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I thought it looked creepy, like an adult daycare center. I was approached twice and interviewed twice by Google but I don't think I'd fit that culture. No of

• derwiki 13y ago
  I'm surprised at how polarizing no offices vs open offices is. My first job at IBM, I had an office with two co-workers. They were great, but on days they were out it was sooo isolating. When I quit and took a job at a start up in SF with an open office plan, I loved it immediately. I could look across the room and see if the systems guy was there or getting coffee, instead of pinging into the Sametime void. So, I'm clearly on the open office side of the camp. What are the main arguments for offices? Peace and quiet and the ability to focus?
  • 10098 13y ago
    I've worked in open-space offices most of my career and I hate it a lot. When I'm debugging or writing new code, I need concentration. Open space takes it away. There's too much going on. Someone might be talking to someone else. People might just be moving around. And if you desk is in the proximity of the kitchen (mine once was), you're screwed because you're definitely not getting any concentration with all the chatter that usually goes on around the kitchen table. Yeah, sometimes you can block the noise out by putting on headphones and playing some repetitive techno/trance, but sometimes even music can get distracting. The supposed benefit of open space is that if you have a question, you can just go and ask that person. But we have IM for that. Not to mention the fact that when you're asking the question personally, they have to stop whatever they are doing and answer straight away. That, by the way, is another concentration killer. I've come to the conclusion that my ideal working space has 2-3 people besides me in it. 4-5 is a little crowded, but OK, anything beyond 6 is bad.
  • tikhonj 13y ago
    This is something I've found very weird: there's a sharp difference between the opinions of people I know in person and people online. HN commenters love to hate open office plans. It's one of the few topics on which they agree with /r/programming! And yet everywhere I've spent time has been in favor of open offices. This includes a few startups, sure, but also an enterprise software company (Guidewire), an academic research lab (Berkeley ParLab) and a quantitative trading firm (Jane Street). In the ParLab, even most professors didn't have dedicated offices--apparently, this makes them more accessible and gets them to talk to their students more. David Patterson, the leader of the lab--with a lot of research experience--talked about how switching to an open layout was a real improvement in the research process. At JSC, both traders and developers share an open space. This makes communication between the two parts of the company much more fluid. The founders of the firm all originally came from another firm where developers and traders were sequestered from each other, and they have found the shared open space to be entirely preferable. Many of the other experienced people I've worked with have also been big fans of open office layouts. And these are some of the most productive organizations I've ever seen--probably some of the best full stop. And yet most online commenters treat it as a given that an open space is completely inferior to real offices. Personally, I'm a big fan of working in a nice open layout. It makes it much easier to talk to other people, even if I don't have a specific problem to solve. This makes work both more pleasant and more efficient because I can get outside input or an extra set of eyes at any point in the development process. Moreover, since I'm similarly helping other people out, I get a good sense of their projects as well. And if I need to concentrate, I can just put on headphones or go to a quiet room. But I much prefer that not to be the default action, only taken when it's needed.
    • com2kid 13y ago
      I wonder how many of those people ever had their own office. If you don't know any better, what you have may seem pretty good. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. For some types of problem solving, a closed space to think for an extended period of time is really useful.
      • 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
  • mindcrime 13y ago
    What are the main arguments for offices? Peace and quiet and the ability to focus? Yes, with a heavy emphasis on the cost of (mental) context switches. Personally I despise working in an "open plan" environment more than almost anything in the world. That said, I do it at my consulting job, and it's tolerable mainly because A. I'm not always in "the office" and B. it's a fairly small group. I should point out though, that there's a balance to be struck. I mean, even I do like the open plan thing for brief moments here and there... Some of the random conversations that start up are hilarious and I've literally laughed until I was crying on occasion. And I will engage in the occasional nerf dart war with everyone. BUT... on those occasions when you absolutely have to have peace and quiet and are trying to focus intently on something, there's nothing worse than having to deal with all the noise and ruckus that sometimes kicks up. On balance, I'll take a private office with a door any day. But I've always said that my goal for Fogbeam is - when we get to a point where we have employees, an office, etc. - to give every employee a private office with a door (and a "guest chair" or two), but complemented by plenty of open spaces (preferably around the perimeter of the building, near sources of natural light) with tables, chairs, sofas, rolling whiteboards, etc. so people can get out, be social, collaborate face-to-face, while having the sanctity of an office to duck into for deep thought / intense focus times. I have also pondered trying to create a few "commons room" type areas. Of course, it's all a moot point until we start making money... sigh
  • robyates 13y ago
    I enjoy the open floor plan as well. The ease in which I can have conversations with my manager (assuming they are sitting near to me) is probably the biggest benefit. I feel this makes me more productive since more impromptu conversations can take place. Being able to listen in on any random coworker conversations and nerf gun battles is nice as well. However, on the few occasions when private space in necessary, then an office would be preferred. Of course, many others prefer individual offices to an open floor plan. Similar to living in a city or the suburbs (SF vs. Silicon Valley here in the Bay area), it is a personal preference that never ceases to divide people.
