thing that results in momentary ramp up of anxiety, because it's not always a problem, but when it is I need to find somewhere else to be and it's really derailing. Headphones only help if I already had them on, I can't use headphones or any other sound dampening devices to drown it out if I've already tuned into it. I've literally tried everything I could find. Concerta seems to help
- cudgy 4y ago
  We all “need quiet for focused work.” Focused work should be challenging or at least require a person’s dedicated attention, which is not possible when distractions are a normal occurrence in a workplace regardless of whether someone has a mental or physical condition that makes them less functional in a “normally” loud workplace.

no_wizard 4y ago

This is only useful when headcount exceeds available office space (cubicles / desks). If that isn’t the case I agree it’s infantilizing

CSMastermind 4y ago
I think it's more than that. It's a factor of: 1. Having bad actors in the social group that will behave selfishly to the group's overall detriment. 2. Having ineffective mechanisms for punishing bad behavior. I've been at a few different startup where we had a shortage of office space because of our growth. But instead of some reservation system and official corporate guidelines we all managed to share effectively. I don't remember anyone hoarding the short space but even if they had I imagine that someone would have pulled them aside and pointed out their behavior.
LegitShady 4y ago
if you plan for it in advance, you lower the desk count to where its useful so as to save money. My current employer has started talking about moving to a new office building and hot desking etc. I've already started looking for a new job.