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Comment by 11001 | Hacker News Reader

A somewhat related question: I'm about to start a job at a company with "open office" structure, after having my own office for the last 4 years. Anything I should be prepared for?

EDIT: Any headphones suggestions?

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* On top of the direct impact of interruptions and distractions, you'll want to be aware of the way you are seen to react to them.

Pay attention to who the rest of the office does or doesn't attend to when that person decides to convene a huddle or start soapboxing - regardless of the topic

Dutifully working away under your headphones when a ranking person is looking for attention is a great way to end up labeled in a bad way.

* Don't mistake an open floor plan for an open structure. Be careful about who you accept work from / collaborate with / delegate to until you understand the landscape.

Want a quick heuristic to know who matters in the company? Watch the people that steal the conference rooms every day to do work. Make friends with them.

Your productivity to potentially go down a lot.

I wish I could upvote this 10 times.

I've worked in both environments and my productivity (not to mention my morale, overall happiness, etc, which are likely related) were much, much higher in a non-open seating environment. Even shared offices (2 people to an office) were far better -- still much easier to avoid distractions because you don't get cafeteria-style escalation of volumes from different conversations and people are far more likely to be sound-considerate in a 2 person setting (especially if both are developers... don't mix devs with sales).

It is virtually impossible for me to hit real states of "flow" in an open office. Unfortunately the industry has gone bonkers and it is really difficult to find developer jobs that aren't using open office layouts anymore. I'm at the point now though where the next time I am looking for a job I will assign a lot of value to any company that provides real offices or allows nearly full-time remote work.

I've also worked in both, and have been far (far) happier in an open office layout, to the point where I'll never work in a closed-door office layout again. It's so isolating and depressing to me. Sure, I could get into a flow -- that's all I could do. I'd go to work and work for 8 hours a day, not talking to anyone. A pretty miserable existence.

Also why I could never work remotely/from home, I guess.

Having used both noise-canceling and noise-isolating headphones, I'd recommend going for noise-isolating headphones, at least if you expect office chatter to be your major irritant. Most active noise-canceling systems do best with constant sounds and not so well with random bursts of speech.

I use Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro headphones and am pretty happy with them. They don't provide complete isolation, but they do block out a lot of sound, and I don't need to play constant music to make up for bad noise cancellation.

For a cheaper solution, wear earplugs and just put on some crappy headphones for the visual signal.

When I worked at a big company with an open office wore ear plugs while also wearing earphones, on really high volume. It was like I had my own office.

Is it a case where you have to take the job because you need the money? If so, fair enough, but always remember 'have to take this job today' doesn't imply 'have to stay in it indefinitely'. Go ahead and start work in the open office, but in the meantime put out feelers, be quietly looking for a job that will give you a private office or let you work at home. The best situation in which to be looking for a job with your preferred conditions is one where you aren't desperate to find something quickly.

Marco Arment recently posted this "mega review" of closed headphones http://www.marco.org/headphones-closed-portable

I use the HF5 IEM which isolates perfectly with music/noise playing, but there is a problem: people talk to me as if I could listen to them :(

I think that wouldn't happen if I had a big ass headphone.

While well-written, his conclusions on a number of headphones (particularly the extreme love for the AKG K551s) seem a little idiosyncratic. It's worth cross-referencing any of his suggestions with head-fi or other review sources.

Buy some really nice noise canceling headphones is definitely top of the preparation list. You'll be wearing them 80+% of your day.

I have found that whatever peace blocking noise gives you, it is more than offset by the paranoia of being watched or the terror of people sneaking up behind you.

I have had this happen to me a few times. Really into my work with my ear phones & music playing, can hear nothing besides my music. Turn to the side and my co-worker is there waiting on me to go over something. Scares the *$#$ at of me every time.

FWIW, I've seen some people attach a small convex mirror to the edge of their monitor to avoid this kind of surprise. I'd expect this is just trading audio distractions for visual ones, though.

This a million times.

For me visual distractions (even if it is just people walking) are a lot worse than noise. I can tune out the chatter but whenever I feel or see movement around me, my head snaps to attention to find out what it is. Some evolutionary thing most likely

Maybe we could invent sight-cancelling glasses to go with the headphones?

