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Comment by rodiger | Hacker News Reader

I guess I'm in the minority. Whenever this discussion pops up everyone laments the horrors of the open office, but I have no difficulty focusing in that environment and find it more lively and attractive when compared to alternatives. I don't need a black box to focus, and the feeling of being social (even when I'm not) really helps my morale.

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The focus in an open floorplan feels fragile, sitting in one I have a constant low level anxiety. I hate feeling constantly watched, as someone can see everything I do. Any time I sneeze I'm bothering a couple of dozen people. My monitors are open for display. If I eat at my desk everyone needs to suffer through that. My only sense of any sort of privacy are my headphones, which people are constantly talking over, or I'm taking off because someone is talking to me. There's no office door to close and never any promise of any sort of flow.

I'm sure it varies based on place of employment and personal preference. I understand many people have some level of social anxiety that may be exacerbated by the open floor plan. I just personally enjoy it and hope to not see its demise. Glad we get to pick our employer!

Unfortunately, that doesn't help, since 100% of software employers with offices use open floor plan offices, or some variant of the same.

I always ask people in the industry what company has private offices for programmers. The only answers I've ever heard are "Fog Creek" and "maybe Microsoft?", but my friends at Microsoft say that's not so common any more.

Citation badly needed. We use cubicles rather than open floor plans in most of our office locations. Every commercial real estate discussion I've had has treated open floor plan, cubes, and offices as three distinct points on a spectrum.

It's ironic to try and fit as many software developers in a floorspace as you can, when their productivity more than linearly drops like that. You could do with a few, actually focusing people.

Apple still has 2 person or completely private offices.

Not in the spaceship.

It's not so much a social anxiety, as an awareness of others. You can't just be yourself without being rude. Even just basic body functions, like farting, is something you need to consider and manage before doing it. I'm not saying I want to constantly fart, but there's no privacy.

> social anxiety

Yikes, that's kind of an insulting assumption. I just get bothered by sounds, and don't want to bother others with sound (and smells).

I didn't suggest it was the only reason people may prefer offices- just one potential reason. I'm making no claim about OP or any other specific person on this thread.

Same. Headphones are my "door". Maybe my co-workers are simply self-aware-enough to not interrupt all the time.

in my experience there are 2 types of people: ones that can focus with headphones on and ones that need silence. you are part of the lucky ones.

also, as far as interruptions go, acoustic interruptions are only one type of interruption. Your brain is physically wired to pay attention to things in your visual fields - it's physically wired to pay attention to people coming and going, continuously assessing the situation. just because you can function in an open space environment it does not mean that the environment is optimal.

Just a suggestion. Have you considered trying hearing protection to create a “low noise” bubble?

I have a pair of shotgun hearing protection ear muffs next to my bed. I only use them for emergencies when I really need to sleep and neighbors are partying very late. However, putting them on cuts any noise to a mumbling like in the distance.

Not the exact model or make but similar. Not electronic.

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p/walkers-game-ear-pro-fo...

yes. and earplugs. that being said the pressure differential sucks and you will also have issues if for example you’re a side sleeper

Thanks for the follow up. Yes, the size of the hearing protection makes sleeping on the side pretty much impossible. I guess that is an acceptable tradeoff, as long as I can get to sleep.

It can depend on the nature of the job. More creative jobs and those about figuring out deep and complex problems need more solitude I think. If it's more of a straightforward task that just needs to be done, it's probably easier to do it among distractions. Cleaning up code, refactoring, code review, etc are the latter category for me. Coming up with a new design or figuring out what problem to solve, how to frame the issue, what is the issue about deep down, taking steps back and looking at the whole picture, that's the former.

There is no universal truth when it comes to subjective things.

I am really glad that the status quo works for you and feels fulfilling. I genuinely am.

But I can't focus in an open office, I end up wasting the whole day on busy work, and when I get home in the evenings I end up doing my actual work.

So, I'm glad for you, but don't drag me into the open office. I'm not productive and you will resent my lack of productivity.

You know what makes an open office tolerable? Having lots of personal space! Where I work we have really big desks, with ~2ft tall frosted glass walls, so it's not so bad. I worked for a little while at a company that had small 5ft desks. That sucked. I could smell what my coworkers had for lunch! IT REALLY SUCKED! 0/10 not doing that again.

For me, it's half half. I actually do love the aesthetic of the open office, the large clearing space and the beautifully connected common areas. It's so vast and 'open'.

But I do hate the lack of productive areas. Although, I did once work in a tech giant that really spaced out some individual desks, and positioned many of them next to beautiful open windows.

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