15 ms·

Check out Fog Creek's office: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html > Gobs of well-lit perime

Check out Fog Creek's office: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/12/29.html > Gobs of well-lit perimeter offices. Every developer, tester, and program manager is in a private office; all except two have direct windows to the outside (the two that don't get plenty of daylight through two glass walls). The longer I spend in this environment (coming up to five years) the less I like it. I like the idea of having large, interesting open spaces for more social activities including work, but most of the work I do lends itself well to being not surrounded by people having conversations or - in some cases - literally just messing around all day. There's gotta be a balance.

gregd 12y ago
I don't understand if you like Fog Creek's environment or you don't. At any rate, I'm so over the open floor plan/cubicle mazes. I get really distracted by the doppler effect that conversations (sometimes LOUD conversations) that pass by my cubicle, have. Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon, but I much prefer the solitude that an office with a door provides.
- basicallydan 12y ago
  Sorry, to be clear, I am very much in favour of Fog Creek's environment :)
- ThrustVectoring 12y ago
  I've heard that cubicles are worse than open offices in terms of audio distraction. In an open office, you've got a constant visual reminder that people can hear you. People tend to be more mindful of their volume levels and where/how they make noise.
  - jerf 12y ago
    I work in an open floor plan. We have fairly standard carpet and ceiling acoustic tiles, the walls are drywall, so we haven't gone to extremes to soundproof but it's not tile and open warehouse ceilings either. We have a culture of being reasonably respectful, but will still have conversations at times. In practice... I find myself hardly remembering the people that exist even 20 feet from me. In theory I can see about 50 people, but I almost never actually remember that. I'm somewhat sensitive to conversation and extremely sensitive to music (can not stand music I'm not in control of), and I'm fine. I do have modestly nice passively acoustically isolated headphones and frequently use them, but I do that anyhow, not because I'm trying to dodge noise, and I can go hours without them just fine, usually putting them on because I want music, not isolation. I find myself wondering what percentage of open office complaints come from A: people who are simply psychologically unsuited to them under any circumstances B: people whose open office experiences involved tile floors, warehouse ceilings, and glass walls, which would be a completely different acoustic experience and C: people who haven't actually spent any time in a decent one and are just assuming they'd hate it. No sarcasm. For that matter the studies that keep asserting how bad they I find myself wondering about A and B... certainly you can construct an open space that does suck, but that doesn't mean they all do, and I've never dug into one enough to see what they specify as the "open space". And to be clear, I'm not asserting that they're obviously better and everybody should love them (and let me reiterate I completely believe in the existence of a set of people who will never like them), but my experience just doesn't seem to bear out the "they suck and can never work and why on Earth would any company ever put them in" attitude... at most it seems like they might be slightly worse on average but it may be below the noise threshold, and it would be the incredibly-perfectly well-run company for whom this would be their biggest problem.
    - mahyarm 12y ago
      Open offices are more vulnerable to bad cultural practices that you have no control over. A private office fixes these issues with pure physics. If open offices had librarians shushing everyone for talking too loud constantly and stopping people from shoulder surfing they would be a lot better for many people.
      - seunosewa 12y ago
        I think that's actually a good idea. Someone in management should try it and blog about the results.
        mahyarm 12y ago
        Managers hate these solutions because they are explicit social conflicts that creates a lot of ill will and negative morale. If a pre-commit script enforces something vs. an angry email from another engineer it's far less personal. Worse yet, you have to be a pretty high level manager to make the middle managers do this, because some of them like the noise, or being able to get status any time, etc.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - RogerL 12y ago
