I remember watching "Office Space" circa 2000 and it looked pretty soul crushing, and working in pre-FAANG big tech around 2006, it felt very mechanical and depressing. I get your gripes, but I think some is also rosy retrospection.
Hell, at my current job personalization of your space is actively discouraged, since there's a culture of hot-desking if you're coming in from another office.
I'm not gonna lie, the cube farms were an awful eyesore. But I still really enjoyed the occasional weeks I'd spend visiting those offices, and would have jumped at the chance to move to one. The people were quite a bit more outgoing and social, and yet the space still managed to be quieter. Noise level and character were generally comparable to those of my college's library.
And while one can theoretically make good software in open-floor-plan-environment/current-whipping-boy-programming-language-of-the-month/etc., the existence of such things is a big sign on the door "we probably don't care about craft".
Too bad open offices are here to stay, if you were worth it you could get an office, maybe invest in some good headphones :)
Cubes are still rather poor, but at least I odn't have to see what my neighbor's doing, or listen to any but the loudest noises. I'm three steps away from everyone else in the team, and if we need an impromptu discussion the aisle is at least a cube width, so plenty of quick standup space.
An office / separate workroom away from the team opposite me would be great but I can earbud them away.
I hear a conversation relevant to me and jump in, a conversation stops being relevant I jump out That simple interaction has added tons of value for me over the last few years of open offices. We have a very simple way to indicate you don't want to be interrupted, headphones or a flag There's also tons of huddle rooms you can go into if you want to hunker down in quiet - Everyone is different, some people feel switching from keyboard to mouse is a huge productivity drain and invest a lot in avoiding that transition Maybe I'm just fortunate but it's never been an issue for me, people are pretty respectful of their coworkers where I've worked
But they aren't great for that. For most people, they're the opposite. That's the point the article is making, and the article agrees with what I've personally observed.
But I can imagine that I'd be so jumpy and angry that I'd refuse to talk with anyone. And that I'd wear humongous headphones, and blast death metal or whatever.
But then there are the loudmouths :(
Can you explain this to me? How does an open office lead to better communication than cubes or partitioned group work spaces?
I'm in an open office. A lot of communication is done via email and IM. When someone comes to my desk to ask a question, collaborate, or just say hey, I typically don't get up. If a group stops by, we'll usually move to a collaborative area or set up a meeting. This would be true no matter if I were in a cube or partitioned group area. If I have a private office, I may not even have to leave my desk.
The typical response I see to this is that open offices tend to have this implied notion of everyone is willing to communicate at any time. I'd argue that on an individual level for developers, that's more often false. Someone head-down probably doesn't want to be interrupted.
It doesn't make sense because that's not the reason open-floor-plan exists. The reason is 100% cost-savings. "Communication" is just a post-hoc rationalization, created by management, parroted by employees too boorish to learn how to communicate politely and effectively.
That simple interaction has added tons of value for me over the last few years of open offices.
We have a very simple way to indicate you don't want to be interrupted, headphones or a flag
There's also tons of huddle rooms you can go into if you want to hunker down in quiet
-
Everyone is different, some people feel switching from keyboard to mouse is a huge productivity drain and invest a lot in avoiding that transition
Maybe I'm just fortunate but it's never been an issue for me, people are pretty respectful of their coworkers where I've worked
And they are likely wrong. People believe a lot of things about themselves that don't hold up to scrutiny. For example, people think they can multitask, etc and studies show that the aren't nearly as productive doing that as they think they are. People think that open offices help collaboration, but that is not what the research shows. As the article says:
>...As my colleague Jessica Stillman pointed out last week, a new study from Harvard showed that when employees move from a traditional office to an open plan office, it doesn't cause them to interact more socially or more frequently.
>Instead, the opposite happens. They start using email and messaging with much greater frequency than before. In other words, even if collaboration were a great idea (it's a questionable notion), open plan offices are the worst possible way to make it happen.
>Previous studies of open plan offices have shown that they make people less productive, but most of those studies gave lip service to the notion that open plan offices would increase collaboration, thereby offsetting the damage.
https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/its-official-open-plan-of...
That's the problem with open-floor-plan. It presumes "my need to know what you're saying/doing is more important than you even getting the opportunity to consent to me knowing."
Sitting in an open-plan office lets you know that you're not "worth it". That you're not respected. And you're way too distracted to actually get much done. So you zone out with music, watch YouTube, hang out on HN, etc.
And then, because you're not productive, you're condemned to an open-plan future :(
Hell, I'm pretty sure if they asked seriously for a private office, the company would jump over itself to make it happen.
If you need to do passive aggressive stuff like refuse to work because you're in an open office that's rather unfortunate, a lot of very successful, productive, people work in open offices.
That seems counterintuitive. Or at least from what I've read. Such as TFA.
> If you need to do passive aggressive stuff like refuse to work because you're in an open office that's rather unfortunate ...
TFA actually presents evidence that there's a productivity hit.
I do agree that open office looks a lot less depressing than a cubicle farm; being able to see a large area tends to be more pleasing than lots of obstructions. However, actually having the same amount of people (or, usually, more people because that's why they have open offices in the first place) can cause issues due to the more intense noise and distractions. But that wouldn't be visible in a quick visit; it would need to come out over a prolonged period of working in that environment. And somehow all the decision makers never actually work in the middle of the open plan office…
Well I'm not good enough to demand an office, but I like to think I'm on the upper half of the talent scale and when I'm job hunting I can be somewhat selective. The office style is one of my selection criteria, so companies with open plan offices are putting themselves at a disadvantage. It wont show up on a balance sheet but it will hurt them in the long run.
Typically companies with open plan offices have more "quirks" sending people away.
open floorplan < cubicles < office with a door
The beauty of the cubicle was in its practical functionality. If you’re working effectice and productively you don’t really notice the plainness of your surroundings.
A private space, but you could still see out the window.
The leap to open floor plans was a whole other level. It's like plotting soul crushing on a log scale.