11 ms·

As Office Space Shrinks, So Does Privacy for Workers

171 points by geebee 12y ago

GuiA 12y ago
"Yodle’s chief executive, Court Cunningham, so values being close to other employees that he does not want a private office." I've had a few bosses/CEOs who said they loved open space and forced it on everyone. What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office (when they spend 90% of the day in there, it's hard to see it as "the conference room" rather than "X's unofficial office"), and people would be stuck taking Skype calls/meetings in the open space, contributing to ridiculous noise levels (oh and my favorite part was the CEO who'd then step out of his meeting room to tell us we were making too much noise). She became a convert. “It’s fun,” she said. “That’s the reason I wouldn’t want an office. It’s fun — if you like the people you work with.” Terrible way to end the article, dismissing all of the concerns that were raised. But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway. I have a private office now, and I'd put it in the top 3 of the best things about my job. I have a hard time imagining going back to open space without losing most of my sanity and productivity.
- zzalpha 12y ago
  I've had a few bosses/CEOs who said they loved open space and forced it on everyone. What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office Well, there's another possible alternative: they love microing their team and an open space makes it really easy to poke their nose into the day-to-day lives of their engineers. Fun! I have a private office now, and I'd put it in the top 3 of the best things about my job. I have a hard time imagining going back to open space without losing most of my sanity and productivity. The company I work for has three major offices, and the one I work in is the only one with dedicated two person offices for the engineering staff (not due to policy so much as practical matters of space availability and cost). When I have to travel and work on-site at the other offices I rapidly find myself searching for any way to block out the noise and nuisance as my concentration is continually broken.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Bingo. If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage. But they'll phrase it as "it helps communication" (translation: I can bother them any time I want) or "it helps with morale" (translation: the employees make it look like they're working harder because the boss is watching over their shoulder). As an employee, I don't need a private office. But I sure as hell need my boss to have one.
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      >If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage. Exactly. My boss (the owner/CEO) has a bad habit of coming by my desk or work bench and saying "Son, whatcha workin' on?", knowing full well I'm juggling three or four tasks he's given me that day on top of my daily workload. I don't like to be rude, but I don't have time for idle chit-chat when I'm that busy, and I certainly don't have time for him to come by and try to mentor me on something he doesn't understand himself. I've gone so far as to tell him "Look, you hired me to handle the computers and network here, right?" "Right." "And you did that because you have no idea how to do it yourself, right?" "Right, but..." "So please, trust me when I say that I've got this handled. You don't have to check up on me, and I promise you'll get a status report when I'm done." That usually sinks in for about half a day, then he's back to pestering me or another employee, making sure we're doing what we're supposed to. I honestly don't see how he finds the time to do his duties if he's always looking over our shoulders. A manager who feels he has to micromanage is redundant and unnecessary, as far as I'm concerned.
      - WalterBright 12y ago
        On the other hand, I've known employees who needed the manager to drop by once a day and ask what they're working on - because they'd go off topic otherwise. Some employees need micromanaging, others do not. There is no one rule to rule them all.
        12y ago
- Washuu 12y ago
  That is pretty much what happened at my current job. We had tall semi-private cubicles that provided a decent amount of sound dampening. Suddenly we were moving to new cubicles there were half the size and half the height in an open format. The only people who were allowed to vote on the office changes were all the managers who had their own private offices. Enough hell was raised over the decision that all the managers ended up moving out of the offices to sit with their teams. They get to be miserable with us in all the noise. However, the overall team relations have improved to some degree. Our new plan is to move to a new location and build team rooms for up to eight people instead of large floors with lots of people. Clarification Edit: We now also have a single shared private office that be requisitioned by any employee for up to a day regardless of their position as long as they have a good reason.
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    > build team rooms for up to eight people instead of large floors with lots of people. This is the right way to do open office planning. Consider Conway's Law. Teams are organized horizontally by how the system is designed by logical or physical system boundary. And you let people move from team to team to get good cross-functional ability and understanding.
    - Washuu 12y ago
      Yep! Definitely why it is "up to eight people". A team may only have four people, but if a designer needs to move in from another team then there is space to allow it happen. After eight people on the team there really needs to be a decision if the tasks being handled can be split into separate teams. Such as separating a desktop and mobile client team into two teams.
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    > The only people who were allowed to vote on the office changes were all the managers who had their own private offices. After leaving my previous job they moved to a similar half-wall open workspace (that the employees nearly universally hate) and they 2 people that had the most say in the decision both have offices. Also before the move the 3 partners got close parking spaces (<1 block) while all the employees had to walk 3+ blocks from a dimly-lit, rundown parking "structure" (if it could be called that).
- geebee 12y ago
  Wow, your story about the conference room is almost identical to what Joel (Joel on Software) wrote about CEOs who work in open offices "like everyone else". http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDevelopers.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDeveloper... "A fairly common Silicon Valley phenomenon is the CEO who makes a big show of working from a cubicle just like the hoi polloi, although somehow there’s this one conference room that he tends to make his own (“Only when there’s something private to be discussed,” he’ll claim, but half the time when you walk by that conference room there’s your CEO, all by himself, talking on the phone to his golf buddy, with his Cole Haans up on the conference table)." Thing is, even if a CEO isn't converting a conference room into a private office, even if the CEO is sincerely working in the same office space as everyone else, it still doesn't work. PG wrote about this on a related note in the makers vs managers's schedule. Mild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work.
  - _cudgel 12y ago
    Mild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work. The above is the case for flipping the "current" model on it's head: put the folks whose job it is to constantly communicate in the open space, and give the folks who need quiet, focused, uninterrupted work time in offices with doors. It's an extremely hard sell for a culture that rewards status with corner offices, but it definitely _seems_ like the right thing to do. Edit: formatting!
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - rbcgerard 12y ago
    I used to work on a trading floor where the boss sat in the middle of his group (about 40 people in 5 rows) he had an office that i don't think he ever used (except one-on-one bonus talks with employees). so its not all managers that do that. he also moved everyone around every 4-6 months (especially in terms of who was sitting on either side of him) i liked the system - and i thought it was great/smart to have people sit next to the "boss" for a few months at a time as you definitely were able to build a better relationship/communicate). The funny thing was is that if you polled the people who didn't need to be on the floor (i.e. the BD people), the introverts hated it, and the extroverts loved it...so i feel personality type is just as important in this analysis
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  I have a workshop with an office-y looking corner that barely ever gets used. If you aren't using a machine tool, and are coding or doing paperwork, please stay home and do it from home. There's a catch-up meeting once a week, usually on Wednesday afternoon because that's when it works for everybody, and everything else is via video call. The people operating the machine tools talk to me directly, but they're mostly there to build what I design. Seems to work OK for everyone except for one lady who I've let go because she kept showing up to work stoned (I don't care if you do drugs off the job, but if you want to operate a lathe or a drill press, you must be sober. If you can't, I can't get any work of you for the day, so go home).
- fma 12y ago
  At my last job we had open floor plans. The top boss has his own corner office. It was all glass so he can keep an eye on everyone.
- discardorama 12y ago
  > What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office .. ... and it's followed down the chain, by VPs requisitioning "war rooms". If your bloody "war" is lasting more than a week, it's not a "war" anymore!
- larrys 12y ago
  "But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway." Agree, and to those who don't know that means see this[1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html [1] It's PG's phrase not a common reference.
  - jacques_chester 12y ago
    The more common expression in media is "advertorial".
- andlarry 12y ago
  But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway. Yup, see a very similar one from 2012 [1] (I knew this sounded familiar), same firm, NBBJ. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/business/new-office-designs-offer-room-to-roam-and-to-think.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/business/new-office-design...
- abalone 12y ago