    I wish that was true here. One big floor, I can clearly hear several conversations right now. I should be doing math; I'm here posting on HN. We have one guy that likes to put somebody on the speakerphone, and then yell into it. For hours. I'm so distressed.
    - 72deluxe 12y ago
      The guy the other side of the corridor likes to play the radio allllllll day long over some large studio monitor speakers. I shut the door to this office but another guy who sits at the opposite end of this large office (therefore as far away from the door as you can be) likes to open it and jam it open. I truly despise the flow of bland music that I have no control over, and the ongoing chatting/arguing that passes for radio entertainment. It's like listening to other people's pointless conversations. I sometimes put headphones on but incessantly bombarding my ears with noise just to cancel out other noise is like spraying deodorant on excrement - pointless. It also means I'll suffer gradual hearing loss I sometimes wonder if people don't understand that we need time to solve problems and problem solving is best done in quiet! The other guys in this office do not write software so I sometimes wonder if people don't "get" it.
    - dceddia 12y ago
      Maybe invest in some noise-cancelling headphones, and use a white noise generator. I like SimplyNoise for that. It does a great job at drowning out background noises. And then if you can STILL hear them clearly, put in earplugs under the headphones and crank up the volume.
      - RogerL 12y ago
        No, sorry, not damaging my ears for bad decisions of management. I don't mean to be argumentative, you are just trying to solve the problem that I am in. I've done the headphone thing, they are noise cancelling, I listen to SimplyRain on them, and that helps, but I just can't take all that input. I want quiet. I need quiet. I don't want distraction that is slightly less annoying than the current distraction, at the risk of my health besides. But yes, your suggestions are really good for the people it can work for.
- voidlogic 12y ago
  I normally work remote, but when I come into the office-- I come in 2-3 hrs early and stay 2 hours late to get my work done...
df07 12y ago
Stack Exchange's office is very similar. Starting to feel like Joel is the only one who still believes in private offices. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.708933,-74.006578,3a,75y,203.61h,72.75t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sAVBuqvu0UUUAAAQIt-PqBw!2e0!3e2?hl=en-US https://www.google.com/maps/@40.708933,-74.006578,3a,75y,203...
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Those look like great offices! I must be in the wrong job haha
- gregd 12y ago
  THAT is a gorgeous workspace. I'm envious..
- k__ 12y ago
  Windows to open spaces in my back? No thanks...
  - Max_Horstmann 12y ago
    You can move the desk around. My "window" is on my left.
    - k__ 12y ago
      Don't you feel like in a terrarium?
      - Max_Horstmann 12y ago
        Yes.
        k__ 12y ago
        :(
        12y ago
phowat 12y ago
I've worked on open plan floors and also had a private office before. Currently, I share an office with one other dev and I feel it's the best setting I've ever had.
- sb8244 12y ago
  Peopleware does suggest two person semi private offices as a preferred setup based on real productivity studies.
- Corrado 12y ago
  I can confirm this. One of the most productive spaces in my career has been a long U desk with myself and another programmer at each end. We could roll over and talk to each other, or just sit with our backs to each other and ignore the other person. Great!
mncolinlee 12y ago
Until 2009 or so, we used to have private offices at Cray. There were plenty of impromptu conversations. I would argue that they were more pleasant and productive, since we didn't have to worry we were upsetting everyone around us while brainstorming or discussing tech trends. We would meet in an engineer's office so not everyone had to hear the whole thing.
rayiner 12y ago
Offices are a really great example of the push to keep programmers from thinking of themselves as professionals, either by treating them like IT or tech support, or like college kids. Google or Facebook's revenue per engineer is probably 3x that of a law firm or consulting firm, but the overwhelming practice in the latter sorts of places is for each professional to have an office with a door. When you're a growing startup, having private offices costs you flexibility as well as cash because open plan is easier to reconfigure as you grow. If you're at the point where you're commissioning a Ghery, you're well past that excuse.
