7 ms·

A few years back I was working in an open office setting at a games studio and I got in a discussion with the branch manager about it. He was convinced that op

A few years back I was working in an open office setting at a games studio and I got in a discussion with the branch manager about it. He was convinced that open office was a productivity multiplier. I asked him who he thought the most productive developers were on the team. When he gave me names, I pointed out that every one of them were wearing big noise-canceling headphones to block out the collaboration he thought he was fostering. My solution was different, I usually got in at 6am when almost no one else came in before the 10am standup. I would get most of my work done by then and then circulate and help the kids as needed. To be fair, it did seem like the artists did get some benefit, but it was definitely a net negative for most of the developers. I’ve been in private offices, and cubes, and open office, and honestly the most productive environment was when I was in a set of cubicles that had sliding doors, around a bullpen with multiple tables. When you needed to go head-down to get some code down you could, but otherwise you hung out at the tables in the middle.

brailsafe 3y ago
There was a time when I thought the same as that branch manager, but that time was long ago and it was based on absolutely no experience. In the last open office I worked in, I could not find headphones that allowed me to focus, not even construction-grade earmuffs; if someone's chewing food within 10 ft, I'll hear it, and that's all I'll hear. For literal constant music listening to actually help, it needs to be a choice, otherwise it just makes me tire of music and I don't get nearly as much out of my mental energy.
- dailykoder 3y ago
  >In the last open office I worked in, I could not find headphones that allowed me to focus, not even construction-grade earmuffs; if someone's chewing food within 10 ft, I'll hear it, and that's all I'll hear. That's interesting. I have the same exact issue and whenever I tell people about it they think I am crazy. I don't have a problem with people chewing food when it's lunch break and we sit in the cafeteria, but man, when I try to focus it kills my brain. Just last week the guy next to me started eating kind of late in the day (where my brain was almost empty). I then tried to cancel it out with headphones, but that just wasn't possible anymore. And I still don't know how to deal with it. Sometimes I try to take a walk for 5 minutes and it helps, but not always. On some days I get a full mental breakdown because I get angry at myself getting angry on somebody just making noises any normal human being does while eating
  - begueradj 3y ago
    That's why I don't understand how some developers are able to code while listening to music.
    - dailykoder 3y ago
      For me heavily depends on the music. Just been listening to heavy drum and bass for the past 2 hours and been in absolute hyperfocus. Music is the best for me, should be familiar and not have too many lyrics tho. Sometimes it's drum and bass, mostly some synthwave/chill beats. Edit: But the problem here is. If I am already exhausted and got distracted by those noises, then getting into focus with just music often does not work. I do have adhd and it could be that misophonia is playing into it too. Still trying to figure out my best work environment, but it's hard
      - brailsafe 3y ago
        I'd echo exactly everything in this comment. I feel like Concerta marginally helps with this, but it's tough to remember the last time I've had to test it.
    - lawgimenez 3y ago
      I listen to rap a lot when coding.
    - sceoom 3y ago
      [dead]
  - yarnover 3y ago
    You may have misophonia. It’s not uncommon with misophonia to react with rage to eating noises. My husband cannot tolerate certain sounds, for example a dog lapping water.
    - windock 3y ago
      I have misophonia too, related to chewing sounds. It actually developed in offices. I don’t really go to offices anymore. But the thing that definitely helped was listening to violent noises: wind storm in the forest, sound of jet engine, etc. Naturespace app for phones have some really high quality recordings. Well, that and psychotherapy. My mental health directly allows me to spend mental resources resisting all these emotions.
- jonathanlydall 3y ago
  To the improvement of my focus and productivity I recently-ish got into listening "arbitrary" music with little to no lyrics and an uplifting tempo. I used to listen to particular bands which I felt "defined my identity" or something, which I still occasionally do, but I've since realized that when I'm working it's "distracting" to me and I now listen to things like generic "trailer" / epic music or "upbeat" music for workouts.
  - Tempest1981 3y ago
    Any examples or recommendations? I'd like to try this.
    - jonathanlydall 3y ago
      It's probably a personal taste thing, but on Spotify some of the radios I listen to are based on the following artists of their songs: - Two Steps from Hell - Sultan + Shephard - Tom Player - Matias Puumala Some other random playlists: - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E8PiJpaZ8rWVi?si=2d2b4ee4b1694125 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E8PiJpaZ8rWVi?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E35ecXdUS92X1?si=142a3e2776ca4506 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E35ecXdUS92X1?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E36Le7GAznRHV?si=8b1b0f73e92142db https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E36Le7GAznRHV?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E366Mpiqxs399?si=31d0ef5a92224316 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E366Mpiqxs399?si=... I don't really curate my stuff, I occasionally "like" songs or start radios off songs I'm enjoying in the moment.