  Wouldn't an architecture firm be advocating for more space? Cornell did a study awhile back that found that employees with their own private offices collaborate less often with their colleagues. A lot less. In fact their very perception of what constituted "frequent" interaction plummeted from several times a day to a few times a week. And it happened in scheduled meetings whereas it was more ad hoc in an open plan office. They also noted something very interesting: we tend to prioritize our own personal productivity over team productivity, probably because most of us are compensated and promoted based on personal accomplishments. You can see why management struggles with balancing these two objectives in space design. I think most of the comments here are very cynical but not very well reasoned. They tend to have not very well thought through conspiracy theories, like architecture firms wanting smaller spaces (what?) or pinning it all on cost cutting. Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. The reality is there is a balance of individual and team productivity that organizations need to achieve. We have learned a lot about the drawbacks to purely private office layouts (like lower team collaboration and depressingly poor social interaction). We are learning about the drawbacks to purely one big open plan layouts (like noise as it scales beyond a handful). There is no one easy solution. Source: Organizational Dilemmas and Workplace Solutions ‐ Work Effectiveness, Communication, and Office - Cornell University International Workplace Studies Program https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_1238259706.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human...
  - hammerandtongs 12y ago
    There are actually a large number of these studies of which the one you linked is...one. Your logic as to why management makes these choices suggests you think organizations operate on logic vs institutional habits, trends and intra organization conflict. Citation needed ;). Your survey of sentiment of the comments here (or the thousands made in similar posts) doesn't seem particular rich or nuanced, perhaps you are working deliberately with a supposition that your current situation is "just fine"?
    - 12y ago
- tn13 12y ago
  I have generally found that being "one issue fundamentalist" is always counter productive but people often write pieces that "hey this works great always". I too work at a place which has open desk not by design but that is how we rented the office. But I am personally more productive when no on is around so I either prefer to go to a conf. room and work or simple work at odd hours when no one is around. I am far more comfortable when I can talk to myself, sing to myself and do some weird things which I wont dare do in public. I am pretty sure there are many more people like me out there.
- derekp7 12y ago
  A number of years ago when I had my first large corporate job (systems admin type work), they had most of my team (4 people) in a bullpen area with desks pointing to the corners (and some dividers in place). But everyone could lean out to the aisle and have a quick pow-wow session. Meanwhile, I was stuck in an old directors-sized office that had been converted to cubicles, which is where some periodic contractors would normally sit. But it was empty most of the time, except for me. In that case, I felt really out of place and left out of the loop most of the time. Now I'm in an open office with 4-ft high dividers (tall enough that you can almost see over them when sitting down), and I hate that too.
- blister 12y ago
  I'm in a similar boat. This is my first job where I work from home 98% of the time. I don't think I could ever go back to an office. It's so freaking quiet and perfect here during the day, my productivity is amazing right now. And I can wear comfortable clothing... and no commute... and eat whenever I want... and I have a private bathroom... Honestly, you'd probably have to pay me 2x what I make now for me to even consider a non-remote position. I can go into the office every once in a while for a meeting or something, but for everything else, remote is where it's at.
thoughtsimple 12y ago
Yeah, fun all right. "Why aren't you finished with your project?" "I can't concentrate at the office. But I'm having fun. Isn't that enough?" "Sure, sure. Carry on!"
jkot 12y ago
It is not about privacy, but about concentration and productivity.
wyclif 12y ago
If you are an engineer, developer, or programmer the only way to fight the power on this is to refuse to accept offers from companies who treat their employees like cattle. It's amazing that I still hear founders getting very upset about the fact that they can't hire, while enacting "open office" or "bullpen" policies like the one at Yodle.
- 001sky 12y ago
  Short of trolling the recruitment process, this is hard to do in reality.
  - wyclif 12y ago
    How exactly is it hard to do? Trolling the process isn't necessary. During the interview, you simply ask about the work environment. And you don't have to wait for the interview to ask, you can do it in an email.
    - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
      I think he's talking about doing this on such a scale that it has a measurable impact on the trend.
  - dogecoinbase 12y ago
    I interview 3-4 times/month in the bay area, as a way of keeping myself in tune with the interview process for when I do want a new gig, seeing what new tech trends are popping up in interviews (and what specific gotcha questions are popular), and so on. Generally I don't intend to take the job. It could certainly be interpreted as trolling the process, but I've taken the opportunity to note things I didn't love about the company when I decline offers (I see it as the mirror of wanting a company to be specific about weaknesses if they choose not to hire me), including open or noisy office space, the appearance of high pressure to work unnecessarily lengthy hours, poor clarity in equity granting, and lack of diversity.
    - 12y ago
bcbrown 12y ago
When interviewing, I will absolutely rule a company out if the office space isn't appropriate. I like open offices, but I need my own desk, and my back to a wall. Any companies with bullpen-style shared long tables is immediately out.
- e40 12y ago
  but I need my own desk, and my back to a wall I'm curious why you want your back to the wall. All the people I know that do this are chronic goof offs. They always scramble to cover whatever they're looking at when I come in to talk with them. I am genuinely curious and not trolling you. EDIT: downvotes? Really? This is a very legit question and is producing legit conversation.
  - fragsworth 12y ago
    I can't speak for the original commenter, but it seems reasonable to me, because if your monitor is facing away from a wall, there is a constant burden of wondering who might be behind you and what they might think of what is on your screen. And this is when you're doing actual work. When you're not doing work, it makes goofing off on the Internet less of a mental relief, and things are overall more stressful.
    - spiritplumber 12y ago
      Same here. It's important to not feel like someone may hit you in the back of the head with no warning. Admittedly, it's not something that happens in most workplaces... most not all. It's a primal fear kind of thing, and doesn't have to be rational.
      - bcbrown 12y ago
        Yep, pretty much.
    - freehunter 12y ago
      Exactly. Take something like looking at documentation to see if C# uses printf(), print(), or print "". It's 100% work related, but it's kind of embarrassing that I forgot. I don't need my coworkers or boss seeing that.
bhewes 12y ago
This is why companies move to the suburbs. Prestige of a Manhattan address over the comforts of the burbs.
Kalium 12y ago
Open offices are cheap. That's why they are so beloved. They're also very distracting. I'm in an office right now where I have to use headphones and loud music to not listen to sales and account management all day... and that's just the audio distractions.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  That's a classic open office plan fail. Sales and account management do not need to be in the same space as dev.
  - joshuapants 12y ago
    No, but you see, it fosters synergy between teams
  - alexisnorman 12y ago
    Completely agree, this is the way my office is currently setup while they're building additional space for developers and it drives me insane. This PHP CEO tweet describes my situation pretty dead on: https://twitter.com/PHP_CEO/status/549719518420152321 https://twitter.com/PHP_CEO/status/549719518420152321
- eli 12y ago
  Open offices are cheaper (more people per sq ft) but all office space prices have skyrocketed in the "tech hubs" in the last decade or so.
- linuxlizard 12y ago
  Chronic hearing loss from loud music is going to be the black lung of cubicle workers.
nickbauman 12y ago
All the complaints about open office plans for software development are valid. However, having worked at many places that have both open and closed office spaces, I've found that the closed office spaces promote knowledge siloing, creating a lot of power for people who have had more time (to make a mess) in the code. There's a right way and a wrong way to do open office planning. One of the basics is, why do you need 40 people to ship your product? Are you sending rockets to mars? Creating a LHC? Open plans start and end with a half a dozen people. Beyond that size, they need their own room.
- zzalpha 12y ago
  There's also a right way and a wrong way to disseminate information within a team that doesn't require a work environment that's detrimental to productivity (code reviews and pair programming immediately come to mind). Open plans as a way to avoid "siloing" is the wrong solution to a much bigger problem.
  - nickbauman 12y ago
    The most important thing in software is that humans build software systems. And that they need to communicate with as high-fidelity and efficiency possible. Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors. If I have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend then next 1/2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could have just told me in 15 seconds. That's the idea here. But it can work with closed doors, too; especially as the product matures (or, heh, ossifies).
    - zzalpha 12y ago
      Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors. If I have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend then next 1/2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could have just told me in 15 seconds. The flipside is that, if you spend a half hour figuring something out instead of interrupting me, you don't interrupt my flow, which could translate into a much greater reduction in productivity than if you'd just dealt with it yourself. Put another way: open offices make it too easy to interrupt someone else. In our space we find a balance with electronic communication. Two person offices reduce distraction. IRC and email serve as a middle ground to interruption (as folks on the receiving end can control when the interruption occurs). Interruptions in meatspace only occur when they're actually necessary. Edit: And I forgot the other big benefit: two person offices mean you can co-locate people who work in the same product area, and when broader discussions need to happen, the offices can double as meeting spaces without everyone else being interrupted by the conversation. So offices actually assist in facilitating communication as the threat of distracting others is substantially reduced.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
