This is the part where I personally experienced the most friction between the management/lifestyle/trend bubble and "boots on the ground" people/devs.
All of a sudden blog posts and news posts popped up that claimed how open space is better, everybody loves it and everyone should be able to look every coworker in the eye and on his monitor, 0 barriers etc. Meanwhile I have yet to meet a coworker in real life that prefers or even likes this trend, personally I hate it. Makes it hard to focus, turns the distractions and noises up to 11 and makes overall for a terrible workplace. It was a major reason to quit my last job, and I am much happier with my current one.
Similarly I believe that homeoffice has probably sensitized many people to terrible workplace environments.
I don't think it's the floor plan.
I just don't believe this. I would say a good 2/3rd of employee's at every job I've worked at preferred the open floor plan. The only way I could possibly see not a single, not even one, person you've worked with preferring it is if you front run the conversation with such a vicious condemnation of it that they didn't feel comfortable sharing with you.
> Similarly I believe that homeoffice has probably sensitized many people to terrible workplace environments.
I'll take a guess that you have extra space and no kids or some combination? The feedback I've seen is the exact opposite with people realizing how poorly their home setup is and how little ability they have to make better.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying "people realize that homeoffice is better", I'm just saying people are sensitized to poor environments. And homeoffice can come with the problem you describe and still be better than the workplace.
I did not express my personal opinion on homeoffice vs. workplace. But your guess is still wrong.
The coolest work I've had outside my personal office was in rented house and room per team.
Although having office in city centre has it's perks that you could have lunch, beer, meet somewhere after work with collegues and I enjoyed that - but I feel it only worked as I had mostly same age, childless peers there.
Still commuting kills most of joy. I would move to village outide of city if only I could cook. Maybe some tourist place in the mountains will work.
You can have your preferences but there still exists an amount of compensation at which the average employee's preferences are offset.
When coupled with surprise meetings that don’t pertain directly to my projects and the inability to multitask, I think that the home office is a net positive.
Ironically enough, I do have a door at home.
- You get plenty of personal space
- My cubicle got both a whiteboard and a bulletin board, a locker, two trash bins, and enough desk space to comfortably fit a co-worker for short sessions of working together
- high walls discourage conversations, so it is actually quiet
The biggest disadvantage is artificial lighting - my cubicle was quite removed from the windows.
That's because (up until this shift) they have been forced to live in close proximity to offices. For the price of a downtown apartment, you can live in a suburb or rural area with more space that you could need. The longer this forced shift (pandemic) goes on, the more people will move away from the poor quality of life cities. Once they get the taste of a life without tiny overpriced apartments and time sucking commutes, they will only go back if they are forced - i.e. don't have the skills to easily jump ship.