      - llarsson 3y ago
        Can't do it myself, but I've heard that people listen to typical traditional "video game music" for this purpose. Fast, upbeat, and never something you need to focus on, but rather, it just helps you keep up the concentration. ...if you're the type of person who can listen to music while working, that is.
        3y ago
- ajb 3y ago
  To shut out sounds, the thing that seems to work for me is to play thunderstorm sounds. Because it's got a high degree of randomness across the frequency spectrum, and its spectrum varies over short timescales, external noise is masked even if it's still audible - because the brain can easily fit it into the thunderstorm pattern. Whereas if I'm annoyed by something, my brain will pick it out from behind music in listening to, even if it's quieter. When I'm hearing someone else's thump thump music and my ear buds aren't sufficient to block it, that's the only thing I've found to work.
  - shagie 3y ago
    No thunder, but I've enjoyed the "white noise rain" https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteRainNoiseGenerator.php https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteRainNoiseGenerator.ph... It's real rain noise - if you pay attention to it, you can hear the drops - but it's overall a nice white noise that isn't the "boring" white noise. > ... Our recording has been performed in the silence of the night, in a huge space - namely the Harau Valley in Sumatra - and in the absence of any wind, as to produce the most even noise one can get. Related / previous HN posts https://rain.today https://rain.today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908909 https://mynoise.net https://mynoise.net https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32366075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32366075
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      Neat, bookmarked for later
  - matteason 3y ago
    I built a white noise site which has a load of sounds which can help in a similar way (including thunder): https://ambiph.one https://ambiph.one I find the 'bass rumble' and brown noise particularly useful for masking external noise, which I guess is pretty similar to a thunderstorm frequency-wise
- GeoAtreides 3y ago
  > not even construction-grade earmuffs Have you tried: 3M Peltor Premium Plus Earmuffs X3A https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/v101190004/ https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/v101190004/ in my opinion they're really good, though, to be honest, I haven't tried them in an open space env. I'm also a sufferer of misophonia, it's beeping noises and random notifications for me. I also noticed they make getting into the flow a lot more easy; and, surprisingly, they also reduce the activation energy of getting into work. I suspect that's because our envs are EXTREMELY noisy (compared with the mythical natural state) and the brain always keeps track (subconsciously) of all the noises which leads to mental energy depletion
  - sotix 3y ago
    I used these when studying in the library for the CPA exam, and they were remarkably effective. The joke with my friends was if the library had caught on fire and the fire alarms had gone off, I wouldn’t have been aware and would have remained in my seat while everyone else evacuated.
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    I'm not sure if I tried that specific model or not, but I did try the beefiest 3Ms that were available and that others were recommending for the same issue back in 2020, and no they don't really work for this problem. They would probably work if I was already completely unaware of the noises, but then I probably wouldn't need them anyway and they wouldn't be an appropriate solution. Also they were comically large and introduced the anxiety that people were constantly looking at them.
rjzzleep 3y ago
The funny thing is that a lot of these startups give out a Bose noise cancelling headphones along with the onboarding. I have really good hearing, so loud clapping for example will make me cower. Listening to background discussions in startups is quite literally physically torturing to me.
- rgallagher27 3y ago
  Bose headphones are a lot cheaper than the extra floor(s) they'd need to rent to give everyone an office
  - Sander_Marechal 3y ago
    But according to the article it's not actually that much more expensive to give everyone an office.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    This is a statement with no data behind it. At least some people don't think there's any cost difference. Also, building owners are getting so desperate for tenants they'd probably cut you a good deal if you needed more space instead of less.
paulus_magnus2 3y ago
Please let's not glorify working from 6am (effectively allocating time since 5am for work) unless you also left office at 2pm. Only seeing your children on weekends to make your boss 10% happier is not something to be proud about
- Faaak 3y ago
  In Switzerland at least, it's very common to arrive very early in the morning (~6am), and then leave at 3pm. As long as you do your hours
  - jajko 3y ago
    No it isn't, not in any big multinationals, not unless you have some extremely specific agreement with management. More acceptable is say 7:30 - 16:30, and is still often seen as slacking by folks who stay till 6-7pm. Of course if you do consistently excellent work way above rest of the peers this doesn't matter. The reason is trivial - if you are not around half of the time rest of the team is, teamwork suffers quite a bit (which is cca constant situation with distant remote places like India, ie if you have any questions in the afternoon you are blocked and they need to wait till next day)
    - hoseja 3y ago
