5 ms·

I worked at a place years back that was expanding; bought a second building - 2 stories. Downstairs had semi-open cubicles, and a wall of private office spaces

I worked at a place years back that was expanding; bought a second building - 2 stories. Downstairs had semi-open cubicles, and a wall of private office spaces (8 IIRC). All empty. Cubes were full. I was in the other building, told we were needing to move over the next couple months. I asked for one of the private spaces. They weren't really that big, and had no natural light, but... they did have a door. I'd been wrestling with being in an open cube next to marketing people (trying to juggle multiple dev projects), and routinely had 3-5 people on the phone around me. Very distracting. "Nope, those offices are for managers". "But... they're empty now". "We're putting together the budget for next year to hire more managers". "So... those will sit empty for the next 6-9 months and I have to work in an open cube environment, being distracted by the growing number of people around me". "Looks that way, but don't be so negative about it. I think we're done here. Close my door on your way out please". I left a few weeks after that exchange.

rootusrootus 3y ago
I don't even need a private office. One of the best environments I've ever worked in was a hybrid office/open model. Basically a bunch of conference rooms where each team got a room, and within the room the desk walls were low. Decorate it however you want, if you agree on style then you can have ambient music, etc. It was pretty great. But then they knocked all the walls down and put in rows of desks because they could cram more people in that way. Within a year probably 25% of our development staff walked.
- lowercased 3y ago
  Worked in a place like that - mostly open cube space for around 80 inbound call agents, and a few 'side rooms'. Worked with 5 other dev/tech folks in one of those 'side rooms' - a suitably sized office for the 6 of us. It was reasonable, in that we were generally all quiet or talking at the same time, and was not the worst place at all I've worked. Dedicated private space still works best for a lot of type of work (obviously that's "imo" but seems a standard POV from most colleagues today).
- ghaff 3y ago
  People here talk a lot about being able to have closing doors. My experience with private offices was, barring confidential conversations or rarely going really heads down for a few hours, the unwritten policy was you kept your door open. I've never worked anyplace where private offices generally had their doors shut.
  - cereal_cable 3y ago
    Agreed, but having a door meant you could put the "do not disturb" sign up. Of course that's pretty specific to your companies culture, but if someone closed their door at my office, I'd stroll around later. One of the biggest benefits of course is that you have a lot less sound travel. Doors open and you'll still be able to have a neighbor that has an open door meeting, phone call, etc and it won't interrupt you. After moving from a private office with a door to a team space, I missed it severely. Now I'm WFH and when my kids aren't home generally my door stays open.
  - watwut 3y ago
    It may be cultural, but in here offices are usually closed. It is kind of "weird" to see them with open doors.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I don't have a large sample size but across multiple companies in both New Orleans and New England, closed doors sort of meant: "I have a specific reason not to be disturbed." Which didn't include I just prefer to be in "flow" or whatever. The situation is probably different if you're on a busy public corridor as can be the case in universities, etc.
    - lowercased 3y ago
      When I have work I'm focusing on, I close the door. When I'm OK with being interrupted (work or casual), I leave the door open.
- devnullbrain 3y ago
  Post-covid WFH discussions have led to a collective amnesia about this. We also spent buckets of time complaining about offices before it because almost every employer made decision like yours. Most offices were terrible places to work and non-technical managers ignored common sense and science to cram as many people as possible into their existing real estate costs. We'd gone from yearning for personal rooms from our cubicles to yearning for cubicles from our loud open-plan spaces.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yes I remember I had an office in a major office building in Amsterdam.. as an intern. Shortly after the open plan craze started. And now there's the hotdesking nightmare. I feel much less valued and respected every time.
morelisp 3y ago
One side-effect of the WFH period for us (and I assume a number of other EU companies) is that once we went WFH, we also went remote; previously we had two offices and everyone worked in one of those two cities and today we have (IIRC) five and people work all over the country and take rail into the nearest office when necessary. This has... mostly worked out OK. In any given office there's some spaces dedicated for the people who work there regularly, at least a room or two with a half dozen seats for hotdesking, but then - three dedicated, closed-door single-person offices exclusively for the executives, who of course never show up outside their home office (if even there).
- soneil 3y ago
  That's what we've been seeing. My team were all in one corner of one room. Then "one day", we were all sent home. Someone left, and was replaced by someone in another European country. He's nominally "in the office", but since it's not the same office as the rest of us (and we're not in ours anyway), he's free to come and go as he pleases. It's not like it makes any difference to us. Then our manager moved on, and was replaced by someone in yet another European country. He was WFH / fully remote before "this" even started. By time they tried to sell us on RTO, exactly 50% of the team are still here. And going to the office now, just makes it less convenient to call the other 50% of my team. (Yes, call. Call me old fashioned, but I love a good bitchfest, and a good bitchfest shouldn't be in writing.) My manager genuinely advised we ignore the RTO missive and see what happens. (Spoiler: not much.) Then my boss's boss moved on, and was replaced by another remote position - and now the murmurs of RTO have died down. Now we're hiring and the net has widened yet again. They need to be in a country where we have a legal presence, and need to be willing to work European hours. It's amazing how much has changed in relatively little time. It doesn't feel like that long ago I was trying to make the case for WFH on weekends.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I think that's the situation at many places. They've had three years of hiring and organizational changes where, by and large, they didn't really pay a lot of attention outside of gross timezone or language factors to where people physically lived. So now they're in a place where they really can't just undo those three years and move back to teams being mostly colocated. At least without a lot of organizational turmoil and at least some cost.
ipython 3y ago
“Sure, here’s your office - cell #510J” https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/11/13/aws_prison_offices/ https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/11/13/aws_prison_office...

