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Now to be fair I am in favor of giving employees isolated rooms to work in, however the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of

Now to be fair I am in favor of giving employees isolated rooms to work in, however the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of office space. If you're concerned about noise and also the loudness of music playing in headphones, you can always get what construction workers use to block out noise: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Howard-Leight-Thunder-T3-Noise-Blocking-Dielectric-Headband-Earmuffs-1010970/203066856?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cBase&gclid=CLSUo6G2o8YCFdcSHwodwA8AGw&gclsrc=aw.ds http://www.homedepot.com/p/Howard-Leight-Thunder-T3-Noise-Bl... They look pretty intense but it's certainly one way to solve the problem.

normloman 11y ago
" the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of office space." But I bet small startups could afford to let employees work from home a couple days a week.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  Or four and a half days a week. Actually, any startup that chooses new open-office workspaces over secondhand cubicles solely for reasons of cost might also want to consider moving to a location with cheaper office space leases. Even $5/sq.ft. is too high for a startup, regardless of the workspace furniture.
s73v3r 11y ago
I do not buy that for a second. And even if true, why is it my concern that they can't afford it? Why should I have to make up for they're shortcomings?
jeremiep 11y ago
If a startup can't afford a decent quiet office, they most certainly can't afford all the maintenance that will be caused from creating software in a toxic open-office environment. I've never seen great code come out of an open-office. It can be good but the inability to focus in these environments usually show up in the resulting code.
frostmatthew 11y ago
> the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of office space It's funny startups would feel that way yet also believe they must be located in/around San Francisco. If cost was really that big of a concern maybe they should choose to setup shop in a more affordable city (they'd also save money on salaries). But even in San Francisco the additional costs wouldn't be that much. There was a blog post[1] last year that did the math and companies save about 10% with an open office - the hit to productivity caused by an open office environment is most likely costing them more. [1] http://nathanmarz.com/blog/the-inexplicable-rise-of-open-floor-plans-in-tech-companies.html http://nathanmarz.com/blog/the-inexplicable-rise-of-open-flo...

normloman 11y ago

" the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of office space." But I bet small startups could afford to let employees work from home a couple days a week.

logfromblammo 11y ago
Or four and a half days a week. Actually, any startup that chooses new open-office workspaces over secondhand cubicles solely for reasons of cost might also want to consider moving to a location with cheaper office space leases. Even $5/sq.ft. is too high for a startup, regardless of the workspace furniture.

s73v3r 11y ago

I do not buy that for a second. And even if true, why is it my concern that they can't afford it? Why should I have to make up for they're shortcomings?

jeremiep 11y ago

If a startup can't afford a decent quiet office, they most certainly can't afford all the maintenance that will be caused from creating software in a toxic open-office environment. I've never seen great code come out of an open-office. It can be good but the inability to focus in these environments usually show up in the resulting code.

frostmatthew 11y ago

> the reality is that at small startups they simply cannot afford that kind of office space It's funny startups would feel that way yet also believe they must be located in/around San Francisco. If cost was really that big of a concern maybe they should choose to setup shop in a more affordable city (they'd also save money on salaries). But even in San Francisco the additional costs wouldn't be that much. There was a blog post[1] last year that did the math and companies save about 10% with an open office - the hit to productivity caused by an open office environment is most likely costing them more. [1] http://nathanmarz.com/blog/the-inexplicable-rise-of-open-floor-plans-in-tech-companies.html http://nathanmarz.com/blog/the-inexplicable-rise-of-open-flo...