4 ms·

I'd love to work in a place like that - I feel very uncomfortable in an ordered environment where row upon row of offices is filled with a placid set of cubicle

I'd love to work in a place like that - I feel very uncomfortable in an ordered environment where row upon row of offices is filled with a placid set of cubicles, all the same shape, color, and design. Visual noise definitely helps me focus - some of my best work has been done in a coffeeshop environment during prime time, headphones on, in the zone, lots of chaos and motion going on around me - and some of my worst work experiences have been while sitting in a row, upon rows, of static desks all looking the same. Conformity may be good for the bean counters, but a lot of us can't get ourselves seeded and primed without a sip from /dev/random first, it seems.

ObviousScience 11y ago
Sure. But my company has literally paid me over $1,000 in the past year to look up, awkwardly make eye contact, look around a moment, blink a few times, and look back at my screen because it draws my attention when people cross in front of my desk, and we have an open office design. (That cost is literally just the 15 seconds of looking around, the number of times I did so today, and my pay rate.) I hope they're getting their money's worth for my time, but I'm not sure they are -- or that they're not taking it out on me through externals, such as expecting me to make up that lost time in "crunch time" or extra hours or something. I feel like a lot of these plans are feel good pop science that just externalize the costs of what the executive wanted to do for pet reasons.