      >not in any big multinationals Those aren't the only companies that exist.
      - throwaway11460 3y ago
        But the only companies that pay well - at least here in Europe.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    Having spent some time living in Zurich I call bullshit on this; the streets and train stations are _deserted_ at 6am. Shops are still getting deliveries, coffee shops are still closed. No significant numbers of people - in Zurich at least - are starting work in offices at 6am.
charcircuit 3y ago
>He was convinced that open office was a productivity multiplier. The productivity multiplier does not have to be constant over the entire employee base to make it worth it. Also good direction / avoiding bad direction is one of the biggest productivity modifiers but it is harder to measure since it may look like people are productive but what they are producing is not beneficial.
TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
> I got in a discussion with the branch manager about it. He was convinced that open office was a productivity multiplier. The most ludicrous thing is that those managers are usually sitting in their own offices and not with the rest in open office chaos.
- AdamN 3y ago
  That to me is the critical tell. By all accounts the Bloomberg office model is very well regarded but Bloomberg himself sits in a cubicle with his directs around him in their own cubicles. There are break-out conference rooms of course just around them. The CEO and directs should have a similar work situation to all the other office managers and their directs.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    While I sympathize with that notion, I guess overhearing everything the C level is talking about would make everyone an insider regarding (own) stocks trading. Also, any layered security approaches would be hard to realize.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      I sat a few feet from Bob Metcalfe. I never heard any good stuff. He kept his voice down, or went to a conference room for that.
    - AdamN 3y ago
      They're still separated by floor. His cubicle farm is just for the very senior people who are already in (and anyway something very sensitive would happen in a room).
  - danaris 3y ago
    > The CEO and directs should have a similar work situation to all the other office managers and their directs. I would call this kind of dogfooding a necessary but insufficient condition for accepting what they say about open-plan offices. After all, just because an open-plan office is better for people whose job (often) literally consists of talking to people all day doesn't mean it is better for people whose job is to focus all day on code, spreadsheets, or other kinds of individual work.
glimshe 3y ago
Private offices and cubicles with high walls are the best if we are excluding remote. Microsoft used to give most employees a private office in the late 90s to roughly the mid 2010s - and that was heaven. Collaboration was great because you could go to your coworker's private office or even bring people along for the much-vaunted in-person whiteboarding. It happened a lot. The only thing that was frowned upon was to leave your office door closed 100% of the time, but some people did just that anyway; that was similar to the remote experience, but at the office.
- danaris 3y ago
  > Private offices and cubicles with high walls are the best if we are excluding remote. I really wish people would stop conflating these, as if they were meaningfully equivalent. Like, yes: compared to open-plan, high-walled cubes are obviously much better. But I've been in high-walled cubes, and I've been in (and now have) a private office. There's really no comparison when it comes to privacy, customizability, and just overall the feeling of it being your space.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    To be clear, I agree they are not meaningfully equivalent. I just meant to say that they are the best options other than remote, especially if you consider that private offices haven't been common for software developers for over 30 years. Private offices are awesome and cubicles are tolerable to fine depending on your coworkers. Open offices are almost invariably terrible for employees - although I have to say that I was once in a large room with a (often closed) door along 5 other engineers as a sort of "private open office" and that was actually okay.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  > you could go to your coworker's private office or even bring people along for the much-vaunted in-person whiteboarding. I was at one company; it had private offices, and this is exactly what would happen. You'd go to someone's office; you could share ideas back and forth, often on the whiteboard; it was low-judgment -- just you, the other person, and maybe a third -- so people spoke freely. I was at another company; it had a SV-style open office and a SV-style interview which, in pre-COVID days, used a whiteboard. It was competitive; people were from top schools. You could tell nobody wanted to use the "you can write on this glass surface" whiteboards scattered around the open office, because they knew there'd be a dozen sets of eyes able to see their vulnerable thought processes and silently judge them; it'd be a show; and they were slightly traumatized by the interview that had gotten them in. I think large open offices change things from, "I'm interacting with another person", to "I'm putting on a show." And nobody wants to put on a show, quite understandably. I think open offices are really about reducing employees' feelings of being sheltered or safe. It comes out of the same mindset that speaks of employees "hiding" and not doing work. I found that I was spending too much mental energy scanning the horizon for predators, and not enough thinking about the ostensible technical problem.