Blinders. You're thinking of blinders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinkers_%28horse_tack%29

Unless you fly or are muting HVAC or server room sounds, I haven't found that noise-cancelling headphones are superior to isolating (close-backed circumaurals or in-ear monitors). NC doesn't work well for voices, and the extra expense tends to put them into "I'm too paranoid to keep them on my desk" category.

I'd save the $$$ and just go for a nice pair of isolating ones.

I've also become a huge fan of wireless headphones for the added mobility--I switch between a few different computers and monitors, and not wrapping myself up in the wire is worth a slight hit in the sound.

Sony MDR-10RBTs are an excellent model for the price, hella light and comfortable, don't leak much sound out or in, and sound quite decent with Bluetooth AAC/AptX enabled (I listen to rock, metal, industrial, pop, dance, rap--can't speak much for classical, jazz, etc.)

Check out the various levels of headphones on The Wirecutter. http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/headphones/

I use the Sony MDR-7506 which are rated as the best $150 Over Ear Headphones (actually $90ish on Amazon) and they are very popular with audio pros. Not noise canceling but they are comfortable enough for wearing all day and if you're listening to something, you don't have sound leaking in or out.

I have them also, you might want to look to get some replacement ear pads

http://www.amazon.com/Beyerdynamic-Velour-Earcushions-MDR750...

I have the twin headphone Sony-MDRV6. They are awesome, but suffer from the same earpad issue. I've had them for 10 years now (yikes).

The earpads will go and start flaking (for me after 5 years). They are easy to replace though.

Yeah, the MDRV6 with Beyerdynamic Velour earcushions are my secret sauce for getting in the zone. The stock pleather earpads will give you "hot ears" that make long shifts uncomfortable.

If you keep going down the audiophile rabbit hole like I did, next up is a DAC or a tube amp. A good starter cheap one (sub $100) is the Qinpu:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TGDB9Q/

Yes, the ear pads are a big improvement on the V6s/7506s for sure.

Yes. These are great. By far the best I have used. Better than many that are way more expensive.

I've been highly recommending Sony's for a long time now, but for my left-at-work pair, I use a MDR-XD200 headset that I paid $18 new 10 years ago. They're nearly indestructible, sound better than most non-Sony sets I've tested them against and when I've got music playing, they block out the world really well. And, most importantly, they're so comfortable that I forget I've got them on...I almost wish they were less comfortable so I didn't have them ripped off my head when I stand up without remembering to take them off first.

I use a more expensive pair of Sony's at home where there's less chance they'll be damaged.

Unhappiness.

Get a good pair of over ear noise canceling headphones that are light. In-Ear work well but will probably start hurting you ears if you wear them for an extended period of time.

I recommend a good pair of in-ear monitors like the UE-900s[1] with some Comply Foam tips[2] for extra isolation.

1. http://www.ultimateears.com/en-us/900s

2. http://www.complyfoam.com/products/Tx-200/

It depends. Are you a manager, or PM and is your main responsibility to socialize and play the game? If yes, it is gonna be great! The game is a lot more engaging with the "open office" structure.

Are you an engineer? Well... sorry. You'll have to sit in the headphones now. Get a pair of some good ones.

For headphones check out http://www.head-fi.org/

/r/headphones [1] is very welcoming too.

[1]: http://www.reddit.com/r/headphones

More Distractions - get a good pair of headphones some people swear by those noise cancelling ones.

Parent probably talking about Bose QC-15 mythical noise cancelling headphones. Some people say their build quality is meh, which prevented me from buying them.

I have never tried them. A £10 pair or cheap sonys from the local hifi shop was the ones I used at my last workplace.

Bose QC-15. Pricey, but worth it.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the comfort (for extended use in an office) and effectiveness of the QC-20 vs the QC-15. It seems the QC-20 is better on both counts, despite its in ear design. One downside to the QC-20 is that he battery isn't replaceable, but I plan to use them plugged in, so they should still work even when the battery can't hold much charge.

Anything in-ear or over-the-ear will start hurting your ear one way or another. Around the ear + active noise cancelling is the way to go.

My choice is Bose Quiet Comfort 15.

The guy behind me talks whole day explaining low level network connectivity issues to half of the world. The guy in front of me talks spanish to someone he loves non-stop for a few hours daily.

Bose allows to handle it gracefully :)

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