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Comment by yankoff | Hacker News Reader

By the way, when exactly did this hate for open offices started? I remember everyone hating on cubicles and preaching open offices, now it flipped back?

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Cubes versus open amounts to the same thing. Neither promotes deep work.

http://calnewport.com/blog/

We need to aknowledge that jobs come in at least two flavors: deep work and interrupt driven. Software engineering is deep work. Operations is interrupt driven. Don't expect the same environment to be optimal for both.

To be fair, cubicles were also dehumanizing, the whole rat maze thing. After several decades of cubicle life I think workplace engineers were desperate to try anything.

So we tried open spaces, and they were possibly more terrible (I like them but I'm weird). But proper offices are expensive, so.

Joel Spolsky took offices pretty seriously, I recall this bit: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/

IMO the best office are old houses even if it is not remote.

I'm from New England and I hate "open concept" design.

I like cozy pockets, wood floors, oriental rugs, steam heating, and in general old designs.

I like mazes of interconnecting rooms with low yellow light coming out of sconces.

None of this overhead white sunlight crap.

Despite that I prefer the new bamboo floor open offices any day to the office-space-ugly-color-wall-to-wall-carpet-florescent-overhead-cubicle-fest of yesteryear.

Lighting actually makes a very significant difference in my opinion. I absolutely hate overhead fluorescent lighting, and really most forms of direct lighting. Actual daylight from outside is okay, as is soft lighting reflected from walls/ceiling. At work we have never turned on the overhead lights, just used floor and desk lamps.

It seems like many of the people planning offices don't even consider lighting.. they just by default put in a drop ceiling with 4x2 flourescent light banks. It's not like it even costs much more to do, well, nearly anything else and it makes a significant improvement to the office environment.

Totally agree. Just to clarify when I was referring to sunlight I meant the crappy overhead lights that try to "imitate" sunlight and not the actual sunlight.

However while I generally like sunlight I find it a little too variable for my liking particularly if your region has seasons. On a cloudy winter day in New England sunlight can have a white dreary look that is sort of depressing.

Yes. I want a (standing) desk next to a window that actually opens, like I have at home. When it's ~70 degrees with a gentle breeze outside (as it is today), being forced to breathe the recycled air of the office building's HVAC system is torture.

I sit inside a large cube farm in an office building all day, breathing recycled air and having the life-force drained from my body via overhead fluorescent lighting. It's not unusual for me to feel mildly ill after a few hours at my desk -- and to feel instantly better as soon as I emerge from the building at the end of the day (and in this particular facility, stepping outside frequently is not practicable (at my previous job I could at least go for a walk during lunch)).

I spent about 2 years trying to get a work-from-home job (countless interviews, etc.) but no luck. I live a few blocks from the beach and I fantasize about small things, like being able to step outside for 5 minutes to clear my head and enjoy the sea breeze, or stepping into my kitchen to get a cup of coffee (because I refuse to join the office 'coffee club' which costs money -- hell, we also have a pay-to-play 'water club' if you want to enjoy filtered water from the water cooler -- eff you, I'll drink the room-temperature tap water before I submit to that crap). But alas, it is not to be.

I feel like it's the natural thing that happens, open offices are being pushed so a lot of people will push back. I think the thing that people don't realize is that there is not a single fit solution for how an office should be, unless that solution is flexibility. Some type of middle ground where you have your own work space but also spaces for collaboration. Also forcing all people to telework or not telework isn't the answer, but like myself I want that option. If I have to drag myself to work five days a week my productivity can take a hit. However I'm excited when I get to work from home because I just have to toss on some clothes and go into my office. Not all people like to work from home, but I would rather ditch the distractions that are inevitable in any work place.

I don't think it flipped 'back', as much as it's flipping towards the middle? I say this working in an office with 4 desks, which to me is just as fine as working from home.

About a thousand people work this way in this building.

Maybe it's because I came to the party late (started professionally in 2007) but I've never heard anyone preaching or praising open offices. It's either been a neutral "I dunno this is just how we do it" or an annoyed "man I really wish I could have some peace and quiet to concentrate."

"I remember everyone hating on cubicles"

I don't remember anyone complaining other than people who previously held even more luxurious offices. And I lived (and worked) thru the cubicle era. Still in one today, love it, not as nice as an office with a door, but it beats open offices.

God, I wish I had a cubicle.

I don't remember preaching for open offices - it is just the modern/hipster (and of course much cheaper, even cheaper than cubicles) way to easily "store" your employees.

The ideal was always to use private offices or small offices housing up to 4 persons closely working together.

IIRC there's a chapter on that on peopleware and the following article by joel describes the issues pretty good: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/07/30/private-offices-re...

TL;DR developers need private, quite offices to be productive in their primary work (write code).

two Joel links in 5 minutes so you know he's on to something

Between cubes and open office, I'd still rather open office, if it's a properly designed one with sufficient space. If it's packing the maximum amount of people possible into a given square footage, open office can probably be even worse than cubes. http://cf.jare.io/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yegor256.com%2Fimages%...

Neither is great.

When people started working in them. Cubicles are arguably worse and people aren't promoting cubicles when they criticize open offices.

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