You’re working in the wrong place if you’re working in an open office

> At my most recent job, I did all of my best work at home. I would actively try to avoid the office for as long as possible. At home, I had two desks and complete control over my environment. Distractions and breaks were choices.

Indeed. I've worked from home since around 2007. It started when the Sunnyvale-based startup I worked for acquired a company in NC. I had wanted to relocate back to the east coast and they generously paid for the move. I purchased a home a few miles from our NC office, to which I commuted daily.

But most of the folks I was actually working on projects with were still in CA, so I was effectively working remotely from our NC office. My NC coworkers were primarily an impediment to my productivity. Sociable though I am, when I'm at work, I want to be working, not engaging in non-work related chit chat.

So I experimented with working from home one day a week. One day became two, then three. My NC co-workers didn't seem to care and my CA co-workers didn't know the difference. So I started working from home full time.

That company was eventually acquired by HP who shut down the NC location within 2 years and forced everyone to either re-locate or lose their job (no remote workers). I jumped ship to another startup in CA for which I worked remotely till they were acquired by another CA company who at the time had a CEO who'd made news for banning remote work. Turns out that wasn't 100% true.

So here I am a decade later still working remotely.

I have never been more unhappy at a job than when I had my own office.

I hardly felt like a part of the team. I barely got to know anyone and communication between developers was horrible. I found it way easier to goof around and not actually do work.

Sure, I get distracted more in an open office, but I always thought that was the point. When I overhear my coworker going down a particular rabbit hole that I've already been down, I can save them hours of work. I don't need to wander down a hallway hoping the person is actually there. I can just look up.

I don't doubt that some people prefer their own office. I am not one of those people.

For me, the perfect solution was a cubicle with high walls. It was open enough to encourage collaboration when needed, but closed off enough to allow for privacy when needed. It was perfect because I was able to get into deep concentration modes and I learned and accomplished so much in those years. Now, I work in an open office area and I am really getting fed up with the distractions. Constant cross-talk and interruptions, especially by the coworker sitting right next to me who just won't shut the fuck up. He's one of those people that mumble any thought that comes to his head and expects you to respond to or acknowledge him in some way. He also constantly wants me to see something on his screen or has questions, requiring me to turn and face him to talk, breaking my concentration. Other coworkers just mosy on up to my desk to say hi or casually ask me for my input on various issues. Add to that several useless standup and status meetings, and my productivity basically becomes 0% until about 2 pm when everyone is finally quiet from food comas. The din starts back up in an hour or so and dors not die down again until most everyone leaves for the day. I stay until about 6pm and I get more done in those 2 hours than I do in the other 6-7 hours of the day. Open offices are not just a bad or failed idea, they're a fucking disaster.

I asked[1] awhile back if HN readers could recommend tech companies without open offices, and got no replies.

From the traction this article is getting, it sounds like there's interest, so I'm going to plead one more time for leads on companies that respect their employees right to work in peace.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15503008

Honestly, the only reason open offices exist can be described in a single word: control. It simply allows managers to hold sway over their employees by forcing them to look busy and be in their chair as much as possible, and causing undue stress.

It also has the horrible downside of mashing together personalities that will conflict at some point without any guidance of how to resolve the conflicts as they arise. People are dicks no matter how hard they try not to be. Sure, we can try to act like adults, but people tend to defend themselves and their actions in front of an audience instead of talking things through like adults should — which is much more easily accomplished in a private office.

For those who are interested, Joel Spolsky wrote about this a long time ago.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/07/30/private-offices-re...

After working in a cubicle I'd be reluctant to ever go back to an open office (I guess remote is the next step in this progression). Which is shitty because there are companies I'd like to work for but they have open offices.

Even just looking at images of open offices and imagining having to work with my back turned against the entire floor gives me anxiety.

Peopleware debunked the myth that open office plans raise employee productivity. It should be required reading for all startup office managers. If there is a common struggle amongst employees with noise, demand a quiet room/area and a headphones subsidy.

They aren't using open office plans because they think it's cool. It's because giving most people an office isn't practical unless they want to get 5 times as much space which is not possible due to the high cost of space in the locations they choose.

I think we will eventually see some workplaces offer micro-offices with high tech ventilation, fiber optic lights, sound proofing, and virtual windows.

I also think that as self driving cars deploy people will realize they are able to work in the car. Then they will realize they could have just as easily stayed home to work.

For a stretch, I went to the office on Monday, and worked from home the rest of the week. Never in my life have I been as happy with a work situation, or gotten anywhere near as much done. The one day in the office was enough to deal with staff meetings and do planning and other work that actually benefits from being co-located with other people. The other four days I could grind away and actually structure my day so that I could get the contiguous blocks of time necessary to actually get things done. Sometimes that meant I was awake at 4am and coded away madly until sunrise; other days I might take a nap or work on some stuff around the house in those afternoon hours when productivity is at a nadir. I probably ended up actually working somewhere close to 40-50 hours a week, instead of just being at the office for 40.

These days, I've basically got that schedule flipped, except I'm working from home on Fridays. On average, I probably get an hour or two of real work done; there's just so much overhead and interruptions that make it damn near impossible to actually concentrate and do anything. On Friday when I work from home, I'm so burned out and used up that I can't get much accomplished then either; besides trying to steal time to deal with all of the errands and other business that it's my only opportunity to get done during business hours. It's really not a great setup.