Sometimes I wonder at the limits of productivity here. Your average Office worker can do things that took multiple people to do in the pre-business IT age. We're so productive that we have no more low-hanging fruit to grab. Now we've entered the age of cargo-cult HR thinking like these office plans which are trying to squeeze out some tiny bit of productivity at the cost of extra misery for workers. It saddens me a bit to think that instead of being rewarded for being productive and competitive, we're just squeezed more and more. Remember when futurists in the past were predicting the 3 or 4 day workweek because of productivity gains and automation? People are working just as long and whatever dividends are being paid out from the efficiencies of modern work, just seem to be going nowhere or into the pockets of ownership. Personally, I'm hoping this stuff gets so bad that the white collar types start a revolt of sorts. We're seeing the blue collar types being 1099'd to death or worked hard at below living wages. Maybe its time we got squeezed so hard that we start taking a more political stance. Basing our modern work environment on what is essentially 1890's factory work policies (9-5, weekends, lunch breaks) seems crazy. I'm not even sure why I'm even in the office most days. Its all so inefficient and backwards, that all this open office shuffling just seems to be a way to guarantee that we won't ask for the 4 day workweek or the 35 hour week, via losing productivity by having coworkers yell in our ears all day. I'm not saying this is intentional, its just management incompetence. They also have no idea what to do with this glut of cheap labor. Shoving us into smaller cubes or open spaces just seems like the next logical move when they hold all the cards.
rjurney 12y ago
Considering how cheap office space is compared to labor, the trend of compacting workers into ever tinier cubes (with or without walls) is insane. I wrote about good data science/engineer environments in Agile Data Science (O'Reilly, 2012). You can read it here: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-science/9781449326890/ch01.html https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-sc... Pasted inline: Agile Environments: Engineering Productivity Generalists require more uninterrupted concentration and quiet than do specialists. That is because the context of their work is broader, therefore their immersion is deeper. Their environment must suit this need. Invest in 2-3x the space of a typical cube farm, or you are wasting your people. In this setup, some people don’t need desks, which drives costs down. Rows of cubicles like cells of a hive. Overbooked conference rooms camped and decamped. Microsoft Outlook a modern punchcard. Monolithic insanity. A sea of cubes. Deadlines interrupted by oscillating cacophonies of rumors shouted, spread like waves uninterrupted by naked desks. Headphone budgets. Not working, close together. Decibel induced telecommuting. The open plan. Competing monstrosities seeking productivity but not finding it. —Poem by Author Before very long, people get very confused that the process is the content. That’s ultimately the downfall of IBM. IBM has the best process people in the world. They just forgot about the content. —Steve Jobs We can do better. We should do better. It costs more, but it is inexpensive. In Agile Data Science, we recognize team members as creative workers, not office workers. We therefore structure our environment more like studio than office. At the same time, we recognize that employing advanced mathematics on data to build products requires quiet contemplation and intense focus. So we incorporate elements of the library as well. Many enterprises limit their productivity enhancement of employees to the acquisition of skills. However, about 86% of productivity problems reside in the work environment of organizations. The work environment has effect on the performance of employees. The type of work environment in which employees operate determines the way in which such enterprises prosper. —Akinyele Samuel Taiwo It is much higher cost to employ people than it is to maintain and operate a building, hence spending money on improving the work environment is the most cost effective way of improving productivity because of small percentage increase in productivity of 0.1% to 2% can have dramatic effects on the profitability of the company. — —Derek Clements-Croome and Li Baizhan The Sane Workspace Creative workers need three kinds of spaces to collaborate and build together. From open to closed, they are: collaboration space, personal space and private space. Collaboration Space Collaboration space is where ideas are hatched. Situated along main thoroughfares and between departments, collaborative spaces are bright, open, comfortable and inviting. They have no walls. They are flexible and reconfigurable. They are ever changing, always rearranged. Bean bags, pillows and comfortable chairs. Collaboration space is where you feel the energy of your company: laughter, big conversations, excited voices talking over one another. Invest in and showcase these areas. Real, not plastic, plants keep sound from carrying and they make air :) Private Space Private space is where deadlines get met. Enclosed and soundproof, private spaces are libraries. There is no talking. Private space minimizes distractions. Dim light, white noise. There are bean bags, couches and chairs, but ergonomics demand proper workstations too. Separated sit/stand desks with docking stations behind (bead) curtains with 30” LCDs. Personal Space Personal space is where people call home. In between collaboration and private space in its degree of openness, personal space should be personalized by each individual to suit his or her needs. Shared office or open desks, half or whole cube. Personal space should come with a menu and a budget. Themes and plant-life should be encouraged. For some people, this is where you spend most of your time. For others… given adequate collaborative and private space, a notebook and mobile device, some people don’t need personal space at all. Above all, the goal of the Agile Environment is to create immersion in data through the physical environment: printouts, posters, books, whiteboard, etc.
golgappi 12y ago
I work for an IT consultancy that has about 40 people and an open office. I have never had any issues. Probably because almost everyone is a developer/administrator and people mostly prefer communicating through IRC. The office space is completely silent, and the desks are in groups, far apart from each other. It is wonderful, looks good and doesn't make me feel depressed sitting in a cubicle with partitions shorter than my height giving a fake sense of privacy. All I am saying is there is a wrong way and a right way of maintaining open offices. Bashing all open offices for being cheap and unproductive is naive.
dyoder 12y ago
God forbid you let people work from home.
- thoughtsimple 12y ago
  Can't do that, we looked at the VPN logs and no one ever logged in.
  - odonnellryan 12y ago
    That doesn't mean no one would ever log in.
  - joesmo 12y ago
    Then you hired the wrong people.
- nilkn 12y ago
  It's really a huge bummer how many companies won't invest the effort in supporting distributed teams. I think it's holding back the industry as a whole. First, I won't work for a company whose office isn't up to my standards. And I don't have high standards, but an open office bullpen is a flat-out no from me. I'd only ever work in those conditions if it was the only way for me to get an income and I really needed it. I'm sure there are lots of other programmers like me, which means these companies are just losing out on talent. I won't even apply to Facebook because of their floorplans. Second, if your office is up to snuff but you're on the other side of the country, now I've got to leave my girlfriend behind to go work for you. We'll either have to do a long-distance relationship or she'll have to move with me. Well, if I don't really want to work for you, I'm just going to say no yet again. I really don't think I'm the only programmer who's not single. I've heard that some even have "kids" and a "family" of their own, which makes moving cross-country an even bigger deal. Third, if you're located in a hyper-expensive urban area and my cost of living is going to double, you're going to have to double my salary before I accept. I'm not going to cut my modest lifestyle in half just to work for you, on top of the above issues. The end result is that I'm extremely picky about where I work. If more companies just allowed remote developers, all those hurdles are resolved immediately.
thecrumb 12y ago
I wouldn't really mind an 'open' space if I was sitting with people who wanted a similar environment. I want... low lighting and min noise. I don't think everyone wants that but the office should be hacked up to accommodate environments that allow people to focus. I know people who thrive in the noise, but I do not. Last job I was in a short cube right next to the breakroom so ALL DAY people walked by, talked and stared at my screen. It drove me nuts.
- geebee 12y ago
  Yeah, this is what Sun Micro did a long time back. At many of the drop in centers, Sun divided the office space into loud office and quiet office. The office manager clearly was empowered to kick people out of the quiet office if they were making noise, so it worked. The downside is that it does help to be able to have a private conversion, spontaneously. A UI expert pops by your office, asks a few questions, the conversation shifts over to work, you end up showing a few screens, talking about it. You can do this in an office without worrying about disrupting the people around you (my experience is that devs tend to be far more sensitive about this). So ironically, I actually think that open offices reduce the amount of communication between certain types of workers, because people who value quiet are shy about making noise (because they know how much it derails their own work). As a result, the casual conversations that lead to valuable work related conversations never happen.
JohnBooty 12y ago
What kills me about this is that for me (and a lot of people) it's not about square footage. It's about distractions. I would literally be fine working inside a phone booth-sized office that provided some visual and auditory privacy.
- neverartful 12y ago
  Good point. I completely agree. While my Bose QC-15 headphones can often go a long way toward the auditory privacy, the visual part is still there (and highly distracting).
logicallee 12y ago