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  > the push to keep programmers from thinking of themselves as professionals Hah. If only we had someone else to blame for that. We do that to ourselves. Programmers act like spoiled little kids when choosing which jobs to apply to or how to conduct their career, (look at all those juice bars! Never seen an accountant use that as a selection criteria.) are often completely unreasonable, (I want $100K salary right out of school, it better be $140K in a year or I'm jumping ship.) and consistently refuse to move to management. (you must pay me more and more money to drift further and further away from company priorities)
  - EricBart 12y ago
    Programmers refusing to move to management is not unreasonable. I like being a developer. It's what I studied in school and it's the job I applied for.
    - vinceguidry 12y ago
      It is if you expect career advancement. If you want to stay in the same role making the same salary, plus a minor bump every year for 30 years, by all means don't push yourself to try to figure out how to manage more parts of the organization you work for. But programmers want their companies to indulge their lofty career ambitions while still being exactly as useful to the company. They want to be like doctors without taking their work half as seriously.
DigitalBison 12y ago
>> Every developer, tester, and program manager is in a private office > The longer I spend in this environment (coming up to five years) the less I like it > I like the idea of having large, interesting open spaces for more social activities including work, but most of the work I do lends itself well to being not surrounded by people having conversations This is confusing.. Are you saying you do like Fog Creek's setup, or you don't?
- basicallydan 12y ago
  I do!
- anon4 12y ago
  I think he says he likes to mix it up depending on what he's doing. Quiet space for focused, intense coding, open space for socialising.
- yaddayadda 12y ago
  I've seen a couple of comments expressing confusion at @asicallydan's comment, but it seems pretty clear to me. For the last five years he has been in an environment with private offices. Initially he liked the private offices, over the years he's liked them less and less. Now he likes the idea of large, interesting open spaces more than private offices.
  - basicallydan 12y ago
    Haha, actually it's the other way around. Originally I had "The longer I spend in this environment" at the top but moved it when I thought it'd be good to start my comment with an example of a type of office environment I like the idea of.
abecedarius 12y ago
How are those offices private when there's a full glass wall on the corridor, and what looks like an opening below the ceiling to the next office? That appears to add up to neither visual nor audio screening. (Audio distraction causes trouble in conversation for me, and visual distraction disrupts any kind of concentration. I might actually prefer a tall cubicle to this setup, not to endorse the cubicle.)
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  Private offices are not an extension of your home, it's your workspace. Why can't people see you from the corridor? Just turn your back to the glass, or use an Oculus Rift.
  - abecedarius 12y ago
    Motion within one's visual field, especially intermittent motion, deters concentration on things other than that motion. (Why do you think TVs cut scenes every few seconds?) The desks there do not obviously make it possible to face away from the corridor; plus people walking by cast shadows. Facing away does help, but it's inferior. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895162 has someone else reporting the same complaints about motion; I guess it's not a coincidence this is someone else developing nontrivial algorithms.) The feeling of being watched over your shoulder isn't something I'd dismiss either, though it's not a work-ruiner by itself for me. If you're actively anti-privacy, stop calling them private offices.
letstryagain 12y ago
Now check out Atlassian's new office: https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlassian/sets/72157631672573702/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlassian/sets/721576316725737... Guess who's winning the bug tracking market share
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  I'm not sure - who is winning the market share? That said, I'm amazed by the size of the offices etc. from just bug tracking software. Does everyone not just use Trac or Bugzilla or something?

