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Comment by parzivalm | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it is really discrimination, if you can't handle an open office setting, then don't work at a place that utilizes one.

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If someone can “handle” an open office setting, they are the outlier.

Open office high distraction setting may allow shallow work but is seriously prohibitive to deep work.

I can't speak for others, but I was absolutely furious when my company switched to an "open office" for the engineering department, and it went exactly as well as I predicted. A year and a half later, management promised we would go back to cubicles (and I gave my share of feedback and then some), and it's supposed to happen in the next week or so.

Not only did the noise increase immensely, and I went from 0 visual distraction to constant visual distraction, but the open office desks offered about 1/10th of the storage space of the cubicles we had. My desk is so cramped I'm constantly knocking stuff over, and I took home almost everything I don't actually need, save for a digital photo frame. This company treats me pretty well overall, but this open office thing was clearly a money-saving scheme, despite what they might have claimed (because 30 years of evidence shows that it's an _awful_ environment to work in, or as I would tell anyone who would listen, it's the most discredited idea since phrenology.)

The good news, of course, is that our ill-advised experiment is almost done, and I'll be back in a cubicle soon. (How times have changed... back in 2001 I had my own office! and now I'm happy to be back in a cubicle...)

I don't disagree with what you are saying about them being terrible work environments. But it isn't discrimination was my point. That's like saying someone that works at a coffee shop is being discriminated against because they don't like the sound of coffee grinders.

what part of software engineering practice functionally requires zero privacy or personal space and unending distraction?

I always did my job pretty well with a door that closes and my own little whiteboard. people would stop by for a chat, and we could go on for as long or as short as we liked without bothering anyone at all. we didnt spend 15 minutes going back and forth trying to find a booked conference room that happened to be empty to see if we could steal a few minutes discussion time.

what was I missing?

edit: (sorry, just to be clear, I dont think this is discriminatory, just kind of tragic)

Here's a fun fact... not everyone can get a job at a place of their choosing at a drop of the hat.

Okay that's true, but what does what you are saying have to do with it being discrimination? Someone not being hired or being treated badly for being a woman is discrimination. Not wanting to working in an open office space is not discrimination.

What if things change over time? Your group is moved from one building (or part of a building) with offices or cubes to an open workspace. Your team merges with another, possibly in a different location, that is in an open office and you have to visit. You get older, and well-known physiological changes associated with aging make open-office noise and visual distraction harder to bear.

Is it your position that in any of those situations the person should just find another job? Because that falls exactly within the definition of "constructive dismissal" and anyone with a half-way decent lawyer could win that case. In the last case you could add age discrimination for extra damages.

Discrimination is still discrimination even if "parzivalm" on Hacker News doesn't feel personally burdened by it.

When so much of tech takes place in an open office setting, "don't work at a place that utilizes one" approaches "don't work in tech". And when so much of white collar work in general happens in that setting, it approaches "don't work"

That's true, and I agree, I think open office settings are terrible, but that doesn't change that it isn't discrimination.

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