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Comment by cheald | Hacker News Reader

Yikes. The push to eliminate any sense of personal space is, I think, reflective of the new dynamic between employers and employees - don't set down any roots, you may not be here long enough to matter. Don't expect me to commit to the company, I may not be here long enough to care. Ideologically and aesthetically, my reaction to this space was that it feels like a reduction of the workforce to interchangeable factory laborers.

The aesthetic feels messy, undirected, and haphazard. I'm sure that someone thinks it means "creative", but I think I'd probably just feel like I'm in a warehouse somewhere.

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That's a personal opinion and I fully respect it. But I would like to share mine too, which is pretty opposite to yours. I worked for 3 companies as a dev in about 6 years of experience, I always left because I wanted to move to something "more", not because I didn't care or didn't feel included. In all 3 I had a seemingly open space and I really like it if I have space to breath.

I don't think it's about not caring or mattering, actually, the open space environment originated to fight that feeling of being nobody, alone in your cubicle. What open space is trying to achieve is showing that everyone is, at least theoretically, on the same level.

Ultimately, I like it, but I don't think it's perfect and it will probably change. The thing to remember is that this whole big companies are a relatively new thing and nobody has the perfect formula yet, people/companies are experimenting and doing an effort to improve working conditions. I think that matters and I look forward to the future. We are iterating and as long as we don't start to regress I can do nothing but be happy.

Oh, it's absolutely a personal opinion. Everyone will react differently, and I truly hope that the folks that work there feel that it benefits and fuels them.

I totally get the idea behind open workspaces, and while there are positives to them - they definitely do encourage collaboration and more frequent interaction - I'm massively less productive in them. My issue isn't so much the lack of walls, but the complete abolition of any sense of ownership of a space. Not having a space that feels like my space makes it more difficult for me to get "into the zone", just because I'm less comfortable. Drive-by conversations can utterly murder a good half-hour debugging session. The temptation to get distracted by all the things going on around me noticeably cuts into my motivation and ability to buckle down and tear into the really hard problems.

I realize that this is just my personal reaction to spaces like this, and I'm certainly not authoritative on it, but I have absolutely observed that I'm far happier and more productive in a space that I can both feel a sense of ownership of and use strategically to limit interruptions and distractions.

Also indicative of Facebook as a product.

Why don't we just share all of our stuff with everyone irrespective of if it negatively affects us? SHARE SHARE SHARE!!

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