gregd 12y ago

I don't understand if you like Fog Creek's environment or you don't. At any rate, I'm so over the open floor plan/cubicle mazes. I get really distracted by the doppler effect that conversations (sometimes LOUD conversations) that pass by my cubicle, have. Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon, but I much prefer the solitude that an office with a door provides.

basicallydan 12y ago
Sorry, to be clear, I am very much in favour of Fog Creek's environment :)
ThrustVectoring 12y ago
I've heard that cubicles are worse than open offices in terms of audio distraction. In an open office, you've got a constant visual reminder that people can hear you. People tend to be more mindful of their volume levels and where/how they make noise.
- jerf 12y ago
  I work in an open floor plan. We have fairly standard carpet and ceiling acoustic tiles, the walls are drywall, so we haven't gone to extremes to soundproof but it's not tile and open warehouse ceilings either. We have a culture of being reasonably respectful, but will still have conversations at times. In practice... I find myself hardly remembering the people that exist even 20 feet from me. In theory I can see about 50 people, but I almost never actually remember that. I'm somewhat sensitive to conversation and extremely sensitive to music (can not stand music I'm not in control of), and I'm fine. I do have modestly nice passively acoustically isolated headphones and frequently use them, but I do that anyhow, not because I'm trying to dodge noise, and I can go hours without them just fine, usually putting them on because I want music, not isolation. I find myself wondering what percentage of open office complaints come from A: people who are simply psychologically unsuited to them under any circumstances B: people whose open office experiences involved tile floors, warehouse ceilings, and glass walls, which would be a completely different acoustic experience and C: people who haven't actually spent any time in a decent one and are just assuming they'd hate it. No sarcasm. For that matter the studies that keep asserting how bad they I find myself wondering about A and B... certainly you can construct an open space that does suck, but that doesn't mean they all do, and I've never dug into one enough to see what they specify as the "open space". And to be clear, I'm not asserting that they're obviously better and everybody should love them (and let me reiterate I completely believe in the existence of a set of people who will never like them), but my experience just doesn't seem to bear out the "they suck and can never work and why on Earth would any company ever put them in" attitude... at most it seems like they might be slightly worse on average but it may be below the noise threshold, and it would be the incredibly-perfectly well-run company for whom this would be their biggest problem.
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    Open offices are more vulnerable to bad cultural practices that you have no control over. A private office fixes these issues with pure physics. If open offices had librarians shushing everyone for talking too loud constantly and stopping people from shoulder surfing they would be a lot better for many people.
    - seunosewa 12y ago
      I think that's actually a good idea. Someone in management should try it and blog about the results.
      - mahyarm 12y ago
        Managers hate these solutions because they are explicit social conflicts that creates a lot of ill will and negative morale. If a pre-commit script enforces something vs. an angry email from another engineer it's far less personal. Worse yet, you have to be a pretty high level manager to make the middle managers do this, because some of them like the noise, or being able to get status any time, etc.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- RogerL 12y ago
  I wish that was true here. One big floor, I can clearly hear several conversations right now. I should be doing math; I'm here posting on HN. We have one guy that likes to put somebody on the speakerphone, and then yell into it. For hours. I'm so distressed.
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    The guy the other side of the corridor likes to play the radio allllllll day long over some large studio monitor speakers. I shut the door to this office but another guy who sits at the opposite end of this large office (therefore as far away from the door as you can be) likes to open it and jam it open. I truly despise the flow of bland music that I have no control over, and the ongoing chatting/arguing that passes for radio entertainment. It's like listening to other people's pointless conversations. I sometimes put headphones on but incessantly bombarding my ears with noise just to cancel out other noise is like spraying deodorant on excrement - pointless. It also means I'll suffer gradual hearing loss I sometimes wonder if people don't understand that we need time to solve problems and problem solving is best done in quiet! The other guys in this office do not write software so I sometimes wonder if people don't "get" it.
  - dceddia 12y ago
    Maybe invest in some noise-cancelling headphones, and use a white noise generator. I like SimplyNoise for that. It does a great job at drowning out background noises. And then if you can STILL hear them clearly, put in earplugs under the headphones and crank up the volume.
    - RogerL 12y ago
      No, sorry, not damaging my ears for bad decisions of management. I don't mean to be argumentative, you are just trying to solve the problem that I am in. I've done the headphone thing, they are noise cancelling, I listen to SimplyRain on them, and that helps, but I just can't take all that input. I want quiet. I need quiet. I don't want distraction that is slightly less annoying than the current distraction, at the risk of my health besides. But yes, your suggestions are really good for the people it can work for.
voidlogic 12y ago
I normally work remote, but when I come into the office-- I come in 2-3 hrs early and stay 2 hours late to get my work done...

df07 12y ago

Stack Exchange's office is very similar. Starting to feel like Joel is the only one who still believes in private offices. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.708933,-74.006578,3a,75y,203.61h,72.75t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sAVBuqvu0UUUAAAQIt-PqBw!2e0!3e2?hl=en-US https://www.google.com/maps/@40.708933,-74.006578,3a,75y,203...

72deluxe 12y ago
Those look like great offices! I must be in the wrong job haha
gregd 12y ago
THAT is a gorgeous workspace. I'm envious..
k__ 12y ago
Windows to open spaces in my back? No thanks...
- Max_Horstmann 12y ago
  You can move the desk around. My "window" is on my left.
  - k__ 12y ago
    Don't you feel like in a terrarium?
    - Max_Horstmann 12y ago
      Yes.
      - k__ 12y ago
        :(
        12y ago

phowat 12y ago

I've worked on open plan floors and also had a private office before. Currently, I share an office with one other dev and I feel it's the best setting I've ever had.

sb8244 12y ago
Peopleware does suggest two person semi private offices as a preferred setup based on real productivity studies.
Corrado 12y ago
I can confirm this. One of the most productive spaces in my career has been a long U desk with myself and another programmer at each end. We could roll over and talk to each other, or just sit with our backs to each other and ignore the other person. Great!