brailsafe 3y ago

There was a time when I thought the same as that branch manager, but that time was long ago and it was based on absolutely no experience. In the last open office I worked in, I could not find headphones that allowed me to focus, not even construction-grade earmuffs; if someone's chewing food within 10 ft, I'll hear it, and that's all I'll hear. For literal constant music listening to actually help, it needs to be a choice, otherwise it just makes me tire of music and I don't get nearly as much out of my mental energy.

dailykoder 3y ago
>In the last open office I worked in, I could not find headphones that allowed me to focus, not even construction-grade earmuffs; if someone's chewing food within 10 ft, I'll hear it, and that's all I'll hear. That's interesting. I have the same exact issue and whenever I tell people about it they think I am crazy. I don't have a problem with people chewing food when it's lunch break and we sit in the cafeteria, but man, when I try to focus it kills my brain. Just last week the guy next to me started eating kind of late in the day (where my brain was almost empty). I then tried to cancel it out with headphones, but that just wasn't possible anymore. And I still don't know how to deal with it. Sometimes I try to take a walk for 5 minutes and it helps, but not always. On some days I get a full mental breakdown because I get angry at myself getting angry on somebody just making noises any normal human being does while eating
- begueradj 3y ago
  That's why I don't understand how some developers are able to code while listening to music.
  - dailykoder 3y ago
    For me heavily depends on the music. Just been listening to heavy drum and bass for the past 2 hours and been in absolute hyperfocus. Music is the best for me, should be familiar and not have too many lyrics tho. Sometimes it's drum and bass, mostly some synthwave/chill beats. Edit: But the problem here is. If I am already exhausted and got distracted by those noises, then getting into focus with just music often does not work. I do have adhd and it could be that misophonia is playing into it too. Still trying to figure out my best work environment, but it's hard
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      I'd echo exactly everything in this comment. I feel like Concerta marginally helps with this, but it's tough to remember the last time I've had to test it.
  - lawgimenez 3y ago
    I listen to rap a lot when coding.
  - sceoom 3y ago
    [dead]
- yarnover 3y ago
  You may have misophonia. It’s not uncommon with misophonia to react with rage to eating noises. My husband cannot tolerate certain sounds, for example a dog lapping water.
  - windock 3y ago
    I have misophonia too, related to chewing sounds. It actually developed in offices. I don’t really go to offices anymore. But the thing that definitely helped was listening to violent noises: wind storm in the forest, sound of jet engine, etc. Naturespace app for phones have some really high quality recordings. Well, that and psychotherapy. My mental health directly allows me to spend mental resources resisting all these emotions.
jonathanlydall 3y ago
To the improvement of my focus and productivity I recently-ish got into listening "arbitrary" music with little to no lyrics and an uplifting tempo. I used to listen to particular bands which I felt "defined my identity" or something, which I still occasionally do, but I've since realized that when I'm working it's "distracting" to me and I now listen to things like generic "trailer" / epic music or "upbeat" music for workouts.
- Tempest1981 3y ago
  Any examples or recommendations? I'd like to try this.
  - jonathanlydall 3y ago
    It's probably a personal taste thing, but on Spotify some of the radios I listen to are based on the following artists of their songs: - Two Steps from Hell - Sultan + Shephard - Tom Player - Matias Puumala Some other random playlists: - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E8PiJpaZ8rWVi?si=2d2b4ee4b1694125 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E8PiJpaZ8rWVi?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E35ecXdUS92X1?si=142a3e2776ca4506 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E35ecXdUS92X1?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E36Le7GAznRHV?si=8b1b0f73e92142db https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E36Le7GAznRHV?si=... - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E366Mpiqxs399?si=31d0ef5a92224316 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E366Mpiqxs399?si=... I don't really curate my stuff, I occasionally "like" songs or start radios off songs I'm enjoying in the moment.
    - llarsson 3y ago
      Can't do it myself, but I've heard that people listen to typical traditional "video game music" for this purpose. Fast, upbeat, and never something you need to focus on, but rather, it just helps you keep up the concentration. ...if you're the type of person who can listen to music while working, that is.
      - 3y ago
ajb 3y ago
To shut out sounds, the thing that seems to work for me is to play thunderstorm sounds. Because it's got a high degree of randomness across the frequency spectrum, and its spectrum varies over short timescales, external noise is masked even if it's still audible - because the brain can easily fit it into the thunderstorm pattern. Whereas if I'm annoyed by something, my brain will pick it out from behind music in listening to, even if it's quieter. When I'm hearing someone else's thump thump music and my ear buds aren't sufficient to block it, that's the only thing I've found to work.
- shagie 3y ago
  No thunder, but I've enjoyed the "white noise rain" https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteRainNoiseGenerator.php https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/whiteRainNoiseGenerator.ph... It's real rain noise - if you pay attention to it, you can hear the drops - but it's overall a nice white noise that isn't the "boring" white noise. > ... Our recording has been performed in the silence of the night, in a huge space - namely the Harau Valley in Sumatra - and in the absence of any wind, as to produce the most even noise one can get. Related / previous HN posts https://rain.today https://rain.today https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9908909 https://mynoise.net https://mynoise.net https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32366075 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32366075
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    Neat, bookmarked for later
- matteason 3y ago
  I built a white noise site which has a load of sounds which can help in a similar way (including thunder): https://ambiph.one https://ambiph.one I find the 'bass rumble' and brown noise particularly useful for masking external noise, which I guess is pretty similar to a thunderstorm frequency-wise
GeoAtreides 3y ago
> not even construction-grade earmuffs Have you tried: 3M Peltor Premium Plus Earmuffs X3A https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/v101190004/ https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/v101190004/ in my opinion they're really good, though, to be honest, I haven't tried them in an open space env. I'm also a sufferer of misophonia, it's beeping noises and random notifications for me. I also noticed they make getting into the flow a lot more easy; and, surprisingly, they also reduce the activation energy of getting into work. I suspect that's because our envs are EXTREMELY noisy (compared with the mythical natural state) and the brain always keeps track (subconsciously) of all the noises which leads to mental energy depletion
- sotix 3y ago
  I used these when studying in the library for the CPA exam, and they were remarkably effective. The joke with my friends was if the library had caught on fire and the fire alarms had gone off, I wouldn’t have been aware and would have remained in my seat while everyone else evacuated.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  I'm not sure if I tried that specific model or not, but I did try the beefiest 3Ms that were available and that others were recommending for the same issue back in 2020, and no they don't really work for this problem. They would probably work if I was already completely unaware of the noises, but then I probably wouldn't need them anyway and they wouldn't be an appropriate solution. Also they were comically large and introduced the anxiety that people were constantly looking at them.

