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Precisely. And that's still the culture in some places (Microsoft being a good example). Generally many devs will establish a rapport with folks on their team a

Precisely. And that's still the culture in some places (Microsoft being a good example). Generally many devs will establish a rapport with folks on their team and in other parts of the company to a degree where occasional visits won't translate into wondering what needs fixing ASAP. Also, if everyone has an office then you can schedule meetings with other folks in their office, or your office. As long as it's not more than like 3 or 4 people. Or, if you're working on something and need to ruminate you go wander into a friend's office and talk about it or whatever. Though if someone has their door closed they probably don't want to be disturbed. People who don't have experience with offices have these bizarre notions about office etiquette and collaboration. They also easily fall into post hoc / confirmation bias fallacies, where they see some positive result of collaborating in an open plan office and imagine that they would be forced to live in a world without the benefit of that spontaneous collaboration in an environment with offices. But they ignore the fact that such things very much do occur with offices, and they also ignore the opportunity cost of open plan layouts. Of conversations which don't happen because the work space is deathly quiet due to everyone trying to work, and you can't just hop into a friend's office space and close the door so you don't bother other people, as just one of many examples.

VLM 12y ago
WRT "Though if someone has their door closed they probably don't want to be disturbed." there was some cultural variation but every place I worked at, as opposed to heard about, it was a huge gossip worthy social faux pas to close an office door unless there was a private managerial activity going on in the office at that moment (yelled at, review, interview, etc). You closed the door at night or when unoccupied because you had $200K of hardware prototypes and protocol analyzers and laptops literally laying around unsecured. And it was a major social faux pas to open a closed door unless you were a resident of that room. Even if you were best friends you don't just walk in, any more than you'd dig thru their filing cabinet or wallet without them present. 90s office work reminded me a lot of dorm room life and culture. Dorm culture probably hasn't changed in the past couple decades, and having dorm rooms with doors hardly eliminates all social activity; if anything it encourages it and military basic training style barracks are not considered a requirement of socialization.
- gabriel34 12y ago
  Why was it a faux pas? Did people assume closed doors meant slacking off? Or was it considered rude to call/knock on someones' door, therefore rendering them inaccessible? PS: Loved the dorm room/barracks analogy

VLM 12y ago

WRT "Though if someone has their door closed they probably don't want to be disturbed." there was some cultural variation but every place I worked at, as opposed to heard about, it was a huge gossip worthy social faux pas to close an office door unless there was a private managerial activity going on in the office at that moment (yelled at, review, interview, etc). You closed the door at night or when unoccupied because you had $200K of hardware prototypes and protocol analyzers and laptops literally laying around unsecured. And it was a major social faux pas to open a closed door unless you were a resident of that room. Even if you were best friends you don't just walk in, any more than you'd dig thru their filing cabinet or wallet without them present. 90s office work reminded me a lot of dorm room life and culture. Dorm culture probably hasn't changed in the past couple decades, and having dorm rooms with doors hardly eliminates all social activity; if anything it encourages it and military basic training style barracks are not considered a requirement of socialization.

gabriel34 12y ago
Why was it a faux pas? Did people assume closed doors meant slacking off? Or was it considered rude to call/knock on someones' door, therefore rendering them inaccessible? PS: Loved the dorm room/barracks analogy