One of the times this came up[1] someone made a good point (wish I could save comments :) ) about the important distinction between sharing an open office with engineers, versus random people walking by/loud sales cales/managers/etc. In the first case, people don't mind interruptions - from other engineers. In the second case, interruptions are terrible. So according to that comment, a group of expert engineers working in a shared space can really experience some synergy. sometimes if you can say, "hey do you have a sec" and ask a super-quick engineering question, it can really help. If a few people start discussing architecture, everyone can join. etc. Apparently it works. If it's other engineers. This makes me wonder. Reading our present article - what we're really missing is some data. Really, any data. All of those people who have beaten it into us that "correlation is not causation" have won a Pyrrhic victory. We're left without even an indication of what the correlation is. I have no idea whatsoever whether the data points plotting productivity (y) and space per worker (x) is a random scatter plot, clearly correlated positively, negatively, has a peak, has any shape at all, or whatever. I don't care what data you're showing. For the y axis you can use startup market cap/valuation per employee for all I care. You can use lines of code - a terrible metric. Or whatever other proxy for productivity you want. But whatever you use, anything is better than nothing at all. What I'm wondering is: in a software or startup context - or any context at all - what is the shape of the correlation at all between productivity and space per worker? This seems to be a central question, but the article only hints at an answer without presenting any data at all. Since it's clearly a choice all organizations and startups face - let's see it! - [1] Other discussions on open offices: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit... (top stories) https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit... (top comments)
leetrout 12y ago
At my last gig we built out a new office space- of course all the execs got offices and none of the support people who talk on the phones all day got an office. So everyone was in a giant open room with a concrete floor and hard desks- a couple rugs, but it didn't cut it. On top of that the CTO said he didn't like not being able to see the devs so he put a dropcam on the shelf over our area... so open area for devs plus a camera recording everything we say and do and only one person with access...
- s73v3r 12y ago
  How did he still have people working for him? I imagine that kind of bullshit would make most of the team walk out.
  - leetrout 12y ago
    Yea, it did me. Most people are just willing to put up with whatever- I really want to enjoy the work I do and where I work so it was a pretty big deal for me. Everyone thought I was overreacting. They did take the camera down- not sure if it went back up...
Zigurd 12y ago
Companies that use open plan offices do it for the appearance of productivity over actual productivity. Actual productivity in modern software enterprises is visible in task management tools like JIRA and in the repos, and communication, especially in an environment where spoken English might not be everyone's strength, is best seen in a Hangout or other chat/collaboration tool. Failing to accommodate workers' preferences for working conditions is just plain bad practice, no matter what such preferences might be or how they might vary depending on the nature of a project. You can always see the health of a team and of a project no matter how project resources are located and connected. If the boss is actually minding the store, he'll be doing it by taking a look at how his projects are proceeding, using objective metrics, not "by walking around" or at meetings. The boss may need a lieutenant to grok JIRA for him. But failing to be able to manage a project because you can't look over everyone's shoulder is a management failure, not a failure of the work environment.
peterwwillis 12y ago
I work crammed into a long table at a Starbucks, and I much prefer it to the company office. Call me crazy, but I don't think office space and privacy is the most important thing to office workers. The problem is they're stuck in an office.
- dismal2 12y ago
  you have a sense of privacy in public, a lot more than in a space with a set group of people that you have to constantly interact with. in a cafe nobody cares how "busy" you look, you're just getting stuff done, in an office it quickly becomes about appearances, or leaving only after your boss left even if you're no longer productive, etc. basically in a public space people can "judge" what you're doing but it doesn't matter while in a private space people "judge" you and it matters.
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Private ~~study~~ work carrels anyone?
colanderman 12y ago
Long tables would have given each person even less space, he said — about 2 feet wide by 1 ½ feet deep. Seriously? 2 feet is elbow-bumping width. Is this moron planning office space, or seating for fucking RyanAir?
bsg75 12y ago
Any manager of a technical group who says open plans result in a better product or service are either (1) lying because "open" is cheaper (more bodies per square foot / meter), or (2) completely ignorant of the concept of concentration and focus, and therefore not competent management. My expectation is that the former is the most often case.
chrismealy 12y ago
My favorite environment is having four to eight people (one team) in one very large room with a door. And a couch.
rl3 12y ago
Both approaches have merit. Any solutions would do well to achieve the best of both while still remaining feasible. In the past, I've thought about physically-convertible setups, but this is probably far too exotic to be practical. Likewise, affording each employee two desks, one of each type, doesn't rank very high on the feasibility scale either. What about emulating helicopter cabin communication? Give each employee audiophile-grade closed headphones and\or in-ear monitors. Then, issue a high quality microphone along with it. Finally, use this setup with say, Slack (once they add voice support). Open office. Each desk angled back-to-wall or similar to afford visual privacy, and the only problem you're left with is conversational privacy. For that, anything from conference rooms to sufficiently loud artificial ambient office noise could work.
leroy_masochist 12y ago
It really boggles my mind how the default approach to corporate real estate in the startup world seems to be getting a lease in a trendy (ie, expensive) neighborhood, spending significant money to make the space nicer, paying a lot in terms of perks (food, laundry, etc)....but at the end of the day, everyone's in this big open-air, hangar-like environment where you can't have a private conversation, and there's such a demand for conference room time that it becomes a source of conflict. I used to work in an office in a trendy part of NYC at a company that had 3 catered meals per day, a VERY well-stocked liquor cabinet, and a varied, seemingly endless supply of high-end drinks and snacks (as in the fresh-squeezed juices that retail for $9.99, candy imported from Japan, etc). They also had an open office that was not horribly crowded but very open nonetheless. I have also worked in a shabby nondescript office in a standard, non-sexy building and neighborhood where I had my own office with a door that closed. It wasn't big, but it was private. The latter was definitely cheaper on a $/employee basis, and not only did I prefer it in an abstract way, but I was definitely more productive.
tessierashpool 12y ago
I work remote. I don't understand why you all tolerate this kind of nonsense. Excluding some short-term engagements and occasional visits to client offices, I haven't worked in an office on a daily basis since 2008. Every time I go into a client's physical office, it's like walking into somebody's den and finding an 8-track tape recorder, a black-and-white TV set, a rotary phone, and a Betamax. When I go into an office, I don't think "why do people even do this?" I think, "why did people even do this?" It's so archaic that even when I see it happening right in front of my eyes, I have to remind myself that it still isn't over. Finding a remote job is a lot harder than finding a job at a Bay Area startup, because companies which hire remote hire from all over. But it's absolutely worth it. And finding remote clients is relatively easy. Don't subject yourself to this kind of foolishness. There's nothing professional or reasonable about it. It's just a vestigial custom, a primitive ritual which hasn't fully died out yet.
- joesmo 12y ago
  There are not nearly enough remote jobs currently, though it seems that more companies are wising up. I agree 100% with you on this however. Office work is archaic now and an expense that can be eliminated. Not only do businesses with remote developers save money, but they get more productive developers who can spend 90% of their time coding or on code reviews (that's how much I currently spend). Sadly, many companies just want to micromanage and when asked, will reply with some bullshit about company culture. Let's not kid ourselves. This has nothing to do with company culture or collaborating or fostering any kind of environment. The only reason to not allow remote working is because the company feels it needs to micromanage. I'm certain that there isn't currently any company offering competitive salaries and remote work that isn't inundated with qualified applicants. Not that there is a shortage of qualified engineers in the first place (at least in the US), but the companies that are too stupid to find them would be well served to offer remote work and see those qualified applicants lining up.
- cylinder 12y ago
  A lot of people aren't like us, they are extroverts and they love going in and seeing everyone, and they hate being at home. Even I as an introvert got depressed being at home everyday and not having somewhere to go. The best is a mix with flexibility. Remote will never apply to everyone and every line of work.
Karunamon 12y ago
I'm curious as to why the responses to this topic don't mention electronic communication more often. Tapping someone on the shoulder when they're in flow leads not only to immediate destruction of mental state, but usually someone nearly falling out of their chair. Headphones being the universal symbol for "otherwise occupied, please DND", why don't people use these electronic communication systems we spent the last two decades developing? You get an IM along the lines of "Got a sec?" and you can gracefully swap that mental state out to disk and address the question. Really, it's a no brainer.
machrider 12y ago
So, private office proponents: what bay area companies actually provide this to their engineers? I haven't seen a single one in my experience.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  I've been part of several startups. They often start with private offices, until the space fills up. Then you start sharing, camping in the lab etc.
Multiplayer 12y ago
I just closed our 4000sq ft office after 2.5 years and went fully remote. That office was my "dream" office for my small company. Here's what I learned: 1. 4000 sq ft is way too small for an open office. There's no where for anyone to work quietly, without distraction. 2. Engineers and people that need to work without distraction (like me) just can't get enough done. 3. Working remotely in a quiet space is 10x more productive for me, and as far as I can tell, my co-workers. 4. The office space is for my ego, not for my shareholders. 5. Some people are not setup for remote working and I don't think there are enough viable co-working situations yet. Just an opinion. These people need an office to work at. There is no doubt in my mind that if I could I would short office space. It's way overpriced and counterproductive.