rjzzleep 3y ago

The funny thing is that a lot of these startups give out a Bose noise cancelling headphones along with the onboarding. I have really good hearing, so loud clapping for example will make me cower. Listening to background discussions in startups is quite literally physically torturing to me.

rgallagher27 3y ago
Bose headphones are a lot cheaper than the extra floor(s) they'd need to rent to give everyone an office
- Sander_Marechal 3y ago
  But according to the article it's not actually that much more expensive to give everyone an office.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  This is a statement with no data behind it. At least some people don't think there's any cost difference. Also, building owners are getting so desperate for tenants they'd probably cut you a good deal if you needed more space instead of less.

paulus_magnus2 3y ago

Please let's not glorify working from 6am (effectively allocating time since 5am for work) unless you also left office at 2pm. Only seeing your children on weekends to make your boss 10% happier is not something to be proud about

Faaak 3y ago
In Switzerland at least, it's very common to arrive very early in the morning (~6am), and then leave at 3pm. As long as you do your hours
- jajko 3y ago
  No it isn't, not in any big multinationals, not unless you have some extremely specific agreement with management. More acceptable is say 7:30 - 16:30, and is still often seen as slacking by folks who stay till 6-7pm. Of course if you do consistently excellent work way above rest of the peers this doesn't matter. The reason is trivial - if you are not around half of the time rest of the team is, teamwork suffers quite a bit (which is cca constant situation with distant remote places like India, ie if you have any questions in the afternoon you are blocked and they need to wait till next day)
  - hoseja 3y ago
    >not in any big multinationals Those aren't the only companies that exist.
    - throwaway11460 3y ago
      But the only companies that pay well - at least here in Europe.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- 15457345234 3y ago
  Having spent some time living in Zurich I call bullshit on this; the streets and train stations are _deserted_ at 6am. Shops are still getting deliveries, coffee shops are still closed. No significant numbers of people - in Zurich at least - are starting work in offices at 6am.

