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Sun Discovers Dumb Terminals
Yahoo has a story about how Sun is practicing a sort of floating workforce - many employees have no permanent desks, they just come in and log on to a dumb terminal, err, thin client. Besides being a sneaky way to encourage employees to arrive ever earlier at work, it probably is cheaper to run the business off a few large Sun servers - at least for Sun.
Never mind the fact that employees like to have file cabinets, desk toys, and other stuff to keep them happy during the day, and organized and productive. Essentially what Sun has said in implementing this concept is "everything important about your job is on the computer, or small enough to be carried with you everywhere you go."
-Evan
The entire headquarters is run out of a large open space similar in size to a high-school gymnasium.
What a sad picture. I hope future of workplace does
not head in this direction. I hate cubicles! I like nice offices, possibly for 2-3 persons no more, with non uniform furniture. I like touch of personality in the office. I like wooden desks and shelfs. I like table lapms and filing cabinets. I like to be able to turn on music while I am working. I am programmer, not factory assembly line worker for god sake.
Here how I would do: I would allocate each emploee certain amout per year to furnish his office. He can chose whatever he wants from furniture and accessories within this budget.
Well, Microsoft probably has one of the best worker environments. I'm sure we've all heard how great it is, everyone gets their own office with a window, and put whatever they want to in it; not to mention everything else on their campus. I'm sure that works to their advantage. Just having your own office + window probably boosts productivity enough to be worth it.
What?
I'm tempted to post anonymously, but since this is now in my past, I won't.
I actually worked in Sun's San Francisco flex office (the one that is mentioned in the article.) I have a lot of stories, both good and bad, about this way of working. First, let me start with a bit of an explanation.
On one of Sun's internal websites, there is a Java applet where you go to reserve workspaces. People like me who didn't have a "real" office were allowed to reserve 14 days in advance for up to 5 consecutive days. Others were allowed to reserve anything that was left. So it's not as much of a potshot as you might imagine -- I was in the office 4-5 days a week and most of the seats weren't even reserved. You could reserve at home through Sun's remote access, so it wasn't like there was a huge line building up at 7AM or something.
I can tell you the pros and cons, but I'm biased because I absolutely hated it. I hated the formulaic offices, and I hated that personal decorations were frowned upon. But the thing that really drove me crazy was that we were expected to use the UNIX terminals in lieu of any Windows or Macintosh laptop that we might have available. In fact, I was asked to give up my laptop because it looked bad for me to have a laptop on my desk and not be using my Solaris workstation (I had a real workstation because I tested websites on different browsers on Solaris.) The whole thing made me extremely bitter toward the company and was one of the main reasons for me leaving. I feel that it's hypocritical to hire a web developer who is used to using Photoshop, a nice solid text editor, and Dreamweaver, throw that developer in front of vi and the Gimp, and expect that web developer to be as productive as before.
However, if you could get all your work done on Solaris, it worked out well. Most of the non-technical people got used to CDE (!) and were fine with a Netscape window. If all you need is Netscape, Star Office, and a couple of other applications, then sure -- a flex office is beneficial. A friend of mine still works out of that office, but she's not there very often, which is the whole point. She works all over the Bay Area and doesn't seem to mind giving up the development applications of a Windows or Macintosh machine. Then again, she isn't a developer...
I think whether you like these offices or not depends on your personality. I must admit that Sun pulled it off well -- it's a solid implementation. The applet on the website shows you where person X is at any given moment, and you can forward your phone extension anywhere, even to a cell phone or to your home phone, so you're never out of touch. I had a real problem with it because I am a highly creative person who requires certain applications that simply aren't available on Solaris. This, and the lack of office decorations, really threw me out of my comfort zone, and I know I wasn't the only one. Apparently, however, I was in the minority. (I suppose the others who hated it, many of whom were my startup-personality friends, also left.)
I hesitate to just bash on Sun since I know that it was more of a personality clash than a bad implementation, but to anyone who is considering this: the creative minds in your company will hate it. I'm talking about the people with their offices/cubicles decorated with every imaginable sticker and toy -- the ones who treat their office as a second home. These are often some of your most productive and worthy employees, so be sure to listen to their needs.
This article really struck a nerve with me. It brought back all the frustration I had with working in that office. I can only hope that the others like me have had their complaints heard or, like me, have left for greener pastures. To the rest of you -- stick with the small-group (2-3 person offices). That was the environment in which most of us thrived.
-- I left Sun in May.
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I'd bet heavily that productivity (i.e. ability to find bugs, model a market, write a well crafted paragraph) goes down. Not hideously down, just enough to make great programmers merely good, and good programmers seek other employment.
Mixing phone people with keyboard people isn't nice. It makes the phone people feel guilty and rude, if they know the programmers, etc. are trying to meet deadlines. (And people who listen to their 19 voicemail messages by speakerphone: Dante has a 6th circle reservation just for you. It involves Muzak and a pair of 20 billion watt speakers, so Don't Do It. Thanks.) It makes the programmers jumpy- you never know when a beautiful train of thought and logic gets derailed on the "RING, RING...Hi! Glad you got Back to me on those trade show booth color quotes! Teal? Lets talk Blue!Blue Blue Blah Blah..." the next cubicle over. I've been in this situation, and it hurts.
And it ignores that paper is still a useful office object- crisp clear text that can be stared at for more than 1/2 hour without your eyes going numb, easy to spread out and cover with sticky notes...but no, you'll have to clean it up and put it away each night, regardless of sudden deadlines.
I'll bet even more heavily that they did only a Benefit estimate, not a Cost-Benefit estimate, when they came up with that $150 million figure. I doubt they'll study it at all.
Well, as Neal so aptly wrote (but darnitall he was making fun of them at the time, it wasn't supposed to be emulated):