171 points by geebee 12y ago

GuiA 12y ago

"Yodle’s chief executive, Court Cunningham, so values being close to other employees that he does not want a private office." I've had a few bosses/CEOs who said they loved open space and forced it on everyone. What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office (when they spend 90% of the day in there, it's hard to see it as "the conference room" rather than "X's unofficial office"), and people would be stuck taking Skype calls/meetings in the open space, contributing to ridiculous noise levels (oh and my favorite part was the CEO who'd then step out of his meeting room to tell us we were making too much noise). She became a convert. “It’s fun,” she said. “That’s the reason I wouldn’t want an office. It’s fun — if you like the people you work with.” Terrible way to end the article, dismissing all of the concerns that were raised. But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway. I have a private office now, and I'd put it in the top 3 of the best things about my job. I have a hard time imagining going back to open space without losing most of my sanity and productivity.

zzalpha 12y ago
I've had a few bosses/CEOs who said they loved open space and forced it on everyone. What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office Well, there's another possible alternative: they love microing their team and an open space makes it really easy to poke their nose into the day-to-day lives of their engineers. Fun! I have a private office now, and I'd put it in the top 3 of the best things about my job. I have a hard time imagining going back to open space without losing most of my sanity and productivity. The company I work for has three major offices, and the one I work in is the only one with dedicated two person offices for the engineering staff (not due to policy so much as practical matters of space availability and cost). When I have to travel and work on-site at the other offices I rapidly find myself searching for any way to block out the noise and nuisance as my concentration is continually broken.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Bingo. If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage. But they'll phrase it as "it helps communication" (translation: I can bother them any time I want) or "it helps with morale" (translation: the employees make it look like they're working harder because the boss is watching over their shoulder). As an employee, I don't need a private office. But I sure as hell need my boss to have one.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    >If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage. Exactly. My boss (the owner/CEO) has a bad habit of coming by my desk or work bench and saying "Son, whatcha workin' on?", knowing full well I'm juggling three or four tasks he's given me that day on top of my daily workload. I don't like to be rude, but I don't have time for idle chit-chat when I'm that busy, and I certainly don't have time for him to come by and try to mentor me on something he doesn't understand himself. I've gone so far as to tell him "Look, you hired me to handle the computers and network here, right?" "Right." "And you did that because you have no idea how to do it yourself, right?" "Right, but..." "So please, trust me when I say that I've got this handled. You don't have to check up on me, and I promise you'll get a status report when I'm done." That usually sinks in for about half a day, then he's back to pestering me or another employee, making sure we're doing what we're supposed to. I honestly don't see how he finds the time to do his duties if he's always looking over our shoulders. A manager who feels he has to micromanage is redundant and unnecessary, as far as I'm concerned.
    - WalterBright 12y ago
      On the other hand, I've known employees who needed the manager to drop by once a day and ask what they're working on - because they'd go off topic otherwise. Some employees need micromanaging, others do not. There is no one rule to rule them all.
      - 12y ago
Washuu 12y ago
That is pretty much what happened at my current job. We had tall semi-private cubicles that provided a decent amount of sound dampening. Suddenly we were moving to new cubicles there were half the size and half the height in an open format. The only people who were allowed to vote on the office changes were all the managers who had their own private offices. Enough hell was raised over the decision that all the managers ended up moving out of the offices to sit with their teams. They get to be miserable with us in all the noise. However, the overall team relations have improved to some degree. Our new plan is to move to a new location and build team rooms for up to eight people instead of large floors with lots of people. Clarification Edit: We now also have a single shared private office that be requisitioned by any employee for up to a day regardless of their position as long as they have a good reason.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  > build team rooms for up to eight people instead of large floors with lots of people. This is the right way to do open office planning. Consider Conway's Law. Teams are organized horizontally by how the system is designed by logical or physical system boundary. And you let people move from team to team to get good cross-functional ability and understanding.
  - Washuu 12y ago
    Yep! Definitely why it is "up to eight people". A team may only have four people, but if a designer needs to move in from another team then there is space to allow it happen. After eight people on the team there really needs to be a decision if the tasks being handled can be split into separate teams. Such as separating a desktop and mobile client team into two teams.
- joshstrange 12y ago
  > The only people who were allowed to vote on the office changes were all the managers who had their own private offices. After leaving my previous job they moved to a similar half-wall open workspace (that the employees nearly universally hate) and they 2 people that had the most say in the decision both have offices. Also before the move the 3 partners got close parking spaces (<1 block) while all the employees had to walk 3+ blocks from a dimly-lit, rundown parking "structure" (if it could be called that).
geebee 12y ago
Wow, your story about the conference room is almost identical to what Joel (Joel on Software) wrote about CEOs who work in open offices "like everyone else". http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDevelopers.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FieldGuidetoDeveloper... "A fairly common Silicon Valley phenomenon is the CEO who makes a big show of working from a cubicle just like the hoi polloi, although somehow there’s this one conference room that he tends to make his own (“Only when there’s something private to be discussed,” he’ll claim, but half the time when you walk by that conference room there’s your CEO, all by himself, talking on the phone to his golf buddy, with his Cole Haans up on the conference table)." Thing is, even if a CEO isn't converting a conference room into a private office, even if the CEO is sincerely working in the same office space as everyone else, it still doesn't work. PG wrote about this on a related note in the makers vs managers's schedule. Mild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work.
- _cudgel 12y ago
  Mild interruptions don't seem like a big deal to managers, and the nature of their jobs means that they'll place constant communication far above quiet, focused, uninterrupted work. The above is the case for flipping the "current" model on it's head: put the folks whose job it is to constantly communicate in the open space, and give the folks who need quiet, focused, uninterrupted work time in offices with doors. It's an extremely hard sell for a culture that rewards status with corner offices, but it definitely _seems_ like the right thing to do. Edit: formatting!
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rbcgerard 12y ago
  I used to work on a trading floor where the boss sat in the middle of his group (about 40 people in 5 rows) he had an office that i don't think he ever used (except one-on-one bonus talks with employees). so its not all managers that do that. he also moved everyone around every 4-6 months (especially in terms of who was sitting on either side of him) i liked the system - and i thought it was great/smart to have people sit next to the "boss" for a few months at a time as you definitely were able to build a better relationship/communicate). The funny thing was is that if you polled the people who didn't need to be on the floor (i.e. the BD people), the introverts hated it, and the extroverts loved it...so i feel personality type is just as important in this analysis
spiritplumber 12y ago
I have a workshop with an office-y looking corner that barely ever gets used. If you aren't using a machine tool, and are coding or doing paperwork, please stay home and do it from home. There's a catch-up meeting once a week, usually on Wednesday afternoon because that's when it works for everybody, and everything else is via video call. The people operating the machine tools talk to me directly, but they're mostly there to build what I design. Seems to work OK for everyone except for one lady who I've let go because she kept showing up to work stoned (I don't care if you do drugs off the job, but if you want to operate a lathe or a drill press, you must be sober. If you can't, I can't get any work of you for the day, so go home).
fma 12y ago
At my last job we had open floor plans. The top boss has his own corner office. It was all glass so he can keep an eye on everyone.
discardorama 12y ago
> What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own personal office .. ... and it's followed down the chain, by VPs requisitioning "war rooms". If your bloody "war" is lasting more than a week, it's not a "war" anymore!
larrys 12y ago
"But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway." Agree, and to those who don't know that means see this[1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html [1] It's PG's phrase not a common reference.
- jacques_chester 12y ago
  The more common expression in media is "advertorial".
andlarry 12y ago
But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm anyway. Yup, see a very similar one from 2012 [1] (I knew this sounded familiar), same firm, NBBJ. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/business/new-office-designs-offer-room-to-roam-and-to-think.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/business/new-office-design...
abalone 12y ago
Wouldn't an architecture firm be advocating for more space? Cornell did a study awhile back that found that employees with their own private offices collaborate less often with their colleagues. A lot less. In fact their very perception of what constituted "frequent" interaction plummeted from several times a day to a few times a week. And it happened in scheduled meetings whereas it was more ad hoc in an open plan office. They also noted something very interesting: we tend to prioritize our own personal productivity over team productivity, probably because most of us are compensated and promoted based on personal accomplishments. You can see why management struggles with balancing these two objectives in space design. I think most of the comments here are very cynical but not very well reasoned. They tend to have not very well thought through conspiracy theories, like architecture firms wanting smaller spaces (what?) or pinning it all on cost cutting. Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less productive it would logically be a huge waste of money to put their highly paid employees in it. The reality is there is a balance of individual and team productivity that organizations need to achieve. We have learned a lot about the drawbacks to purely private office layouts (like lower team collaboration and depressingly poor social interaction). We are learning about the drawbacks to purely one big open plan layouts (like noise as it scales beyond a handful). There is no one easy solution. Source: Organizational Dilemmas and Workplace Solutions ‐ Work Effectiveness, Communication, and Office - Cornell University International Workplace Studies Program https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_1238259706.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human...
- hammerandtongs 12y ago
  There are actually a large number of these studies of which the one you linked is...one. Your logic as to why management makes these choices suggests you think organizations operate on logic vs institutional habits, trends and intra organization conflict. Citation needed ;). Your survey of sentiment of the comments here (or the thousands made in similar posts) doesn't seem particular rich or nuanced, perhaps you are working deliberately with a supposition that your current situation is "just fine"?
  - 12y ago
tn13 12y ago
I have generally found that being "one issue fundamentalist" is always counter productive but people often write pieces that "hey this works great always". I too work at a place which has open desk not by design but that is how we rented the office. But I am personally more productive when no on is around so I either prefer to go to a conf. room and work or simple work at odd hours when no one is around. I am far more comfortable when I can talk to myself, sing to myself and do some weird things which I wont dare do in public. I am pretty sure there are many more people like me out there.
derekp7 12y ago
A number of years ago when I had my first large corporate job (systems admin type work), they had most of my team (4 people) in a bullpen area with desks pointing to the corners (and some dividers in place). But everyone could lean out to the aisle and have a quick pow-wow session. Meanwhile, I was stuck in an old directors-sized office that had been converted to cubicles, which is where some periodic contractors would normally sit. But it was empty most of the time, except for me. In that case, I felt really out of place and left out of the loop most of the time. Now I'm in an open office with 4-ft high dividers (tall enough that you can almost see over them when sitting down), and I hate that too.
blister 12y ago
I'm in a similar boat. This is my first job where I work from home 98% of the time. I don't think I could ever go back to an office. It's so freaking quiet and perfect here during the day, my productivity is amazing right now. And I can wear comfortable clothing... and no commute... and eat whenever I want... and I have a private bathroom... Honestly, you'd probably have to pay me 2x what I make now for me to even consider a non-remote position. I can go into the office every once in a while for a meeting or something, but for everything else, remote is where it's at.

