Sounds like a horrible place to work for me. I can't work optimally with people hovering behind me and getting distracted with noises.
Also, although well intentioned, that a company serves 3 meals a day, has snacks and recreation, makes me a little fearful that I'm not accepting a job but rather a lifestyle. Hopefully this gets cleared up in the interview process. Because I'm leaving at 5 unless there's a fire to put out.
It's called over-engineered culture fit. You've failed the culture fit portion of your hiring interview. Please find your own way out.
Remember (like, eight years ago) when you could get a job by doing good work and tolerating coworkers for a few hours a day? Now jobs mean you have to do good work, buy in to the koolaid, love your coworkers, and spend time with them before and after work too (or else you're not a "team player" or you're not "fitting in here"). You should definitely not hire people you can't stand, but there's a continuum between "this person has an abhorrent personality" to "no mad skillz pongpinging? NO HIRE!"
The startup tech industry is freezing out the leave-me-alone-i'm-working computer person archetype in favor of cheerleader/frat/bro/übersocial/drinkydrinky people. Who are you leaving behind?
[1]http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Twitter-Software-Engineer-Sa...
This does indeed leave the introverts high and dry. Speaking as a leave-me-alone-i'm-working introvert, I've seen this shift firsthand over the past 5 years. I'm convinced that, at this point, working another full time job isn't in my future. Contracting and a "lifestyle business" or two is where I'm headed. While I don't like the uncertainty of those two options, they're considerably less stressful for me than a modern office environment.
A nice term for this is Affective Labor.
>Affective Labor is a term identifying work carried out that is intended to produce or modify emotional experiences in people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affective_labor
Seems to imply that the work will be changing the emotional experience of a 3rd party rather than the parties doing the work.
-- slacker! You'd not get a job at Twitter anyway with this attitude.
just because they provide food doesn't make it a lifestyle.
My current startup follows the "open floor plan" model epitomized by Twitter. To be honest, it's great when I want to socialize, and pretty terrible when I want to put my head down and concentrate on something.
After realizing that I wasn't the only freak/outcast/weirdo who preferred to work in a quiet(er) environment, we implemented a "quiet room" at our office. Basically, we converted a conference room into the equivalent of a library. So far it's working out pretty well.
I know offices are pretty much relics of a bygone era at this point, reserved only for the likes of Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and other tech giants who came of age before the 2010s. But there's something to the office that we've lost in its passing. Offices may not be cost efficient, and they may not inspire "collaboration" or foster "culture." But it's nice to have a place to go to get shit done.
[For the record, I suffer from a condition known as misophonia, which is sort of like a hypersensitivity to certain sounds. I have exceptional hearing, but I can't tune out background noises the way most people can. For those of you who've seen the new Superman movie: those scenes in which Clark Kent suffered from all the background noises involved in "super hearing" really hit home with me. I know I'm not alone here, but unfortunately, people like me are kind of screwed in the new workplace paradigm.]
Had I been the only one, I'm sure I would have gotten some variation on "Just wear some headphones," or "I don't hear anything," or "That's weird," etc., which is basically what I've been told my whole life. :)
I don't know - when I viewed those pictures I just got the sense of slaves or prisoners, shackled in their galley^H^H^H^H^H^H workstation, looking longingly out windows to the outside world, etc. I recognize I am just looking at a few photos and my impression is likely to be completely wrong.
if I did use the work computer for personal email, It's not like people are sitting on top of each other and 12pt fonts can be read.
This seems to me like kids and their sense of entitlement. Goof off if you want, all you want, but don't expect the company to provide you with privacy just so you don't have to feel bad about it.
If people were always looking over my shoulder I wouldn't be comfortable having HN open in a window/screen for half the day