I've been thinking about trying to switch to working four tens instead of five eights; working seven to five would essentially double the amount of time I have to actually get work done, in those two hours before anybody else is in the office.

Unfortunately bosses get itchy if they can't see that you're there in the office and they can't walk over at any moment and poke you.

The writers cabin reminded me of longtime Bay Area resident and Pulitzer prize winning novelist, Wallace Stegner's writing office (separate building from his home).

http://ww4.hdnux.com/photos/11/23/76/2441099/7/1024x1024.jpg

The irony is it's exactly this sort of all-or-nothing statement that leads companies astray.

There are plenty of environments and team structures that worship the benefits they get from being able to work next to one another, from being able to just ask something rather than get up, or write an email. Even just for the comradely. Just as there are jobs and people and teams who need walls, either to put stuff on or relax (perhaps the wrong word) within the separation they provide.

And how much people need one or the other changes over time, depending on what they're doing. There isn't one simple answer... Except that holding offices as status symbols is pretty toxic when the person who really wants one is actually better off without one. Perhaps a medium-term hot-desk/office allocation based on what people want and need.

There are a couple of interesting models laid out here but seriously, before you turn your office into a warren-line Eudamonia Machine, please step back and talk to your employees.

And if you are pushing for something like that... fire escapes, fire escapes, fire escapes.

There are team intangibles that you get with open offices. You get to be more aware of what is happening, in a subconscious way. I’ve seen both open and cubicles, both have plus and minus. This dude clearly has his own taste and thinks he can speak for everyone

For me personally, working in an open office is increasingly a non-issue, even with the ol' ADHD. I spend so much time in an office working with people who are remote, ~80% of my distractions come from my computer, not the physical space around me.

The only reason open offices are popular is because they are cheaper. The rest is just bullshit to try to convince you they don't suck and aren't just chosen because they are cheaper.

I have been working more often from home in my last two jobs where there have been open offices. I didn't initially realise why, but its been increasingly clear that I just need the privacy to get work done. So typically I ended up going into office twice a week, and work from home the remaining days.

I don't mind if the company has open office as long as they let me work from home.

Is there no good way to collectively apply some reverse pressure back towards the job market?

I often wonder as I see this, and even worse trends spreading.

You might also be working in the wrong position. A programmer is a skilled IC, but an IC none the less. If even facebook stuffs mere programmers into open office, what makes you think other companies are likely to do better?

NOTE: I am an IC with my own office in a small company. Pure luck.

> Before, I continue, I would like to call out that I am part of the ‘problem’ with open offices. I’m extroverted...

While I still prefer a private office, open offices don't bother me precisely because I'm an introvert. Headphones plus some synthwave and you all disappear.

Every now and then i see article like this. It is common sense and majority of the engineers are complaining about open offices. BUT i don't see any news or changes happening in creating "focus friendly" work environment. When is it going to start?

That Eudæmonia Machine sounds completely brilliant. Why aren't more offices built like that? Heck, there's even something there for the C-suite types: the gallery and salon seem like just their element.

That picture of the Facebook offices in the article looks terrible. If anyone here works there is that the new office? Also is that how it's supposed to look or is it unfinished?

The problem is that company actions are usually dictated by the bean counters in accounting/finance.

By forcing the company to an open-office layout, the CFO can claim an immediate reduction in rent cost (KPIs: short term profits, office space per worker) and the bonuses that go along with it.

When it inevitably ends up hurting the company because people leave, they can shift the blame by saying "those who left (or who don't want to join the company any more once they hear that it's open office) are not culturally fitting to our new ultra-agile, ultra-communcation mantra any more, it was neccessary".

And when shit really hits the fan (massive loss of staff/productivity), the CFO can still quietly depart, after all he likely already has pocketed the boni and stock options and whatnotelse. Or not depart at all by successfully attributing the problems to entirely unrelated things (e.g. a payment rise freeze, $new_attractive_startup opening up shop in the same city, rent risings forcing people out of town, ...).

But by that point, it will be so much more expensive to shift back into a closed space layout... because the place that has been "won" might be rented out to another company or filled with new hires (thus making a rescale == a move of the entire office).

The only places where open space layouts can work are places that have a strong remote culture by allowing those who suffer the most from open office layouts to simply work (more) from home or those with a CxO team with great managerial/psychological skills, where the leadership e.g. listens to the workers and installs plants as sound catchers or visual/audio barriers, so that the workers feel a subjective improvement in the kind of "meh, it sucks, but it's not so bad any more since we have the new plants and it doesn't suck enough to search for a new job".

tl;dr: wrong/toxic KPI focus in management is the problem, and there is no KPI for "employee happiness/productivity" that can be scientifically measured without a doubt, while everyone with a calculator can determine savings in rent and office space per worker.

Another thing that people often forget when discussing open-office plants is smell. Most focus on visual or audio distractions, but smell is an important factor, too. In a closed-space layout you stick the dog people with their dogs and those tolerant to dog smell into one office and be done, while the dog smell in an open space environment goes everywhere. This also applies to human odors and especially those of food - for example, I'm fine with nearly anything except fish. As soon as someone eats fish and I can smell it, I escape to somewhere where I cannot smell the fish any more. Other people react to other smells, and that may be something as simple as the colleague having jogged to the office and being sweaty.