mncolinlee 12y ago

Until 2009 or so, we used to have private offices at Cray. There were plenty of impromptu conversations. I would argue that they were more pleasant and productive, since we didn't have to worry we were upsetting everyone around us while brainstorming or discussing tech trends. We would meet in an engineer's office so not everyone had to hear the whole thing.

rayiner 12y ago

Offices are a really great example of the push to keep programmers from thinking of themselves as professionals, either by treating them like IT or tech support, or like college kids. Google or Facebook's revenue per engineer is probably 3x that of a law firm or consulting firm, but the overwhelming practice in the latter sorts of places is for each professional to have an office with a door. When you're a growing startup, having private offices costs you flexibility as well as cash because open plan is easier to reconfigure as you grow. If you're at the point where you're commissioning a Ghery, you're well past that excuse.

vinceguidry 12y ago
> the push to keep programmers from thinking of themselves as professionals Hah. If only we had someone else to blame for that. We do that to ourselves. Programmers act like spoiled little kids when choosing which jobs to apply to or how to conduct their career, (look at all those juice bars! Never seen an accountant use that as a selection criteria.) are often completely unreasonable, (I want $100K salary right out of school, it better be $140K in a year or I'm jumping ship.) and consistently refuse to move to management. (you must pay me more and more money to drift further and further away from company priorities)
- EricBart 12y ago
  Programmers refusing to move to management is not unreasonable. I like being a developer. It's what I studied in school and it's the job I applied for.
  - vinceguidry 12y ago
    It is if you expect career advancement. If you want to stay in the same role making the same salary, plus a minor bump every year for 30 years, by all means don't push yourself to try to figure out how to manage more parts of the organization you work for. But programmers want their companies to indulge their lofty career ambitions while still being exactly as useful to the company. They want to be like doctors without taking their work half as seriously.

DigitalBison 12y ago

>> Every developer, tester, and program manager is in a private office > The longer I spend in this environment (coming up to five years) the less I like it > I like the idea of having large, interesting open spaces for more social activities including work, but most of the work I do lends itself well to being not surrounded by people having conversations This is confusing.. Are you saying you do like Fog Creek's setup, or you don't?

basicallydan 12y ago
I do!
anon4 12y ago
I think he says he likes to mix it up depending on what he's doing. Quiet space for focused, intense coding, open space for socialising.
yaddayadda 12y ago
I've seen a couple of comments expressing confusion at @asicallydan's comment, but it seems pretty clear to me. For the last five years he has been in an environment with private offices. Initially he liked the private offices, over the years he's liked them less and less. Now he likes the idea of large, interesting open spaces more than private offices.
- basicallydan 12y ago
  Haha, actually it's the other way around. Originally I had "The longer I spend in this environment" at the top but moved it when I thought it'd be good to start my comment with an example of a type of office environment I like the idea of.

abecedarius 12y ago

How are those offices private when there's a full glass wall on the corridor, and what looks like an opening below the ceiling to the next office? That appears to add up to neither visual nor audio screening. (Audio distraction causes trouble in conversation for me, and visual distraction disrupts any kind of concentration. I might actually prefer a tall cubicle to this setup, not to endorse the cubicle.)

JetSpiegel 12y ago
Private offices are not an extension of your home, it's your workspace. Why can't people see you from the corridor? Just turn your back to the glass, or use an Oculus Rift.
- abecedarius 12y ago
  Motion within one's visual field, especially intermittent motion, deters concentration on things other than that motion. (Why do you think TVs cut scenes every few seconds?) The desks there do not obviously make it possible to face away from the corridor; plus people walking by cast shadows. Facing away does help, but it's inferior. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895162 has someone else reporting the same complaints about motion; I guess it's not a coincidence this is someone else developing nontrivial algorithms.) The feeling of being watched over your shoulder isn't something I'd dismiss either, though it's not a work-ruiner by itself for me. If you're actively anti-privacy, stop calling them private offices.

letstryagain 12y ago

Now check out Atlassian's new office: https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlassian/sets/72157631672573702/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlassian/sets/721576316725737... Guess who's winning the bug tracking market share

72deluxe 12y ago
I'm not sure - who is winning the market share? That said, I'm amazed by the size of the offices etc. from just bug tracking software. Does everyone not just use Trac or Bugzilla or something?