thoughtsimple 12y ago

Yeah, fun all right. "Why aren't you finished with your project?" "I can't concentrate at the office. But I'm having fun. Isn't that enough?" "Sure, sure. Carry on!"

jkot 12y ago

It is not about privacy, but about concentration and productivity.

wyclif 12y ago

If you are an engineer, developer, or programmer the only way to fight the power on this is to refuse to accept offers from companies who treat their employees like cattle. It's amazing that I still hear founders getting very upset about the fact that they can't hire, while enacting "open office" or "bullpen" policies like the one at Yodle.

001sky 12y ago
Short of trolling the recruitment process, this is hard to do in reality.
- wyclif 12y ago
  How exactly is it hard to do? Trolling the process isn't necessary. During the interview, you simply ask about the work environment. And you don't have to wait for the interview to ask, you can do it in an email.
  - knowaveragejoe 12y ago
    I think he's talking about doing this on such a scale that it has a measurable impact on the trend.
- dogecoinbase 12y ago
  I interview 3-4 times/month in the bay area, as a way of keeping myself in tune with the interview process for when I do want a new gig, seeing what new tech trends are popping up in interviews (and what specific gotcha questions are popular), and so on. Generally I don't intend to take the job. It could certainly be interpreted as trolling the process, but I've taken the opportunity to note things I didn't love about the company when I decline offers (I see it as the mirror of wanting a company to be specific about weaknesses if they choose not to hire me), including open or noisy office space, the appearance of high pressure to work unnecessarily lengthy hours, poor clarity in equity granting, and lack of diversity.
  - 12y ago

bcbrown 12y ago

When interviewing, I will absolutely rule a company out if the office space isn't appropriate. I like open offices, but I need my own desk, and my back to a wall. Any companies with bullpen-style shared long tables is immediately out.

e40 12y ago
but I need my own desk, and my back to a wall I'm curious why you want your back to the wall. All the people I know that do this are chronic goof offs. They always scramble to cover whatever they're looking at when I come in to talk with them. I am genuinely curious and not trolling you. EDIT: downvotes? Really? This is a very legit question and is producing legit conversation.
- fragsworth 12y ago
  I can't speak for the original commenter, but it seems reasonable to me, because if your monitor is facing away from a wall, there is a constant burden of wondering who might be behind you and what they might think of what is on your screen. And this is when you're doing actual work. When you're not doing work, it makes goofing off on the Internet less of a mental relief, and things are overall more stressful.
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    Same here. It's important to not feel like someone may hit you in the back of the head with no warning. Admittedly, it's not something that happens in most workplaces... most not all. It's a primal fear kind of thing, and doesn't have to be rational.
    - bcbrown 12y ago
      Yep, pretty much.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    Exactly. Take something like looking at documentation to see if C# uses printf(), print(), or print "". It's 100% work related, but it's kind of embarrassing that I forgot. I don't need my coworkers or boss seeing that.

bhewes 12y ago

This is why companies move to the suburbs. Prestige of a Manhattan address over the comforts of the burbs.

Kalium 12y ago

Open offices are cheap. That's why they are so beloved. They're also very distracting. I'm in an office right now where I have to use headphones and loud music to not listen to sales and account management all day... and that's just the audio distractions.

nickbauman 12y ago
That's a classic open office plan fail. Sales and account management do not need to be in the same space as dev.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  No, but you see, it fosters synergy between teams
- alexisnorman 12y ago
  Completely agree, this is the way my office is currently setup while they're building additional space for developers and it drives me insane. This PHP CEO tweet describes my situation pretty dead on: https://twitter.com/PHP_CEO/status/549719518420152321 https://twitter.com/PHP_CEO/status/549719518420152321
eli 12y ago
Open offices are cheaper (more people per sq ft) but all office space prices have skyrocketed in the "tech hubs" in the last decade or so.
linuxlizard 12y ago
Chronic hearing loss from loud music is going to be the black lung of cubicle workers.

nickbauman 12y ago

All the complaints about open office plans for software development are valid. However, having worked at many places that have both open and closed office spaces, I've found that the closed office spaces promote knowledge siloing, creating a lot of power for people who have had more time (to make a mess) in the code. There's a right way and a wrong way to do open office planning. One of the basics is, why do you need 40 people to ship your product? Are you sending rockets to mars? Creating a LHC? Open plans start and end with a half a dozen people. Beyond that size, they need their own room.

zzalpha 12y ago
There's also a right way and a wrong way to disseminate information within a team that doesn't require a work environment that's detrimental to productivity (code reviews and pair programming immediately come to mind). Open plans as a way to avoid "siloing" is the wrong solution to a much bigger problem.
- nickbauman 12y ago
  The most important thing in software is that humans build software systems. And that they need to communicate with as high-fidelity and efficiency possible. Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors. If I have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend then next 1/2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could have just told me in 15 seconds. That's the idea here. But it can work with closed doors, too; especially as the product matures (or, heh, ossifies).
  - zzalpha 12y ago
    Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors. If I have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend then next 1/2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could have just told me in 15 seconds. The flipside is that, if you spend a half hour figuring something out instead of interrupting me, you don't interrupt my flow, which could translate into a much greater reduction in productivity than if you'd just dealt with it yourself. Put another way: open offices make it too easy to interrupt someone else. In our space we find a balance with electronic communication. Two person offices reduce distraction. IRC and email serve as a middle ground to interruption (as folks on the receiving end can control when the interruption occurs). Interruptions in meatspace only occur when they're actually necessary. Edit: And I forgot the other big benefit: two person offices mean you can co-locate people who work in the same product area, and when broader discussions need to happen, the offices can double as meeting spaces without everyone else being interrupted by the conversation. So offices actually assist in facilitating communication as the threat of distracting others is substantially reduced.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago

