4 ms·
> Working in offices has always been fairly terrible, and had been growing increasingly terrible over the last decade or two. Offices don't have to be terrible
by bsder 3y ago
> Working in offices has always been fairly terrible, and had been growing increasingly terrible over the last decade or two.
Offices don't have to be terrible. IBM, GE, Bell, etc. knew how to put together offices that didn't suck. Occasionally the architects got out of hand and produced some monstrosity, but the offices were mostly fine.
It's only the whole dumbass "open office plan" bullshit that made everything suck. Given that's the "standard", is it any wonder everybody wants to work from home?
- startupsfail 3y agoIt was not dumbass. It was an attempt to cut the spendings on the workspaces for the employees and increase the profits for shareholders.
- mullingitover 3y agoOpen plan in a nutshell: would you like to save 20% on seating costs for the low cost of a 30% reduction in productivity? Then open plan offices might be right for you.
- antonvs 3y agoThe nutshell takeaway here is that concrete reductions in costs will always outweigh greater but less concrete increases in costs, because... well George Carlin covered that.
- mullingitover 3y agoMy theory is it's a classic cargo cult situation: "If we just do the same thing this successful startup did (we'll ignore that they were doing it in a different context for different reasons, and ignore the ones that did the same thing but weren't successful) then we too will have the same explosive success!"
- polynomial 3y ago?
- michaelteter 3y agoOne would argue that it was "dumbass" if the attempt to cut cost affected a greater loss of productivity. But that is often the case; attempts to increase "shareholder value" come at an outsized and detrimental cost of productivity and ultimate profit. But such is life. You cannot know the outcome of two paths as you can only test one of them.
- drewcoo 3y ago> It's only the whole dumbass "open office plan" bullshit that made everything suck. Certainly that's at least part of the GP's "growing increasingly terrible over the last decade or two."
- gumby 3y agoopen plan offices were the norm until the 1960s. I can't stand them either, just point out that they were the norm except for a 35-year period.
- ilyt 3y agoSure and mud huts were there way longer than any kind of office but neither this or that is relevant now. 35 year is almost entirety of the working age if you started working after uni
- 015UUZn8aEvW 3y agoWhat I really hate about open offices is the fishbowl effect. Having someone behind my back and staring at whatever's on my computer screen feels extremely uncomfortable. I do a lot of technical drawings. It feels way different to be in an open workspace with a horizontal drafting board (which is what I would have had prior to the 1990s) than with a brightly-lit, vertical screen. You have more privacy, even in an open space.
- 13of40 3y agoOne way to mitigate this is to get into a position where it's illegal for someone to look over your shoulder. Barring one two-year stretch a decade ago I've always had a private office.
- paulryanrogers 3y agoIn what positions is it illegal? HR? CSM?
- glaucon 3y ago> open plan offices were the norm until the 1960s. I remember visiting the workplaces of both of my parents in the 1970's and neither were anything like open plan. I know you said "1960s" but the buildings my parents were working in were well established at the time and had been there since, at least the 1960's.