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Comment by tajchert | Hacker News Reader

With remote work, open spaces from hell are (hopefully) a thing of the past, but key learnings on proper room culture are still valid after almost 200 years. How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space?

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Maybe I have a psychological problem that most people don't have, but I can't work on a monitor that is publicly visible.

It isn't just you. I couldn't stand having my monitors facing other people when I had to work in an open space, even though I only ever had work on it.

I feel something similar, like I need to make sure my screen always ‘looks’ like work regardless of if its actually work, so it becomes performative

Maybe it's an overstatement but I personally feel like I'm in Panopticon when working in open offices. I do not experience the same feeling in co-working spaces and coffee shops though. It just feels more productive to work with strangers in the same room who don't care about what you're working on but are aware that you need to get stuff done. On the other end of the spectrum, work-from-home setups just feels very solitary and distractions are just more prevalent.

In my case, sometimes I like to move, lie on my bed a few minutes, when I am thinking. Can't do in open office.

I also don't have half my focus spent on my surrouding (who's saying what, who's moving, who's looking at me for attention...).

I also don't have project managers or commercials chatting around me. I am getting stressed if someone pass by closely behind me.

> How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space?

They're different kinds of work. People usually (to this day) work alone in libraries. People in big open bullpen offices tend to work collaboratively.

Also, those solo library workers don't typically have bosses by whom to be seen collaborating. Or "collaborating."

Perhaps with libraries people think that they should be quiet there, while it is advertised as collaboration space for open spaces and people are encouraged to talk there?

Libraries are part of a larger "research ecosystem", so they can exclude all the loud and talkative bits of research because there are other places it can live like the hallways and cafeterias and text messages people use. Open offices are undifferentiated. There's nowhere to segregate disruptive activities to because there's nowhere else to go, except for maybe some small concessions to meeting rooms. That space can't even be a good space for everyone because it's constantly serving a hundred mutually conflicting uses rather than providing specialized purpose the way a reading room does.

How 400 people can work in deep focus in library but cannot do the same in company open space?

People go to a library because they want to do work.

The same is not true of an office. Lots of people there would prefer to be somewhere else.

The work is different. Most peole working in a library are reading a book or writing things down.

Not sure about yall, but I like to talk to myself as I'm coming up with and implementing a solution. Even if I'm whispering, I'm sure others can hear me and would find that distracting.

I really like the idea of the library as an open space and the most valuable idea I would gather is to have tons of noolks and crannies where desks are spaced far apart. This wouldn't work with people sitting side by side. Even the clacking of keyboards gets distracting after a while.

Who will be the library nazi that kicks you out when you talk too loudly?

We don't need to refer to a librarian that way. Yeah, I know, Seinfeld did it. It isn't funny or interesting. It is a cliché. Let's try to choose our language so that our history and language can hold onto meanings that matter.

There is a Star Trek TNG episode called Darmok that describes a culture that only speaks in metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok

Surely we have a better metaphor for a meek but powerful librarian than ...

> Who will be the library nazi that kicks you out when you talk too loudly?

That person isn't "meek" usually, though. They are very clear that they have the power and you will obey them. They are very insistent, without ever having to get loud, and they will force you to follow the rules.

I don't have another word for that kind of person, but I agree that "nazi" should not be used that way.

It's more modern to refer to them as library stasi, anyway. And probably slightly more accurate.

There's always Conan the Librarian.

"librar" should suffice - just remember to zip it

Librariarch?

Library + https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-arch

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