Sometimes I wonder at the limits of productivity here. Your average Office worker can do things that took multiple people to do in the pre-business IT age. We're so productive that we have no more low-hanging fruit to grab. Now we've entered the age of cargo-cult HR thinking like these office plans which are trying to squeeze out some tiny bit of productivity at the cost of extra misery for workers. It saddens me a bit to think that instead of being rewarded for being productive and competitive, we're just squeezed more and more. Remember when futurists in the past were predicting the 3 or 4 day workweek because of productivity gains and automation? People are working just as long and whatever dividends are being paid out from the efficiencies of modern work, just seem to be going nowhere or into the pockets of ownership. Personally, I'm hoping this stuff gets so bad that the white collar types start a revolt of sorts. We're seeing the blue collar types being 1099'd to death or worked hard at below living wages. Maybe its time we got squeezed so hard that we start taking a more political stance. Basing our modern work environment on what is essentially 1890's factory work policies (9-5, weekends, lunch breaks) seems crazy. I'm not even sure why I'm even in the office most days. Its all so inefficient and backwards, that all this open office shuffling just seems to be a way to guarantee that we won't ask for the 4 day workweek or the 35 hour week, via losing productivity by having coworkers yell in our ears all day. I'm not saying this is intentional, its just management incompetence. They also have no idea what to do with this glut of cheap labor. Shoving us into smaller cubes or open spaces just seems like the next logical move when they hold all the cards.

rjurney 12y ago

Considering how cheap office space is compared to labor, the trend of compacting workers into ever tinier cubes (with or without walls) is insane. I wrote about good data science/engineer environments in Agile Data Science (O'Reilly, 2012). You can read it here: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-science/9781449326890/ch01.html https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-sc... Pasted inline: Agile Environments: Engineering Productivity Generalists require more uninterrupted concentration and quiet than do specialists. That is because the context of their work is broader, therefore their immersion is deeper. Their environment must suit this need. Invest in 2-3x the space of a typical cube farm, or you are wasting your people. In this setup, some people don’t need desks, which drives costs down. Rows of cubicles like cells of a hive. Overbooked conference rooms camped and decamped. Microsoft Outlook a modern punchcard. Monolithic insanity. A sea of cubes. Deadlines interrupted by oscillating cacophonies of rumors shouted, spread like waves uninterrupted by naked desks. Headphone budgets. Not working, close together. Decibel induced telecommuting. The open plan. Competing monstrosities seeking productivity but not finding it. —Poem by Author Before very long, people get very confused that the process is the content. That’s ultimately the downfall of IBM. IBM has the best process people in the world. They just forgot about the content. —Steve Jobs We can do better. We should do better. It costs more, but it is inexpensive. In Agile Data Science, we recognize team members as creative workers, not office workers. We therefore structure our environment more like studio than office. At the same time, we recognize that employing advanced mathematics on data to build products requires quiet contemplation and intense focus. So we incorporate elements of the library as well. Many enterprises limit their productivity enhancement of employees to the acquisition of skills. However, about 86% of productivity problems reside in the work environment of organizations. The work environment has effect on the performance of employees. The type of work environment in which employees operate determines the way in which such enterprises prosper. —Akinyele Samuel Taiwo It is much higher cost to employ people than it is to maintain and operate a building, hence spending money on improving the work environment is the most cost effective way of improving productivity because of small percentage increase in productivity of 0.1% to 2% can have dramatic effects on the profitability of the company. — —Derek Clements-Croome and Li Baizhan The Sane Workspace Creative workers need three kinds of spaces to collaborate and build together. From open to closed, they are: collaboration space, personal space and private space. Collaboration Space Collaboration space is where ideas are hatched. Situated along main thoroughfares and between departments, collaborative spaces are bright, open, comfortable and inviting. They have no walls. They are flexible and reconfigurable. They are ever changing, always rearranged. Bean bags, pillows and comfortable chairs. Collaboration space is where you feel the energy of your company: laughter, big conversations, excited voices talking over one another. Invest in and showcase these areas. Real, not plastic, plants keep sound from carrying and they make air :) Private Space Private space is where deadlines get met. Enclosed and soundproof, private spaces are libraries. There is no talking. Private space minimizes distractions. Dim light, white noise. There are bean bags, couches and chairs, but ergonomics demand proper workstations too. Separated sit/stand desks with docking stations behind (bead) curtains with 30” LCDs. Personal Space Personal space is where people call home. In between collaboration and private space in its degree of openness, personal space should be personalized by each individual to suit his or her needs. Shared office or open desks, half or whole cube. Personal space should come with a menu and a budget. Themes and plant-life should be encouraged. For some people, this is where you spend most of your time. For others… given adequate collaborative and private space, a notebook and mobile device, some people don’t need personal space at all. Above all, the goal of the Agile Environment is to create immersion in data through the physical environment: printouts, posters, books, whiteboard, etc.

golgappi 12y ago

I work for an IT consultancy that has about 40 people and an open office. I have never had any issues. Probably because almost everyone is a developer/administrator and people mostly prefer communicating through IRC. The office space is completely silent, and the desks are in groups, far apart from each other. It is wonderful, looks good and doesn't make me feel depressed sitting in a cubicle with partitions shorter than my height giving a fake sense of privacy. All I am saying is there is a wrong way and a right way of maintaining open offices. Bashing all open offices for being cheap and unproductive is naive.

dyoder 12y ago

God forbid you let people work from home.

thoughtsimple 12y ago
Can't do that, we looked at the VPN logs and no one ever logged in.
- odonnellryan 12y ago
  That doesn't mean no one would ever log in.
- joesmo 12y ago
  Then you hired the wrong people.
nilkn 12y ago
It's really a huge bummer how many companies won't invest the effort in supporting distributed teams. I think it's holding back the industry as a whole. First, I won't work for a company whose office isn't up to my standards. And I don't have high standards, but an open office bullpen is a flat-out no from me. I'd only ever work in those conditions if it was the only way for me to get an income and I really needed it. I'm sure there are lots of other programmers like me, which means these companies are just losing out on talent. I won't even apply to Facebook because of their floorplans. Second, if your office is up to snuff but you're on the other side of the country, now I've got to leave my girlfriend behind to go work for you. We'll either have to do a long-distance relationship or she'll have to move with me. Well, if I don't really want to work for you, I'm just going to say no yet again. I really don't think I'm the only programmer who's not single. I've heard that some even have "kids" and a "family" of their own, which makes moving cross-country an even bigger deal. Third, if you're located in a hyper-expensive urban area and my cost of living is going to double, you're going to have to double my salary before I accept. I'm not going to cut my modest lifestyle in half just to work for you, on top of the above issues. The end result is that I'm extremely picky about where I work. If more companies just allowed remote developers, all those hurdles are resolved immediately.

thecrumb 12y ago

I wouldn't really mind an 'open' space if I was sitting with people who wanted a similar environment. I want... low lighting and min noise. I don't think everyone wants that but the office should be hacked up to accommodate environments that allow people to focus. I know people who thrive in the noise, but I do not. Last job I was in a short cube right next to the breakroom so ALL DAY people walked by, talked and stared at my screen. It drove me nuts.

geebee 12y ago
Yeah, this is what Sun Micro did a long time back. At many of the drop in centers, Sun divided the office space into loud office and quiet office. The office manager clearly was empowered to kick people out of the quiet office if they were making noise, so it worked. The downside is that it does help to be able to have a private conversion, spontaneously. A UI expert pops by your office, asks a few questions, the conversation shifts over to work, you end up showing a few screens, talking about it. You can do this in an office without worrying about disrupting the people around you (my experience is that devs tend to be far more sensitive about this). So ironically, I actually think that open offices reduce the amount of communication between certain types of workers, because people who value quiet are shy about making noise (because they know how much it derails their own work). As a result, the casual conversations that lead to valuable work related conversations never happen.