  • philwelch 13y ago
    There's open space and then there's open space. If there are cube walls and other de facto barriers separating my space from the space of others in my team, and higher walls separating my team's space from the rest of the company, I'm happy. But if I have to choose from one extreme or another, I'd rather have my own separate space with an office and a door that closes rather than sitting at a conference table elbow to elbow with a sales guy who spends all day on the phone.
    • foobarian 13y ago
      +1 At our company we have cubicles with walls just high enough that you can't see anyone sitting down, but you can see all across the space when standing up. If I need to ask someone a question I can pop up and see if they are there. If don't mind getting interrupted I switch my desk to a standing configuration, or if I need zone time I sit down and go at it. I prefer this kind of office design. I also worked in both a real open space without dividers, and a shared office. I hated both. The open plan was too distracting and loud, while in the shared office the officemate got on my nerves, yet it was way lonely when she was out. Also people tended to keep their doors closed so there wasn't that feeling of community.
  • ryandrake 13y ago
    I've worked in cubicles and in an open office most of my life. I'm now working for a company with offices with doors, and I have to say, offices are pretty much the worst. In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hear all the technical conversations going on and are able to jump in at any point if needed. Someone's sketching something out on a whiteboard, anyone can just glance it over if they're curious or feel they can contribute. With offices, I've found people tend to hide behind their doors. E-mail/IM can be ignored. You have to force yourself to get out and have face to face interactions. If you want to understand how things are going, what the current challenges are, or have any kind of technical discussion that requires more than a few people, you need to schedule a meeting, pry everyone out of their offices and haul them into a conference room. You can't feel the general "pulse" of the place like you can with an open plan. The only thing worse than closed-door offices is telecommuting, where all of the above is true plus there's not (generally) even the option of getting someone face-to-face at all. Quite honestly, I don't think I would accept a job offer at a place if you told me that a significant number of people telecommuted. Different strokes for different folks, but I find open offices suit my work style and need for human interaction much better than offices.
    • mwfunk 13y ago
      "In an open office (and to a lesser extent, places with open cubicles), you can have constant interaction with other people. You can scan the room quickly to see who's busy, who's concentrating, who looks available for a quick chat, etc. You can hear all the technical conversations going on and are able to jump in at any point if needed. Someone's sketching something out on a whiteboard, anyone can just glance it over if they're curious or feel they can contribute." This is exactly why people don't like open office plans. People can and will pester you all the time when you're deep into writing really difficult code. In lines of work which involve more interpersonal communication (and don't require long stretches of uninterrupted concentration), designing the workspace to encourage as much face-to-face talk as possible is an advantage. However, in my line of work (systems programming, and this probably applies to most programming jobs), it's a huge disadvantage.
  • judk 13y ago
    Open offices are bad when people not on your team wander through and have loud conversations. This problem gets more likely/common in larger companies.
• pgbovine 13y ago
  No offices -- just open spaces. not true; plenty of offices around perimeters. Too academic (from Stanford days?) for my tastes. also untrue; googlers are mostly evaluated on quantifiable impact on products, not by their academic research publications. they are explicitly not an academic lab. for details, see: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en/us/pubs/archive/38149.pdf http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.co...
  • dekhn 13y ago
    This isn't completely correct, although you used enough qualifiers that I'm ok with it. I work at Google as an engineer, do blue-sky scientific research in biophysics, and publish it; those publications (which are unrelated to Google's core mission) are part of my performance evaluation: See, for example: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2013&q=author:%22de+konerding%22&hl=en&as_sdt=1,5 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2013&q=author:%22de... for a couple recent papers I published with academic scientists based on blue-sky academic research carried out at Google by Visiting Faculty (see this page for a list of the Visiting Faculty and their projects: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-hours-awarded-to.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-...) That said, I really am a unicorn by the definition of your recent post, and there aren't very many of me at Google. After completing work on Exacycle (and handing it off to a team of scientists to play with), I've moved to a new project to apply my skills to something that is completely consistent with the hybrid approach. But our hybrid approach is not limited to computer science. Many of us who do some kind of research at Google worked in academia, and many also worked in the fabled research labs of the 60s like PARC or Bell Labs; we learned the lessons those labs taught us, and are now applying at high speed and skill to challenging new problems. As for the term "infantilizing" that's just absurd linkbait.
• jrockway 13y ago
  Some teams at Google sit in enclosed offices. You can choose. (I prefer some walls to keep the noise level down, and I had the opportunity to pick once. But everyone else on the team wanted to sit in the open area. So I guess it's really one of those things that depends on the individual.) The signs are the names of printers.