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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

To me it matters how open. I want to share a room with the members of my team, I don't want to share it with noisy salespeople. I've worked at many companies that get it right, but a few get very wrong.

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It also matters what sort of keyboards everyone is using. Horribly noisy mechanical keyboards make it impossible to concentrate.

This is definitely one of those things that I can't understand. There seem to be so many people that swear by using keyboards with the clicks...but I just don't understand it.

Especially once you get out of your own house.

I used to swear by mechanical keyboards; I wrote my entire thesis on one, much to the chagrin of my graduate student officemate. She still brings it up when I see her, twelve years later!

For me, the difference was similar to weighted vs unweighted piano keys. With a mechanical keyboard I could get into a rhythm that I miss when working on a bubble-type keyboard. I've since trained myself (mostly out of necessity due to travel) to type almost as quickly and error-free on my laptop keyboard, but I do still miss the feedback from mechanical springs.

If I did 'spring' for a new mech keyboard now, however, I'd find the quietest one I could get, that still provided some sense of feedback. I don't need my noisy clicks to provide a juvenile signal to my coworkers that, yes, I am indeed working really hard on something really important right now.

I use mechanical keyboards in an open office environment. Even clicky ones. Does it bother anyone? Nobody complained yet (in fact, barely anyone noticed I bring my own keyboards to work). On the other hand, I can hear people typing on butterfly and membrane keyboards. So in my experience, in an open space which is already pretty noisy mechanical keyboards don't create noise which is more significant than non-mechanical keyboards.

Even the makers of mechanical keyboards recognize that some key switches make considerably more noise than others. That's why Cherry MX added optional damping -- so you can be considerate of others who are within earshot.

Like leaky headphones, loud keyboards reliably do annoy neighbors, whether they're willing to speak up or not.

Ask your coworkers if it bothers them. The fact that they have not complained to you does not mean that it doesn't. They are more than likely being non-confrontational. People who get called out on their mechanical keyboards often get very defensive. I have seen it ruin team dynamics.

mechanical does not have to be noisy though. I swear by mechanical keyboards and own quite a few. MX blues, which are quite loud, I wouldn't take to an office.

Matias Quiet Click / Brown switches (with o-rings) are not all that loud. Or the 'topre' switches which are not really 'mechanical' but already feel a lot better than standard membrane can be an option.

My last role (at a FAANG) had this lovely combination of short cubicle walls, standing desks that rise above the short walls, and mechanical keyboards. Dreaded it every day.

Even temporary room/sound-dividers do wonders.

I've worked somewhere that had things like these:

https://i.imgur.com/F2TDKSe.jpg

And while on paper we were one "open office," in practice the dividers created mini-cubes/"offices." Which made it a reasonable workplace.

People argue that creating distinct offices is expensive, but cubicles/dividers aren't. I feel like the reason for open plan isn't about cost, it is about trust i.e. that management wants to oversee/micromanage employees.

"Even temporary room/sound-dividers do wonders."

I have mentioned to facilities that they should be putting these in to get some insulation between different groups but they refused.

A rule at my current client is that every department gets 0.7 desks per member, and facilities sticks to it. The rationale is that we're all flexible and not everybody is in all the time, and that might be for managers and other people who live in meetings, but for product teams it can mean you can't sit together. We had to fight for a spot of our own. It's not the best spot, but at least I'm sitting with my team.

I've worked at a bank where the entire floor was technically one gigantic open floor, but in practice there were dividers, plants, and various other obstacles that created separate corners per team, and blocked most of the sound. Perfectly fine place to work.

> I feel like the reason for open plan isn't about cost, it is about trust i.e. that management wants to oversee/micromanage employees.

That's one of those things I really don't understand. What kind of manager would want to micromanage my work? How would they even do that? And do they really have nothing better to do with their time? It's one of those caricatures I only know from Dilbert.

Bank trading floors also usually have significant sound dampening/soundproofing in the ceilings and other surfaces which makes a big difference. They spend a lot of time thinking about the acoustic environment.

> What kind of micromanager

The kind that's looking out for people watching Netflix movies all day instead of working. That's right - they're willing to kill the productivity, engagement and loyalty to the company rather than actually doing a little bit of management and paying attention to who's actually doing work. And we're letting them get away with it.

I admit at my first job, I did have a manager who couldn't stand that I never looked busy. I wrote scripts and macros to automate most of my work, one of which the team lead declared the biggest productivity booster in the team. But I was always leaning back watching my scripts do the work, and that manager hated that.

I've never met that type since I started working for more professional organisations, though.

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