Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse blinders for humans | Hacker News Reader

Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse blinders for humans

techcrunch.com

61 pointswalterbell25 comments

> early birds can snag one for $260

Rather than waiting for the crowdfunding process and spending 10x the money, you can click over to your local marksmanship supply store and spend £25.

https://www.intershoot.co.uk/acatalog/ahg-Anschutz-Hat-325C-...

I can confirm that this hat is comfortable to wear, including with Bose QC-35s.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry right now. Seems like something out of The Onion.

It looks ridiculous, but this could be of real use to me. Three things in an open office distract me: conversations, glare, and motion in my peripheral vision.

My inability to ignore things other people seem to be able to ignore really disrupts my ability to focus - to the point where literal blinders are at least worth serious considerations.

The point isn't that these don't serve a purpose - of course they do. The point is that you're being encouraged to spend money on solving a problem that your employers inflicted upon you.

It's really a problem my employer is inflicting on themselves. I've had my own office and worked in an open space. I feel I'm vastly more productive behind a closed door.

At the end of the day, my employer pays full price for my productivity and I deliver the fraction of it I can come up with in an open office. I also make small talk with coworkers and dial in to meetings from my desk and complain about the open office at every opportunity.

The productivity hit, sure. But[1],

> A systematic survey of research upon the effects of open-plan offices found frequent negative effects in some traditional workplaces: high levels of noise, stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high staff turnover.

The blood pressure and stress likely translate into the non-work portions of your life.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan

You're assuming that employers actually care about your well-being :)

They don't have to care about their workers in this case. Studies also say that such work environments are also hugely detrimental to both employee retention and productivity, and health.

Corporations have incredibly difficultly a. not following short term fads (Facebook did this so it must be good) and b. not trading long-term losses (productivity, sickness, retention) for short-term gains (less real-estate == cheaper) that get outweighed by those losses.

my employer pays full price for my productivity

This implies your employer negotiated a price for what you imagined was the limit of your productivity, and is getting somewhat less than that. But your employer knew all about working conditions and their impact on productivity when they hired you. Have you considered the possibility that their offer was based on a much lower expectation of what you would deliver than your imagination of what you could deliver?

If it would help you, then you should spend the £25 on it.

https://www.intershoot.co.uk/acatalog/ahg-Anschutz-Hat-325C-...

Sony xm3 headphones, plus rotate your multiple monitors to block most peripheral vision. Bliss will return.

You're a species evolved to be concerned about its environment. "Inability" is the wrong word, own your hyperattention, instead.

Please don't buy these, folks. All you'll do is encourage your employers to rationalize their horrible choices to implement open offices. "Well, look, everyone has these cool horse blinders on, there's no more problem, right? You can all focus now, right?"

Just say, “Neigh!”

Maybe we should have personal offices instead of wearing horse blinders?

Maybe we should have cocoons. We could snoozle in our little personal shellter and have a birth experience every day! Maybe we can have some sort of VR that makes us think we are in an open environment. Then we would not have to leave the cocoon at all. Also our machine overlords could stack us together to harvest bio energy in some form of large battery tower... oh well, nevermind.

The initial blog : https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/17/panasonics-wearable-blinke...

Panasonic’s page describing the project: https://panasonic.net/design/flf/works/wear-space/

Working all day isolated inside your VR headset will be a thing at some point in the future, switching to AR mode when you need to interact with your co-workers in the real world.

I'd rather work at home, with a Wheelie Boy in the office.

This plus a narrow field of view screen filter... it’ll take off. Your office is whenever you want it to be.

Don’t get me wrong - I hate it. But it’ll happen regardless.

cheaper than paying for the sq. footage for you to sit in

Yes, and this way we'll end up with factory-farm offices.

Honestly, back when we (in CA) had to vote Prop 12 in November, and I'm reading the previous law, which read,

> a person shall not tether or confine any covered animal on a farm, for all or the majority of any day, in a manner that prevents such animal from:

> (a) Lying down, standing up, and fully extending his or her limbs; and

> (b) Turning around freely

and then I'm sitting there wondering if this animal has more personal space than I do¹. Pretty sure I can't extend my limbs fully without impacting the desk next to me's area.

¹in between the quizzicalness of PETA not wanting better treatment for animals. I mean, I "get" their point, but it was ridiculously absolutist.

When are we going to stop religious wars and admit that the optimal configuration varies by individual?

For what individual is an open-office environment actually optimal?

Stoics?

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