Hacker News Reader

Comment by holman | Hacker News Reader

This depends on where you're working. If you're looking for efficiency, sure, maybe open plan offices will impact your Business Efficiency Quotient.

If your company enjoys having an open floor plan, then just do it. When in doubt, value happiness over anything else. We have music playing constantly at the office with everyone sitting on long community tables. It's a relaxed, fun atmosphere, and I enjoy doing work there.

When you want to go into The Zone, we have closed off offices that you can do that in (or, alternatively, just stay at home or go to a coffee shop and get your work done there).

Efficiency in workers isn't the end-all game. There are a lot of metrics beyond just "what is the most work we can squeeze out of our employees today".

View on HN

You love that environment, but that would make me go mental. You would tell me to go in to the closed office, but personally, I would know what was going on out side. It would still drive me mental. For me, its all about isolation. I would go for a log cabin on a mountain. And obviously, that would drive other people mental.

The real point, I feel, is that different people work well in different ways. Some like a buzzy hyper environment, others like to be left alone to get on with it. Some are easily distracted, like me, others can work in mad chaos. And of course there are all those in-between.

To me the mistake, a common mistake, is to think one solution fits all.

>personally, I would know what was going on out side.

What do you mean? It sounds like you mean that you don't want to work somewhere where people are allowed an open space to work in. The described workplace has an open plan working area, available closed offices, and finally the option to work remotely. That doesn't sound like one solution fits all. Can you clarify what would bother you?

I don't understand what the guy you are replying to meant in terms of not knowing what was going on in the open space (who cares? isn't that the point of being in the closed office), but I still would say that there are issues with the originally described office.

In my experience, places with "open space where there are closed offices if you need them" have like maybe one or two closed offices and if you used one all the time you'd be the "loner who bogarts the office space".

For an office to truly be both open and closed you need enough closed offices for some people to be assigned a full-time closed office if they choose that. Otherwise you have a situation like those jobs that have unlimited vacation time except you can't ever really use it or you risk being ostracized.

Some current postings for jobs on Craigslist sound like they were written by a Marketing Manager, personality is stressed, no working in isolation, glad I'm not the only one who enjoys quiet time to get work done. People who are into totally social scenes might be happier in marketing or sales than programming.

""We have music playing constantly at the office with everyone sitting on long community tables.""

This sounds ... taxing. Like being at a loud cafe blasting music only you cannot get away because it's your place of work.

Like I said, go into one of the private offices. Or don't go into the office.

I have real problems with loud music, and enforced choice of music. How would someone like me be effective in your organisation? How would I get the news? Stay with the vibe? Or would you simply not recruit someone like me as I would be obviously different at interview?

Not being aggressive here just interested.

Our office communication is fairly nonexistent. Everything's done through chat, so you're not missing much if you're in the office or not or in the quiet area of the office.

And the music choice isn't really enforced... we built a shared music server controllable via web and chat where everyone can request and vote on songs collaboratively.

OK, so I could summarise your environment as 'remote-working with physical proximity'.

PS: its simply the noise, I'd be the one in the corner with the noise cancelling headphones requesting the 'sea sound' track every day. I'm sure your music choice process is very democratic.

I was about to post "hmm, sounds a lot like Github", but then I looked at your profile and saw, yes, it is Github.

We have a shared workspace too, modeled after Bell Labs' famous Unix Room. It's nice to work in there from time to time, but everyone except the interns also has a real office of their own where they can store hardware and records, make phone calls, or just hide away to work on a paper. I think having a personal office to which you can retreat when necessary is very important in making shared workspaces actually work.

That's assuming that you have that option. I've worked at many places where there were no private offices (outside of the owner) and working remotely was greatly discouraged. From speaking with colleges, it's more common then it should be.

I'm working one of those places right now.

Heck, over the course of five jobs I've never been at a place where it wasn't open-plan with music playing. I've unfortunately needed to acquire a collection of earplugs and headphones to defend against the noise.

I have seen one place with private offices (albeit for higher-ranking management), and that was at Yahoo! Everywhere else had management on the benches with the rest of the team.

Maybe it's a cultural thing around here in Sydney.

That means if you need to spend 5 critical minutes talking with a fellow programmer then your choices are pretty much limited to IM or email or a really great audio call on cell phones.

That's near optimal, but few offices with software developers offer both options. Yes, communal areas for some type of work/communication, private areas for others. It's staggeringly obvious that this meets everyone's needs (both individuals and the collective team) but I've found very few places offer anything remotely similar.

The 'office with closed door' is still seen as primarily a 'managerial' thing, in places I've worked and been.

very well said.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com