Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

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What I observed at the time was that there was generally a strong backlash against open-plan offices within HN discussions, which represents some kind of weighted average of the tech worker hive mind. Many more "open offices are evil" articles were linked than "open plan offices are heaven."

The coders defeated it by going remote, and wearing headphones. "Headphones are the new office door." Their walls of huge monitors replaced the cube walls. ;-)

Open offices were rationalized by "collaboration," but engineering is inherently collaborative, and engineers were not consulted.

In a department that I worked in, the coders went "virtual remote" by forming a protective silo and discouraging "distraction." Although, they still had lunch with the rest of us.

The funny thing is that in a recent thread about digital nomads, pictures of people crowded together in coffee shops, sitting elbow to elbow at their laptops, sparked the reaction: "Those people can't really be working, or maybe they're not really techies."

I personally think that what the new normal looks like is still unknown, if one even emerges.

I think are some differences here:

1. In a coffee shop almost no-one comes to me uninvited to ask a question about my work or our product that will create a 30 minute interruption

2. The background noise in a coffee shop has not relation to the product/company I work for this it becomes much more similar with the wind or rain - our brains can really adapt and ignore it

While in open office the flow can be interrupted by a friendly face passing by and waving, by someone speaking out loud about a project related to what you are working on or by someone drawing a diagram of something you know. In a sense all these are picking your attention as they are related to your interest.

But more important is that in a coffee place 99% of time you pick your interruption: ordering something or chatting with someone while in an open office the distraction comes at random times.

I don't know what your experience is with "open offices", but the ones I have worked in where quite loud and distracting. That isn't to say that I discount the images of people sitting elbow to elbow in coffee shops.

Coffee shops are, in my experience, quite a bit quieter then open offices and less distracting too.

I would honestly prefer going to a coffee shop to work then a "open office", but also I am really thankful that I don't have to do either.

Indeed, and it also selects for people who prefer that environment. What I also gather from the articles is that the digital nomads are not all techies, but also people in marketing and advertising.

Honestly I worked from the coffee shop twice in my life and i would not want to do it again

There are more digital nomads not in tech.

People tend to be more mindful of noise in a coffee shop because for whatever reason some people are more inclined to not be rude in public than around people they are familiar with.

Not sure I agree it is quite, all told. https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/cafeRestaurantNoiseGenerat..., is a good example of the noise that is in a coffee shop. Catch is that it is easy to mostly tune out voices of people you don't know. Even if you can hear what they are saying. Doing the same with people you know and typically have to listen to, is much much harder.

I never said it was quiet. But I also don’t really see people doing things like chat on speaker in a coffee shop.

Right. And, not only that, because those people aren't your coworkers, you know they're not (generally) going to come up and interrupt you for any reason.

On coffee shops: I personally find no noise or a lot of noise works for me… it’s the modest noise that kills me… when I can overhear one particular conversation I just can’t not listen.

In coffee shops the conversation has approximately 0 to do with you (ok, maybe you overhear about a new local restaurant). In the office you overhear conversations that are much more relevant and, therefore, harder to tune out.

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