rootusrootus 3y ago

I don't even need a private office. One of the best environments I've ever worked in was a hybrid office/open model. Basically a bunch of conference rooms where each team got a room, and within the room the desk walls were low. Decorate it however you want, if you agree on style then you can have ambient music, etc. It was pretty great. But then they knocked all the walls down and put in rows of desks because they could cram more people in that way. Within a year probably 25% of our development staff walked.

lowercased 3y ago
Worked in a place like that - mostly open cube space for around 80 inbound call agents, and a few 'side rooms'. Worked with 5 other dev/tech folks in one of those 'side rooms' - a suitably sized office for the 6 of us. It was reasonable, in that we were generally all quiet or talking at the same time, and was not the worst place at all I've worked. Dedicated private space still works best for a lot of type of work (obviously that's "imo" but seems a standard POV from most colleagues today).
ghaff 3y ago
People here talk a lot about being able to have closing doors. My experience with private offices was, barring confidential conversations or rarely going really heads down for a few hours, the unwritten policy was you kept your door open. I've never worked anyplace where private offices generally had their doors shut.
- cereal_cable 3y ago
  Agreed, but having a door meant you could put the "do not disturb" sign up. Of course that's pretty specific to your companies culture, but if someone closed their door at my office, I'd stroll around later. One of the biggest benefits of course is that you have a lot less sound travel. Doors open and you'll still be able to have a neighbor that has an open door meeting, phone call, etc and it won't interrupt you. After moving from a private office with a door to a team space, I missed it severely. Now I'm WFH and when my kids aren't home generally my door stays open.
- watwut 3y ago
  It may be cultural, but in here offices are usually closed. It is kind of "weird" to see them with open doors.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I don't have a large sample size but across multiple companies in both New Orleans and New England, closed doors sort of meant: "I have a specific reason not to be disturbed." Which didn't include I just prefer to be in "flow" or whatever. The situation is probably different if you're on a busy public corridor as can be the case in universities, etc.
  - lowercased 3y ago
    When I have work I'm focusing on, I close the door. When I'm OK with being interrupted (work or casual), I leave the door open.
devnullbrain 3y ago
Post-covid WFH discussions have led to a collective amnesia about this. We also spent buckets of time complaining about offices before it because almost every employer made decision like yours. Most offices were terrible places to work and non-technical managers ignored common sense and science to cram as many people as possible into their existing real estate costs. We'd gone from yearning for personal rooms from our cubicles to yearning for cubicles from our loud open-plan spaces.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yes I remember I had an office in a major office building in Amsterdam.. as an intern. Shortly after the open plan craze started. And now there's the hotdesking nightmare. I feel much less valued and respected every time.

morelisp 3y ago

One side-effect of the WFH period for us (and I assume a number of other EU companies) is that once we went WFH, we also went remote; previously we had two offices and everyone worked in one of those two cities and today we have (IIRC) five and people work all over the country and take rail into the nearest office when necessary. This has... mostly worked out OK. In any given office there's some spaces dedicated for the people who work there regularly, at least a room or two with a half dozen seats for hotdesking, but then - three dedicated, closed-door single-person offices exclusively for the executives, who of course never show up outside their home office (if even there).

soneil 3y ago
That's what we've been seeing. My team were all in one corner of one room. Then "one day", we were all sent home. Someone left, and was replaced by someone in another European country. He's nominally "in the office", but since it's not the same office as the rest of us (and we're not in ours anyway), he's free to come and go as he pleases. It's not like it makes any difference to us. Then our manager moved on, and was replaced by someone in yet another European country. He was WFH / fully remote before "this" even started. By time they tried to sell us on RTO, exactly 50% of the team are still here. And going to the office now, just makes it less convenient to call the other 50% of my team. (Yes, call. Call me old fashioned, but I love a good bitchfest, and a good bitchfest shouldn't be in writing.) My manager genuinely advised we ignore the RTO missive and see what happens. (Spoiler: not much.) Then my boss's boss moved on, and was replaced by another remote position - and now the murmurs of RTO have died down. Now we're hiring and the net has widened yet again. They need to be in a country where we have a legal presence, and need to be willing to work European hours. It's amazing how much has changed in relatively little time. It doesn't feel like that long ago I was trying to make the case for WFH on weekends.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I think that's the situation at many places. They've had three years of hiring and organizational changes where, by and large, they didn't really pay a lot of attention outside of gross timezone or language factors to where people physically lived. So now they're in a place where they really can't just undo those three years and move back to teams being mostly colocated. At least without a lot of organizational turmoil and at least some cost.

ipython 3y ago

“Sure, here’s your office - cell #510J” https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/11/13/aws_prison_offices/ https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2023/11/13/aws_prison_office...