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The last place I worked at was an online advertising agency. My experience was similar, and managed to get things done only by coming early (often before anyone

The last place I worked at was an online advertising agency. My experience was similar, and managed to get things done only by coming early (often before anyone else) and wearing a good pair of headphones. I particularly disliked the fact that some people lacking a technical background don't really understand that we often need a distraction free environment. Perhaps it's because their creative spark comes by brainstorming in a more lively environment or they have seen too many people coding at Starbucks.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Starbucks and open-plan offices are worlds apart. In a Starbucks, it's loud, but you can tune out the noise without social penalty. No one is going to look over your shoulder or interrupt you in a coffee shop. You can put on noise-canceling headphones and sit with your back to a wall. Only a small percentage of the evil of open-plan offices is noise-related. It's the emotional load of being visible to people who can fuck with their livelihood for any reason or no reason that makes open-plan offices terrible. People become resentful, competitive, and miserable. Those environments are said to foster collaboration, but have the opposite effect, because most people shut down at a certain level of sensory and social overload, the result being that communication grinds to a halt. Open-plan offices are said to be egalitarian, but in practice, they increase rank discrepancies and social inequalities, because they reflect an unconditional right of management to harass and monitor subordinates. The other interesting thing is that there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems in an open-plan office. The question is how long it will take. Median seems to be about 10-15 years, making open-plan offices a legal way to say, "We don't want to hire anyone over 40".
- Robin_Message 14y ago
  Do you have a citation for "there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems"? I mean, come on, over 90%? If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't. I don't doubt open plan is unpleasant; nor that it can cause health problems; and I accept that the rise in health problems may be hard to measure because most companies moved to open plan. However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't. The problem is that an open-plan ban is not appropriate for all work environments. One example would be a hospital. If you can't handle the stress of an operating room (and many people can't) then you shouldn't be a surgeon. The job has intrinsic stress, and that's a factor in the compensation. That's the fundamental problem with regulation and government intervention: it's hard to get the special cases right. An open-plan ban would be a good thing for the vast majority of white-collar office workers, but it clearly can't be applied to all work environments (medicine, military). If I recall correctly, many countries do have lower limits on personal working space, usually in the neighborhood of 10 m^2. It'd be hard to enact a blanket open-plan ban because the concept isn't well-defined, but work space regulations are already in place. An additional factor that is hard to regulate: the health load of an open-plan office seems to be a function of the person's age, position in the hierarchy, and the amount of personal space. Open-plan wouldn't be so bad if people had the recommended 200 SF (18.6 m^2) with barriers at their backs. At the typical 50 SF, with the person visible from behind and prone to managerial harassment, it's a catastrophe. However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points. Perhaps 90% is high, but the going assumption people make when designing office spaces is that the typical open plan office (< 100 SF, open-back visibility) will increase attrition by about 10% per year for younger people and 20% for older people. How much of this one wishes to attribute to health issues, and how much to less serious garden-variety unhappiness, is somewhat of an open question.

michaelochurch 14y ago

Starbucks and open-plan offices are worlds apart. In a Starbucks, it's loud, but you can tune out the noise without social penalty. No one is going to look over your shoulder or interrupt you in a coffee shop. You can put on noise-canceling headphones and sit with your back to a wall. Only a small percentage of the evil of open-plan offices is noise-related. It's the emotional load of being visible to people who can fuck with their livelihood for any reason or no reason that makes open-plan offices terrible. People become resentful, competitive, and miserable. Those environments are said to foster collaboration, but have the opposite effect, because most people shut down at a certain level of sensory and social overload, the result being that communication grinds to a halt. Open-plan offices are said to be egalitarian, but in practice, they increase rank discrepancies and social inequalities, because they reflect an unconditional right of management to harass and monitor subordinates. The other interesting thing is that there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems in an open-plan office. The question is how long it will take. Median seems to be about 10-15 years, making open-plan offices a legal way to say, "We don't want to hire anyone over 40".

Robin_Message 14y ago
Do you have a citation for "there's a lot of evidence suggesting that almost everyone (over 90%) will develop work-related health problems"? I mean, come on, over 90%? If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't. I don't doubt open plan is unpleasant; nor that it can cause health problems; and I accept that the rise in health problems may be hard to measure because most companies moved to open plan. However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  If the evidence was that clear then you would, for example, expect some worker-friendly country like France or Sweden to have banned or regulated open plan offices. As far as I know, they haven't. The problem is that an open-plan ban is not appropriate for all work environments. One example would be a hospital. If you can't handle the stress of an operating room (and many people can't) then you shouldn't be a surgeon. The job has intrinsic stress, and that's a factor in the compensation. That's the fundamental problem with regulation and government intervention: it's hard to get the special cases right. An open-plan ban would be a good thing for the vast majority of white-collar office workers, but it clearly can't be applied to all work environments (medicine, military). If I recall correctly, many countries do have lower limits on personal working space, usually in the neighborhood of 10 m^2. It'd be hard to enact a blanket open-plan ban because the concept isn't well-defined, but work space regulations are already in place. An additional factor that is hard to regulate: the health load of an open-plan office seems to be a function of the person's age, position in the hierarchy, and the amount of personal space. Open-plan wouldn't be so bad if people had the recommended 200 SF (18.6 m^2) with barriers at their backs. At the typical 50 SF, with the person visible from behind and prone to managerial harassment, it's a catastrophe. However, what you said about >90% health problems and 10-15 year worker lifetimes oversells and undermines what are otherwise very good points. Perhaps 90% is high, but the going assumption people make when designing office spaces is that the typical open plan office (< 100 SF, open-back visibility) will increase attrition by about 10% per year for younger people and 20% for older people. How much of this one wishes to attribute to health issues, and how much to less serious garden-variety unhappiness, is somewhat of an open question.