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The other deep irony is that many tech companies ruined the office by forcing open office designs. It was no secret that employees found them difficult places
by nostromo 4y ago
The other deep irony is that many tech companies ruined the office by forcing open office designs. It was no secret that employees found them difficult places to be productive. And now they wonder why nobody wants to go there.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoOne counter argument to this take is: If cube farms or offices with doors are so much better, where are the companies without open-offices and outsized performance financials. I suspect most employees just aren't that productive for it to matter much. There is probably some small percentage who are more productive, and even fewer who are much more productive, but their needs are overwhelming by larger business decisions, and fads in management and design.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoApple
- pjmlp 4y agoThe company rescued from insolvency with Microsoft money and reversed buy from NeXT, and only managed to get out of red thanks to the iPod and what came later, regardless of the office structure.
- KyeRussell 4y agoHow is anyone meant to respond to that? Can’t you apply this thinking to any company?
- pjmlp 4y agoOffice structure doesn't affect what products people are willing to pay for.
- MaanuAir 4y agoThat one made me think. Conway’s law may result in products’ appeal, thus what people are willing to pay for.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cameldrv 4y agoMaybe the products produced by developers that can concentrate better are more valuable and people are willing to pay more for them. Seems like Apple provides 2.4 trillion reasons.
- pjmlp 4y agoI am sure the office isn't part of the interview casting processes, trying to be hired at Apple is hardly any different from most game studios, regarding what one is willing to put up with to have the name on the CV.
- Mike_12345 4y agoIt didn't make them worse. Highest market cap on the planet.
- pjmlp 4y agoIt didn't rescued them from insolvency, so who cares.
- Mike_12345 4y agoThat was 26 years ago and it is irrelevant.
- midoridensha 4y agoI wonder how the world would be different if Microsoft had just let them die. Would it be better or worse? Would we all have slate-style smartphones now, or would they have taken much longer to arise?
- sofixa 4y agoThe iPhone wasn't the first touchscreen smartphone, it was just the flashiest (previous ones were oriented at business users), so IMO we certainly would be in the same place, just slightly later and possibly with more choice (maybe Nokia would have survived with Symbian/MeeGo, maybe Microsoft would have managed to pull off Windows Phone, etc.).
- midoridensha 4y agoUnless there were some phones I never saw, the iPhone was the first slate-style phone that you used with your fingers. Before that, everything had buttons (like the Blackberry, which kept keyboards until they finally died), or had crappy resistive touchscreens that you needed a stylus to use. The iPhone was the first one I remember that had a glass screen with capacitive touchscreen, needed no stylus, and didn't try to copy the Windows UI on a tiny screen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 4y agoHello? Apple Park?
- rightbyte 4y ago> If cube farms or offices with doors are so much better [...] Then again peacooks have like huge swag backs for no good reason other than looks. I feel the concept of open offices are abit like agile. It is a virtue signaling "cult". It doesn't matter it is counterproductive. You just need it to get the female peacooks.
- midoridensha 4y agoNitpick: there's no such thing as a "female peacock". Those are called "peahens".
- AndrewKemendo 4y ago>If cube farms or offices with doors are so much better, where are the companies without open-offices and outsized performance financials Literally any of the top companies in the DOW Jones - very few offices are open plan - tech is an outlier here
- Dalewyn 4y agoJust give it another 10 to 20 years and the next generation of the workforce will introduce cubicles as a monumental innovation in office design technology.
- unmole 4y agoBeen there, done that: https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-noisy-office-ba43042 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-...
- Dalewyn 4y agoWell then: Give it another 30 to 40 years and cubicles will come back thrice again.
- mvandermeulen 4y ago[flagged]
- ge96 4y agoWeCube
- dboreham 4y agoOr even: "The Door"
- eloisant 4y agoCubicle are so much better than open offices, it's funny to think that in the 90's they were considered a symbol of employees being treated like cattle.
- akmarinov 4y agoCubicles are employees being treated like cattle and open offices are just the next iteration. Going back to actual offices with doors would be way better for employees’ health.
- zelos 4y agoExactly. No amount of free food or office social events will make a cramped, open plan office pleasant to work in.
- quickthrower2 4y agoThe free food can make it smelly!
- MagicMoonlight 4y agoI wouldn’t mind going into an office if I had a private office to work in. It would get me out of the house and put me in work mode but it would also let me actually do work. Open plan is just awful. Everyone can watch you and nobody does any work and its so loud and impossible to talk on the phone.
- Firmwarrior 4y agoYeah man, that part always kills me. I'm stuck back at the office now, but every manager and a lot of the engineers are in meetings all day. It's not feasible for them to drive across town to get physically into the same room as all the other meeting attendees. So I'm surrounded by people who are dialing into various meetings from their desks and talking loudly all day. Meanwhile, my wife is dealing with health issues, but can't speak English very well. So I have to talk to various doctors' offices and insurance companies all the time, and every time I make a call I feel the need to hoof it across the building so I'm not blasting medical details into the cube farm. The quiet rooms are usually all full of people in meetings, so I have to hide in the mail room or walk a couple of blocks to my car. I'm done with this shit.. I think I'm going to hop ship after my next $100k RSU vesting, this kind of work is just too undignified for me