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Why was management involving themselves in decisions about carpets and walls? Surely this was a poor use of time in area where they are not experts. An architec

Why was management involving themselves in decisions about carpets and walls? Surely this was a poor use of time in area where they are not experts. An architecture or interior design company would be one thing, but engineers and management should at most merely approve decisions. Surely their involving staff sent the signal that worrying about this stuff was OK. If one assistant or outsourced interior designer had been in charge how many problems would have been avoided? Every business reaches the point where everyone can no longer work in the same room. Even if you continue renting out three floors of a building, you will eventually lose the "everyone knows everyone" feeling unique to small companies. When there are 500 people in the company there's no getting around it. You lose something there, but it's a sacrifice most companies make in order to continue growing. There are some thing you can do to maintain your culture. You can usually maintain a fairly flat management structure. There are large companies - eBay, last I checked - where almost no one has an office and everyone works side-by-side. You can continue to promote events and activities. You can continue to promote risk taking rather than becoming risk averse as most large companies do. I don't know the situation, but I really doubt that "new building" is the unavoidable root cause of the author's problems. Some loss of startup culture may be unavoidable as a company grows, and perhaps the time-wasting could have been managed better in this case.

Domenic_S 13y ago
I'm usually at the North campus in one of those nobody-has-an-office spaces, but I spent a few days working with the Milo guys out of their space in the "Milo House" and that was awesome. The cramped quarters had a startup-y feel to them that was great.
jacques_chester 13y ago
> Why was management involving themselves in decisions about carpets and walls? Surely this was a poor use of time in area where they are not experts. It's pretty much the perfect example of Bike Shedding. Most people can't build a bike shed, but they want to put in their 2c, so they will bicker endlessly about what colour to paint it.
- NoPiece 13y ago
  Also, things like selecting office location are so deeply political that decisions about them invariably creep to the top.
  - lsc 13y ago
    >Also, things like selecting office location are so deeply political that decisions about them invariably creep to the top. I'd argue that /moving/ an office is almost always going to cause rancor because moving your house is expensive and difficult, and, well, obviously you had an acceptable commute before. Commute times are huge; I'd actually like to see some numbers; my gut would be that when you move the office more than 10 miles, your turnover goes through the roof for the next 6 months or so. (the interesting thing about a commute is that especially for younger workers, it's not always obvious how brutal the commute will be. "Oh yeah, half an hour each way, I can deal with it" - 6 months later? your view is dramatically different, especially if you have been working long hours at the office.) So yeah, moving the office, I mean, more than a few miles, is a huge deal and absolutely needs management involvement. Potentially you could lose some really key people. I'd argue that deciding, you know, about shit like carpet, on the other hand? the only time that should move up the ladder is when it's still a business run by 'some guy' - and even then, it needs to be a recognized bikeshed. (the cube/office decision might also be worth the time. There's a real difference. but picking out carpet? yeah. leave that to someone who doesn't have anything better to do, or outsource it.)
  - slyall 13y ago
    I believe Joel Garreau was the guy who said that a company's new location will be as close as possible to a CEO's house without affecting his property value. A recent article on the topic: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19239/ceos-want-faster-commutes-for-whom/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19239/ceos-want-fas...
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Not really, because with an office building the people who want to put their 2 cents in are going to be working inside it and want some input on their working conditions. They're not just arguing to feel smarter about something, but because they're going to have to live with the outcome.

Domenic_S 13y ago

I'm usually at the North campus in one of those nobody-has-an-office spaces, but I spent a few days working with the Milo guys out of their space in the "Milo House" and that was awesome. The cramped quarters had a startup-y feel to them that was great.

jacques_chester 13y ago

> Why was management involving themselves in decisions about carpets and walls? Surely this was a poor use of time in area where they are not experts. It's pretty much the perfect example of Bike Shedding. Most people can't build a bike shed, but they want to put in their 2c, so they will bicker endlessly about what colour to paint it.

NoPiece 13y ago
Also, things like selecting office location are so deeply political that decisions about them invariably creep to the top.
- lsc 13y ago
  >Also, things like selecting office location are so deeply political that decisions about them invariably creep to the top. I'd argue that /moving/ an office is almost always going to cause rancor because moving your house is expensive and difficult, and, well, obviously you had an acceptable commute before. Commute times are huge; I'd actually like to see some numbers; my gut would be that when you move the office more than 10 miles, your turnover goes through the roof for the next 6 months or so. (the interesting thing about a commute is that especially for younger workers, it's not always obvious how brutal the commute will be. "Oh yeah, half an hour each way, I can deal with it" - 6 months later? your view is dramatically different, especially if you have been working long hours at the office.) So yeah, moving the office, I mean, more than a few miles, is a huge deal and absolutely needs management involvement. Potentially you could lose some really key people. I'd argue that deciding, you know, about shit like carpet, on the other hand? the only time that should move up the ladder is when it's still a business run by 'some guy' - and even then, it needs to be a recognized bikeshed. (the cube/office decision might also be worth the time. There's a real difference. but picking out carpet? yeah. leave that to someone who doesn't have anything better to do, or outsource it.)
- slyall 13y ago
  I believe Joel Garreau was the guy who said that a company's new location will be as close as possible to a CEO's house without affecting his property value. A recent article on the topic: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19239/ceos-want-faster-commutes-for-whom/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19239/ceos-want-fas...
anigbrowl 13y ago
Not really, because with an office building the people who want to put their 2 cents in are going to be working inside it and want some input on their working conditions. They're not just arguing to feel smarter about something, but because they're going to have to live with the outcome.