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Comment by hellisothers | Hacker News Reader

Surely an unpopular opinion but my previous job of many years had individual offices and my current job of 2 years is an open office for a couple thousand employees and it’s really not that bad. I was really worried when I started after hearing all the angst online but after a month I didn’t notice, I put in headphones if I need focus and it’s all good. I’m a software engineer at a level where my role involves a lot of collaboration so maybe that’s why I don’t mind? I notice others on my team do work away from their desks 90% of the time and I imagine it’s so they can hide and focus and the company provides locations for that. We would need 3x size of location(s) without open offices so I get it, also I’m it helps that the office has embraced “open” and tries to provide alternative space within the office, also grouping sales far away from engineering :)

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The problem for some people is the open layout inhibits collaboration. Nobody wants to start talking because it disturbs others. Whereas if you could just walk into someone's office and close the door you'd feel free to yak away.

Open office is for 2 people 'collaborating' vigorously or trading weekend stories and the rest either bearing all that 'collaboration' or trying to drown it out with an earphone/headphone.

"Nobody wants to start talking because it disturbs others."

That's never stopped anyone in my office. The place is full of constant interruptions that an open office layout facilitates.

We have "pods" where each pod has 10 desks (with monitors/standing desks, etc), five along each of the two outside walls, with two long tables and TVs on wheels between the desk-walls.

We each have privacy (and our own seating), but the collaboration is always available and not overwhelming.

I dig it a lot more than the cube I had at my old job.

My PhD office was like that and it was pretty sweet.

Now I work in industry with a fully open office and yeah, it's a nightmare.

Exactly. A real discussion can often get loud but you can't really do that in an open layout. So collaboration becomes pretty shallow.

I work in an open office. The only thing that bothers me is people doing the "fake whisper", where they talk in a regular volume but with a strained whispery voice. Just talk normally, it's easier for both the listener to hear and for other people in the room to tune out.

I find it difficult to tune out normal talking (also, extra loud talking). I especially appreciate people who can talk normally while at the same time reducing their volume.

I'd say it encourages collaboration moreso. It's way easier to get somone's attention and get a quick clarification, although in this day and age I'd probably even Slack someone sitting next to me rather than talk.

For long discussions that's when you book a meeting room.

> I'd say it encourages collaboration moreso.

There's not a ton of research on this. But what's out there[1] suggests that open office spaces actually decrease collaboration.

[1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.201...

Except that in the open office structure, all the managers permanently book the conference rooms so they have an office.

> I’m a software engineer at a level where my role involves a lot of collaboration so maybe that’s why I don’t mind? I notice others on my team do work away from their desks 90% of the time and I imagine it’s so they can hide and focus and the company provides locations for that.

I think you hit the nail on the head - you're at a level where you have to communicate a lot. Devs that are more focused on production rather than coordination work away from their desks - that says to me that most people can't (or prefer not to) do their work at their work.

> We would need 3x size of location(s) without open offices so I get it

This always comes up in these discussions. It's not a binary "everyone working at one long table" versus "everyone in their own hotel room". It's a continuum. There are options that allow each worker to have their own space at rather low cost. I don't buy the cost argument or the space argument.

I've been inside designs where workers have their own doors for a cost of a few thousand dollars and taking up very little extra space. Spread that out over ten years and you're talking a cost of $400 a year - if they don't have the money for that, you shouldn't be working there, because they don't have the money to pay you. Absolutely trivial relative to a six-figure salary.

> We would need 3x size of location(s) without open offices

Are you contrasting open offices with individual offices? Cubicles are barely larger than the desk/chair itself, I could believe maybe a 10%~ loss from cubicles due to inefficiency but not much more.

Imagine this post going back into the 90s when people were suffering in cube farms, and find out that in the future people would harken back to those days.

Yea, we have an open office which is really just cubicals with low walls such that you can see someone's head across the partition. It would be inconceivable for our company to build out offices but I've argued that high-walled cubes would be better for concentration.

"I’m a software engineer at a level where my role involves a lot of collaboration so maybe that’s why I don’t mind? "

do you really collaborate any better in an open office? I can't have any real conversation in such an environment because it's just too loud.

> I notice others on my team do work away from their desks 90% of the time and I imagine it’s so they can hide and focus and the company provides locations for that. We would need 3x size of location(s) without open offices so I get it

I don't understand. If it provides space for 90% of your team to work away from their desks then surely that's enough space just to have provided them with private offices in the first place? (Plus open spaces for collaboration the 10% of the time that they want it)

What I’ve realized is that you actually need more space in an open setting.

You will need a lot of rooms and furniture specifically placed and designed for ad-hoc collaboration.

An open space with just desks crammed in is awful, but if the above is catered for it’s awesome and I don’t want to work any other way.

It takes a lot of room and smart planning though.

Previous place we had a bunch of teams in mobs in an open space with just enough ad-hoc rooms and furniture made up of sound-dampeners.

Great experience.

I wonder if it's a cultural Europe/US thing?

I would say in Europe open offices are pretty normal, and people do not hate them that much.

I have worked in a classic "cubicle" environment in the US for a few months, and I cannot say it affected my productivity significantly.

I hate them, and I'm from Europe.

I also don't really see them being "the norm" - the software development company I work for since 8 years puts 2-4 people into an office, and that's it. We had some experiments with up to 8 or 10 in a room, but everyone really hated it, and management listened. We just moved into a larger building, but we still have only 4 desks maximum per office.

But then, maybe I'm just lucky. Our company staying away from open offices because of abysmal feedback by employees is definitely one of the reasons why I've been there for almost a decade now.

I hate them, but I'm pretty sure I'm part of a vocal minority and I suspect we're finding surveys to cite that are biased, or we're picking the ones that agree with what we want.

Employers do need to control costs like real estate, but they also have an interest in keeping employees productive. So they do surveys and listen to employees and I suspect the reality is people aren't complaining as much as we think they are.

Also, a lot of people who can't stand the noise already do work remotely. They would still be in the broader surveys complaining, but employers wouldn't hear them on internal surveys.

> I wonder if it's a cultural Europe/US thing?

It might be all the extra vacay in Europe. Noise is a stressor, and getting away from it lets that stress diminish.

> I have worked in a classic "cubicle" environment in the US for a few months, and I cannot say it affected my productivity significantly.

Most people filter that stuff out effectively, but some people don't, and if you're like me and your brain amps it up, it can be pretty hellish.

I think Europeans are quieter

When I had to work in an open office, I likewise used noise-cancelling headphones to isolate myself, but that didn't help with the visual distraction of all of the humans wriggling about in the distance and periphery. I probably would have done better if I could have faced a wall or other barrier, but I didn't have that option at the time. It was rough, I had to quit after a few unproductive months.

> We would need 3x size of location(s) without open offices so I get it

Assuming they all need to be in the office every day to collaborate..

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