5 ms·

TL;DR summary: I find open-plan offices very distracting, and I know some other people do, therefore they are distracting for everyone and should be eliminated.

TL;DR summary: I find open-plan offices very distracting, and I know some other people do, therefore they are distracting for everyone and should be eliminated. I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z." If something works well for you, then that's wonderful! Please share it and explain the benefits and downsides and convince me to give Your Favorite Method a try. Describing how Your Favorite Method is actually The Only Reasonable Method (and by extension, that I am wrong/stupid/naive/etc. to be doing anything else) will rarely win me over.

larrys 15y ago
*"I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Quite simply because this title: "Open Plan Offices Must Die!" is better link bait than "Why I don't like Open Plan Offices".
- re_todd 15y ago
  I imagine this would not do well either: "Open Plan Offices are Usually Not Really for Me, Just Sayin"
  - MortenK 15y ago
    "I prefer private offices I guess, but open plan are okay too"
    - re_todd 15y ago
      Haha, even better!
roc 15y ago
> "I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Because they're click-bait. Authors of articles like that don't (primarily) care about making a sound argument. They care about attention.
- devs1010 15y ago
  yeah, there's a literary / English class term for this sort of article, basically, you're just arguing one side, you may not even believe all the points, but everything is supposed to support the main point, its not meant to be a balanced presentation of an issue
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
thingie 15y ago
This is actually quite sad. When you try to explain downsides of the open plan office in noncontroversial terms and as rationally as possible, you get ignored. You get positive response, universal agreement, but nothing actually changes. When you use some speech figures to emphasize what your message, you get discarded with nitpicking like this. Nothing happens either. And nothing will ever happen, it's a bad environment, but it's easy to set up, cheap and common everywhere. It still get the job done, though badly. You try to find a job with something better, but then you just chose to live with it, because it'd require different, worse sacrifices. That in turn sends a signal that it's in fact ok and working office plan. Is there a way out? I'd like to see a blogpost with this title, actually answering the question (preferably with something else than no).
- lpolovets 15y ago
  I think office layout advice is not always heeded because it is hard to implement. Basically, if you have an open (closed) office, then switching to a closed (open) office is a pain. Articles might sway you in one direction or the other, but once your company is set up, it's a big hassle to shake things up unless they are very broken. At best, you will try a different approach if/when you start a new company. For what it's worth, there are lots of successful companies that did fine with offices (Microsoft) and lots of companies that did fine with open spaces (Google). I worked at LinkedIn while we moved through 3 office buildings. We had an open space, then cubicles/offices, and then an open space again (each layout decision was deliberate). Both layouts had their pros and their cons, and that's why I'm not a fan of blog posts that dismiss the other side completely. Office layout, like many other things, is not a problem with a one-size-fits-all solution.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago
  > it's a bad environment, but it's easy to set up, cheap and common everywhere. It still get the job done, though badly. Yup. You get less for less. Maybe that's a good compromise for some folks.
- Drbble 15y ago
  Maybe it's because most managers who set up offices don't read hacker news and progeammer blots. And the ones that do started at tiny scrappy companies that can't afford more than one room. For the my part, I worked somewhere that had a manager bragging about moving to another "more collaborative" office layout, with only partial non-wall separation for the dozens of staff, that coincidentally was quite a bargain.
kmfrk 15y ago
"Kill Hollwood."

larrys 15y ago

*"I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Quite simply because this title: "Open Plan Offices Must Die!" is better link bait than "Why I don't like Open Plan Offices".

re_todd 15y ago
I imagine this would not do well either: "Open Plan Offices are Usually Not Really for Me, Just Sayin"
- MortenK 15y ago
  "I prefer private offices I guess, but open plan are okay too"
  - re_todd 15y ago
    Haha, even better!

roc 15y ago

> "I don't understand why there are so many blog posts describing how "X must die" or "Y is the only good approach to doing Z."" Because they're click-bait. Authors of articles like that don't (primarily) care about making a sound argument. They care about attention.

devs1010 15y ago
yeah, there's a literary / English class term for this sort of article, basically, you're just arguing one side, you may not even believe all the points, but everything is supposed to support the main point, its not meant to be a balanced presentation of an issue
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

thingie 15y ago

This is actually quite sad. When you try to explain downsides of the open plan office in noncontroversial terms and as rationally as possible, you get ignored. You get positive response, universal agreement, but nothing actually changes. When you use some speech figures to emphasize what your message, you get discarded with nitpicking like this. Nothing happens either. And nothing will ever happen, it's a bad environment, but it's easy to set up, cheap and common everywhere. It still get the job done, though badly. You try to find a job with something better, but then you just chose to live with it, because it'd require different, worse sacrifices. That in turn sends a signal that it's in fact ok and working office plan. Is there a way out? I'd like to see a blogpost with this title, actually answering the question (preferably with something else than no).

lpolovets 15y ago
I think office layout advice is not always heeded because it is hard to implement. Basically, if you have an open (closed) office, then switching to a closed (open) office is a pain. Articles might sway you in one direction or the other, but once your company is set up, it's a big hassle to shake things up unless they are very broken. At best, you will try a different approach if/when you start a new company. For what it's worth, there are lots of successful companies that did fine with offices (Microsoft) and lots of companies that did fine with open spaces (Google). I worked at LinkedIn while we moved through 3 office buildings. We had an open space, then cubicles/offices, and then an open space again (each layout decision was deliberate). Both layouts had their pros and their cons, and that's why I'm not a fan of blog posts that dismiss the other side completely. Office layout, like many other things, is not a problem with a one-size-fits-all solution.
Florin_Andrei 15y ago
> it's a bad environment, but it's easy to set up, cheap and common everywhere. It still get the job done, though badly. Yup. You get less for less. Maybe that's a good compromise for some folks.
Drbble 15y ago
Maybe it's because most managers who set up offices don't read hacker news and progeammer blots. And the ones that do started at tiny scrappy companies that can't afford more than one room. For the my part, I worked somewhere that had a manager bragging about moving to another "more collaborative" office layout, with only partial non-wall separation for the dozens of staff, that coincidentally was quite a bargain.

kmfrk 15y ago

"Kill Hollwood."