JohnBooty 12y ago

What kills me about this is that for me (and a lot of people) it's not about square footage. It's about distractions. I would literally be fine working inside a phone booth-sized office that provided some visual and auditory privacy.

neverartful 12y ago
Good point. I completely agree. While my Bose QC-15 headphones can often go a long way toward the auditory privacy, the visual part is still there (and highly distracting).

logicallee 12y ago

One of the times this came up[1] someone made a good point (wish I could save comments :) ) about the important distinction between sharing an open office with engineers, versus random people walking by/loud sales cales/managers/etc. In the first case, people don't mind interruptions - from other engineers. In the second case, interruptions are terrible. So according to that comment, a group of expert engineers working in a shared space can really experience some synergy. sometimes if you can say, "hey do you have a sec" and ask a super-quick engineering question, it can really help. If a few people start discussing architecture, everyone can join. etc. Apparently it works. If it's other engineers. This makes me wonder. Reading our present article - what we're really missing is some data. Really, any data. All of those people who have beaten it into us that "correlation is not causation" have won a Pyrrhic victory. We're left without even an indication of what the correlation is. I have no idea whatsoever whether the data points plotting productivity (y) and space per worker (x) is a random scatter plot, clearly correlated positively, negatively, has a peak, has any shape at all, or whatever. I don't care what data you're showing. For the y axis you can use startup market cap/valuation per employee for all I care. You can use lines of code - a terrible metric. Or whatever other proxy for productivity you want. But whatever you use, anything is better than nothing at all. What I'm wondering is: in a software or startup context - or any context at all - what is the shape of the correlation at all between productivity and space per worker? This seems to be a central question, but the article only hints at an answer without presenting any data at all. Since it's clearly a choice all organizations and startups face - let's see it! - [1] Other discussions on open offices: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit... (top stories) https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit... (top comments)

leetrout 12y ago

At my last gig we built out a new office space- of course all the execs got offices and none of the support people who talk on the phones all day got an office. So everyone was in a giant open room with a concrete floor and hard desks- a couple rugs, but it didn't cut it. On top of that the CTO said he didn't like not being able to see the devs so he put a dropcam on the shelf over our area... so open area for devs plus a camera recording everything we say and do and only one person with access...

s73v3r 12y ago
How did he still have people working for him? I imagine that kind of bullshit would make most of the team walk out.
- leetrout 12y ago
  Yea, it did me. Most people are just willing to put up with whatever- I really want to enjoy the work I do and where I work so it was a pretty big deal for me. Everyone thought I was overreacting. They did take the camera down- not sure if it went back up...

Zigurd 12y ago

Companies that use open plan offices do it for the appearance of productivity over actual productivity. Actual productivity in modern software enterprises is visible in task management tools like JIRA and in the repos, and communication, especially in an environment where spoken English might not be everyone's strength, is best seen in a Hangout or other chat/collaboration tool. Failing to accommodate workers' preferences for working conditions is just plain bad practice, no matter what such preferences might be or how they might vary depending on the nature of a project. You can always see the health of a team and of a project no matter how project resources are located and connected. If the boss is actually minding the store, he'll be doing it by taking a look at how his projects are proceeding, using objective metrics, not "by walking around" or at meetings. The boss may need a lieutenant to grok JIRA for him. But failing to be able to manage a project because you can't look over everyone's shoulder is a management failure, not a failure of the work environment.

peterwwillis 12y ago

I work crammed into a long table at a Starbucks, and I much prefer it to the company office. Call me crazy, but I don't think office space and privacy is the most important thing to office workers. The problem is they're stuck in an office.

dismal2 12y ago
you have a sense of privacy in public, a lot more than in a space with a set group of people that you have to constantly interact with. in a cafe nobody cares how "busy" you look, you're just getting stuff done, in an office it quickly becomes about appearances, or leaving only after your boss left even if you're no longer productive, etc. basically in a public space people can "judge" what you're doing but it doesn't matter while in a private space people "judge" you and it matters.

fnordfnordfnord 12y ago

Private ~~study~~ work carrels anyone?

colanderman 12y ago

Long tables would have given each person even less space, he said — about 2 feet wide by 1 ½ feet deep. Seriously? 2 feet is elbow-bumping width. Is this moron planning office space, or seating for fucking RyanAir?

bsg75 12y ago

Any manager of a technical group who says open plans result in a better product or service are either (1) lying because "open" is cheaper (more bodies per square foot / meter), or (2) completely ignorant of the concept of concentration and focus, and therefore not competent management. My expectation is that the former is the most often case.

chrismealy 12y ago

My favorite environment is having four to eight people (one team) in one very large room with a door. And a couch.

rl3 12y ago

Both approaches have merit. Any solutions would do well to achieve the best of both while still remaining feasible. In the past, I've thought about physically-convertible setups, but this is probably far too exotic to be practical. Likewise, affording each employee two desks, one of each type, doesn't rank very high on the feasibility scale either. What about emulating helicopter cabin communication? Give each employee audiophile-grade closed headphones and\or in-ear monitors. Then, issue a high quality microphone along with it. Finally, use this setup with say, Slack (once they add voice support). Open office. Each desk angled back-to-wall or similar to afford visual privacy, and the only problem you're left with is conversational privacy. For that, anything from conference rooms to sufficiently loud artificial ambient office noise could work.

leroy_masochist 12y ago

It really boggles my mind how the default approach to corporate real estate in the startup world seems to be getting a lease in a trendy (ie, expensive) neighborhood, spending significant money to make the space nicer, paying a lot in terms of perks (food, laundry, etc)....but at the end of the day, everyone's in this big open-air, hangar-like environment where you can't have a private conversation, and there's such a demand for conference room time that it becomes a source of conflict. I used to work in an office in a trendy part of NYC at a company that had 3 catered meals per day, a VERY well-stocked liquor cabinet, and a varied, seemingly endless supply of high-end drinks and snacks (as in the fresh-squeezed juices that retail for $9.99, candy imported from Japan, etc). They also had an open office that was not horribly crowded but very open nonetheless. I have also worked in a shabby nondescript office in a standard, non-sexy building and neighborhood where I had my own office with a door that closed. It wasn't big, but it was private. The latter was definitely cheaper on a $/employee basis, and not only did I prefer it in an abstract way, but I was definitely more productive.

tessierashpool 12y ago

I work remote. I don't understand why you all tolerate this kind of nonsense. Excluding some short-term engagements and occasional visits to client offices, I haven't worked in an office on a daily basis since 2008. Every time I go into a client's physical office, it's like walking into somebody's den and finding an 8-track tape recorder, a black-and-white TV set, a rotary phone, and a Betamax. When I go into an office, I don't think "why do people even do this?" I think, "why did people even do this?" It's so archaic that even when I see it happening right in front of my eyes, I have to remind myself that it still isn't over. Finding a remote job is a lot harder than finding a job at a Bay Area startup, because companies which hire remote hire from all over. But it's absolutely worth it. And finding remote clients is relatively easy. Don't subject yourself to this kind of foolishness. There's nothing professional or reasonable about it. It's just a vestigial custom, a primitive ritual which hasn't fully died out yet.

joesmo 12y ago
There are not nearly enough remote jobs currently, though it seems that more companies are wising up. I agree 100% with you on this however. Office work is archaic now and an expense that can be eliminated. Not only do businesses with remote developers save money, but they get more productive developers who can spend 90% of their time coding or on code reviews (that's how much I currently spend). Sadly, many companies just want to micromanage and when asked, will reply with some bullshit about company culture. Let's not kid ourselves. This has nothing to do with company culture or collaborating or fostering any kind of environment. The only reason to not allow remote working is because the company feels it needs to micromanage. I'm certain that there isn't currently any company offering competitive salaries and remote work that isn't inundated with qualified applicants. Not that there is a shortage of qualified engineers in the first place (at least in the US), but the companies that are too stupid to find them would be well served to offer remote work and see those qualified applicants lining up.
cylinder 12y ago
A lot of people aren't like us, they are extroverts and they love going in and seeing everyone, and they hate being at home. Even I as an introvert got depressed being at home everyday and not having somewhere to go. The best is a mix with flexibility. Remote will never apply to everyone and every line of work.

Karunamon 12y ago

I'm curious as to why the responses to this topic don't mention electronic communication more often. Tapping someone on the shoulder when they're in flow leads not only to immediate destruction of mental state, but usually someone nearly falling out of their chair. Headphones being the universal symbol for "otherwise occupied, please DND", why don't people use these electronic communication systems we spent the last two decades developing? You get an IM along the lines of "Got a sec?" and you can gracefully swap that mental state out to disk and address the question. Really, it's a no brainer.

machrider 12y ago

So, private office proponents: what bay area companies actually provide this to their engineers? I haven't seen a single one in my experience.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
I've been part of several startups. They often start with private offices, until the space fills up. Then you start sharing, camping in the lab etc.

Multiplayer 12y ago

I just closed our 4000sq ft office after 2.5 years and went fully remote. That office was my "dream" office for my small company. Here's what I learned: 1. 4000 sq ft is way too small for an open office. There's no where for anyone to work quietly, without distraction. 2. Engineers and people that need to work without distraction (like me) just can't get enough done. 3. Working remotely in a quiet space is 10x more productive for me, and as far as I can tell, my co-workers. 4. The office space is for my ego, not for my shareholders. 5. Some people are not setup for remote working and I don't think there are enough viable co-working situations yet. Just an opinion. These people need an office to work at. There is no doubt in my mind that if I could I would short office space. It's way overpriced and counterproductive.