4 ms·

I converted my company (hundreds of people) to fully remote and it’s been great. However if I was going to have an office again, it would be with individual off

I converted my company (hundreds of people) to fully remote and it’s been great. However if I was going to have an office again, it would be with individual offices or with sound-proof cubicle walls that have doors. I lived with open floor plans for so long I forgot how valuable being able to avoid coworkers was.

cratermoon 4y ago
It's kind of sad that I (and probably others) look back fondly at the era of cubicles as preferable to the current trends. With the caveat that there are some cubical farms (I'm looking at you, Intel) that barely different from open-plan offices with individual desk, some jobs I worked back in the day gave each person a relatively roomy and well-appointed individual cubicle. One place I had plenty of surface space in an L shape, multiple lockable storage areas, and even a small coat closet.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > One place I had plenty of surface space in an L shape, multiple lockable storage areas, and even a small coat closet. Wall height really matters. At a certain point though it might as well just be an office. Even if you wanted constant collaboration with the people in cubes around you it'd probably be better to stick small groups of people in rooms together rather than a sprawling cube farm.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
I would probably want this too. Noise-cancelling headphones help a lot to solve the audible noise problems of an open office, but do nothing to fix the issue of visual noise with coworkers buzzing around and such which can be just as much of a productivity killer.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I would probably want this too. Noise-cancelling headphones help a lot to solve the audible noise problems of an open office... Really? I have noise-cancelling headphones (nice Bose ones), and I've never considered them much of a help with office noise. In my experience, they're great at cancelling white noise, but nothing else. IMHO headphones (including noise-cancelling) are a six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other "solution" to office noise: they just trade once kid of audio distraction (office noise) for another (music or talk).
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    Noise canceling headphones lower the noise floor, so the little bit of sound that still gets through is super noticeable. I’ve found playing a really quiet noise generator makes background voices totally disappear. The in ear versions of Bose headphones also work better than the over ear for voice frequencies.
  - runevault 4y ago
    Were you just turning noise cancelling on or doing more? When I still had to go into an office I'd turn on no-vocals music to finish killing external sound.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Were you just turning noise cancelling on or doing more? When I still had to go into an office I'd turn on no-vocals music to finish killing external sound. Just noise cancelling. Playing music is more distracting than office noise for me.
      - wenc 4y ago
        Try playing brown noise on top of noise canceling. It's more soothing than just pure noise, plus it masks intermittent uncanceled noises.
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    AirPods Pro (the in-ear models) with music playing worked pretty well for me. Non-cancelling closed isolating like AKG K550 with music also weren't too bad. The key to the music not being distracting for me is the music being both familiar and of a particular nature. Stuff like trance, retrowave, and synthwave usually does the trick.
  - dsq 4y ago
    I'm hopig that noise cancelling will improve to learn how to cancel voices, so that when hearing a coworker's grating voice or loud laughing you can prss a button "remember voice" and this will be recorded for future cancellation.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Small cube farms with tall partitions don't get obnoxiously loud and you can still talk over the walls. Have the floor subdivided into reasonably sized cube rooms and you don't need to have offices with doors.
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  You've hit the single office thing so hard, you've bounced and are now heading back towards the open office again.
alkonaut 4y ago
If I worked hybrid I’d be fine (or even prefer) an open space, or at least some shared offices. The only point of coming to the office to begin with would be human contact. If I need to focus I have a door I can shut, at home. Going to the office and closing the door to a private office seems like a situation where I could just as well have stayed home that day!

cratermoon 4y ago

It's kind of sad that I (and probably others) look back fondly at the era of cubicles as preferable to the current trends. With the caveat that there are some cubical farms (I'm looking at you, Intel) that barely different from open-plan offices with individual desk, some jobs I worked back in the day gave each person a relatively roomy and well-appointed individual cubicle. One place I had plenty of surface space in an L shape, multiple lockable storage areas, and even a small coat closet.

autoexec 4y ago
> One place I had plenty of surface space in an L shape, multiple lockable storage areas, and even a small coat closet. Wall height really matters. At a certain point though it might as well just be an office. Even if you wanted constant collaboration with the people in cubes around you it'd probably be better to stick small groups of people in rooms together rather than a sprawling cube farm.

kitsunesoba 4y ago

I would probably want this too. Noise-cancelling headphones help a lot to solve the audible noise problems of an open office, but do nothing to fix the issue of visual noise with coworkers buzzing around and such which can be just as much of a productivity killer.

tablespoon 4y ago
> I would probably want this too. Noise-cancelling headphones help a lot to solve the audible noise problems of an open office... Really? I have noise-cancelling headphones (nice Bose ones), and I've never considered them much of a help with office noise. In my experience, they're great at cancelling white noise, but nothing else. IMHO headphones (including noise-cancelling) are a six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other "solution" to office noise: they just trade once kid of audio distraction (office noise) for another (music or talk).
- _yb2s 4y ago
  Noise canceling headphones lower the noise floor, so the little bit of sound that still gets through is super noticeable. I’ve found playing a really quiet noise generator makes background voices totally disappear. The in ear versions of Bose headphones also work better than the over ear for voice frequencies.
- runevault 4y ago
  Were you just turning noise cancelling on or doing more? When I still had to go into an office I'd turn on no-vocals music to finish killing external sound.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Were you just turning noise cancelling on or doing more? When I still had to go into an office I'd turn on no-vocals music to finish killing external sound. Just noise cancelling. Playing music is more distracting than office noise for me.
    - wenc 4y ago
      Try playing brown noise on top of noise canceling. It's more soothing than just pure noise, plus it masks intermittent uncanceled noises.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  AirPods Pro (the in-ear models) with music playing worked pretty well for me. Non-cancelling closed isolating like AKG K550 with music also weren't too bad. The key to the music not being distracting for me is the music being both familiar and of a particular nature. Stuff like trance, retrowave, and synthwave usually does the trick.
- dsq 4y ago
  I'm hopig that noise cancelling will improve to learn how to cancel voices, so that when hearing a coworker's grating voice or loud laughing you can prss a button "remember voice" and this will be recorded for future cancellation.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

Small cube farms with tall partitions don't get obnoxiously loud and you can still talk over the walls. Have the floor subdivided into reasonably sized cube rooms and you don't need to have offices with doors.

anothernewdude 4y ago
You've hit the single office thing so hard, you've bounced and are now heading back towards the open office again.

alkonaut 4y ago

If I worked hybrid I’d be fine (or even prefer) an open space, or at least some shared offices. The only point of coming to the office to begin with would be human contact. If I need to focus I have a door I can shut, at home. Going to the office and closing the door to a private office seems like a situation where I could just as well have stayed home that day!