charcircuit 3y ago

>He was convinced that open office was a productivity multiplier. The productivity multiplier does not have to be constant over the entire employee base to make it worth it. Also good direction / avoiding bad direction is one of the biggest productivity modifiers but it is harder to measure since it may look like people are productive but what they are producing is not beneficial.

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago

> I got in a discussion with the branch manager about it. He was convinced that open office was a productivity multiplier. The most ludicrous thing is that those managers are usually sitting in their own offices and not with the rest in open office chaos.

AdamN 3y ago
That to me is the critical tell. By all accounts the Bloomberg office model is very well regarded but Bloomberg himself sits in a cubicle with his directs around him in their own cubicles. There are break-out conference rooms of course just around them. The CEO and directs should have a similar work situation to all the other office managers and their directs.
- generic92034 3y ago
  While I sympathize with that notion, I guess overhearing everything the C level is talking about would make everyone an insider regarding (own) stocks trading. Also, any layered security approaches would be hard to realize.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    I sat a few feet from Bob Metcalfe. I never heard any good stuff. He kept his voice down, or went to a conference room for that.
  - AdamN 3y ago
    They're still separated by floor. His cubicle farm is just for the very senior people who are already in (and anyway something very sensitive would happen in a room).
- danaris 3y ago
  > The CEO and directs should have a similar work situation to all the other office managers and their directs. I would call this kind of dogfooding a necessary but insufficient condition for accepting what they say about open-plan offices. After all, just because an open-plan office is better for people whose job (often) literally consists of talking to people all day doesn't mean it is better for people whose job is to focus all day on code, spreadsheets, or other kinds of individual work.

glimshe 3y ago

Private offices and cubicles with high walls are the best if we are excluding remote. Microsoft used to give most employees a private office in the late 90s to roughly the mid 2010s - and that was heaven. Collaboration was great because you could go to your coworker's private office or even bring people along for the much-vaunted in-person whiteboarding. It happened a lot. The only thing that was frowned upon was to leave your office door closed 100% of the time, but some people did just that anyway; that was similar to the remote experience, but at the office.

danaris 3y ago
> Private offices and cubicles with high walls are the best if we are excluding remote. I really wish people would stop conflating these, as if they were meaningfully equivalent. Like, yes: compared to open-plan, high-walled cubes are obviously much better. But I've been in high-walled cubes, and I've been in (and now have) a private office. There's really no comparison when it comes to privacy, customizability, and just overall the feeling of it being your space.
- glimshe 3y ago
  To be clear, I agree they are not meaningfully equivalent. I just meant to say that they are the best options other than remote, especially if you consider that private offices haven't been common for software developers for over 30 years. Private offices are awesome and cubicles are tolerable to fine depending on your coworkers. Open offices are almost invariably terrible for employees - although I have to say that I was once in a large room with a (often closed) door along 5 other engineers as a sort of "private open office" and that was actually okay.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
> you could go to your coworker's private office or even bring people along for the much-vaunted in-person whiteboarding. I was at one company; it had private offices, and this is exactly what would happen. You'd go to someone's office; you could share ideas back and forth, often on the whiteboard; it was low-judgment -- just you, the other person, and maybe a third -- so people spoke freely. I was at another company; it had a SV-style open office and a SV-style interview which, in pre-COVID days, used a whiteboard. It was competitive; people were from top schools. You could tell nobody wanted to use the "you can write on this glass surface" whiteboards scattered around the open office, because they knew there'd be a dozen sets of eyes able to see their vulnerable thought processes and silently judge them; it'd be a show; and they were slightly traumatized by the interview that had gotten them in. I think large open offices change things from, "I'm interacting with another person", to "I'm putting on a show." And nobody wants to put on a show, quite understandably. I think open offices are really about reducing employees' feelings of being sheltered or safe. It comes out of the same mindset that speaks of employees "hiding" and not doing work. I found that I was spending too much mental energy scanning the horizon for predators, and not enough thinking about the ostensible technical problem.