Slashdot Mirror
Building a Better Office
xjrfx asks: "I'm in charge of setting up a new office for my company. I want to make the place as worker friendly as possible, comfortable enough that long hours don't seem like banishment to a beige hell. I was hoping to get some input from Slashdot regarding past office experiences, good and bad. What amenities/factors cause you to love or hate your office? If you could create your perfect office how would it work?"
"Did you feel schizoid in open offices or claustrophobic in cube farms? Were you ever forced to be in an office when you would have been more productive on the road, or conversely have you ever had to leave the office to focus on the task at hand? What's more important; a foosball table or a fancy furniture system? Do you want the same desk space for your duration of your employment or do you want to move around depending on your projects?
Our office will be 40-45 people (15 engineers, 7 creative types, 15 biz dev/sales, and some support staff and part-timers as well), but I'm open to opinions from people from much larger or smaller offices."
Our office will be 40-45 people (15 engineers, 7 creative types, 15 biz dev/sales, and some support staff and part-timers as well), but I'm open to opinions from people from much larger or smaller offices."
- Massage Girls in Bikinis
- Flying Fish IPA on tap
- La-Z-Boy Recliners
- Dual 2.5GHz G5s for all
- Sweet aromas all day
- Foot spas under all desks
- Killer game room
- And the soothing sounds of the dead all day long
Oh, you have a budget?People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
Start with an Aeron Chair! Everything else is just fluff. Oh and get one of those cool paintings of Dogs Playing Poker.
Of Yea? Well I'll go build my own office. With hookers and black jack. In fact, forget about the office.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
And a good flyswatter.
pants optional
Er... this is Slashdot... LINUX... not Windows... You like to look out a Linux and see a beautiful view...
"Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me."
umm...yeah. milton...i'm gonna have to ask you to move your desk down to storage b.
OMFG... What /. really needs is a "-2, Weird"
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
The only solution is an intravenous caffeine drip system. This keeps them literally chained to their desks. Coffee, sodas, and water should also be prohibited unless the employees have unusually large bladders.
-The Management
Every employee takes ownership of a lava lamp and a plant when they start their job.
Whilst I have to recommend lava lamp especially, it is said that the health of the plant and whether the lava has gone cloudy (if you leave it in the sunlight) affects your promotion chances.
I'm not kidding.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Visio is an MS product?
Visio, much like evil, was bought out by MS.
That sounds awful. I thought all the undead programmers worked for Microsoft, not Truevision.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
I suggest the first place to cut would be the bikinis for the massage girls.
I'm not even sure fulltime network admins are even needed. I've worked in several jobs where the admins would be sitting around, playing Thief 3.
Personally, I don't care if resources, including my machine are locked down or not. (I've worked in several environments of each) If I cannot work, however, the clock is ticking with a lack of productivity. I make it known, then sit back & wait. It's no different than paperwork in a large environment. When time spent filling out paperwork becomes an entry on a timesheet, something is wrong.
As far as Aeron chairs go, they are very customizable because of all of the various controls. There is a BIG drawback. For those not familiar with the Aeron, although most people reference it, there may be some who don't know about them. It's like sitting on a big piece of soft, pliable, plastic mesh. What happens to the sound of a car when you take the muffler off? Exactly. You either learn to hold it, expel it quietly (sometimes it's not very easy), or get up a lot and walk to a place of privacy. A standard chair does not have a problem in this area.
(actual rooms with doors and (possibly translucent glass)
(hint: flashing light + flashing computer image = fried eyes).
You my friend, are certainly not a Lisp programmer are you?
Good thoughts.
"None of us are as dumb as all of us." - meeting mantra
No! that would not give you this...
"Smart people like to work with other smart people, so we are fanatic about hiring the absolute best people we can get: people who went to great schools, excelled at everything they did in the past, and astonished us with how easily they handled a day of difficult interviews."
Wauw! I wish I worked for them....
Sorry but you CAN go too far. our last "director" wanted us to look stylish and hip... well she is gone and we are stuck with this hideous purple carpet and bright red chairs that make everyone in the place sick by 10:30a. the corperate bullcrap to get people to "act as a team" but throwing the conform or die attitude also is bullcrap. Let your employees take out the flouresent lamps above them and use their own lighting.. sorry but the 180 watts of cold blue flouresents in the shiny chrome grid suck.. that is why you dont have them in your office.
finally... free soda is pushing it... cofee and bottled water (bulk.. I.E. the 10 gallon cooler) are fine, but push for realistic priced vending... someone who comes in and charges $1.50-2.00 for a can of coke is a jerk... find a vendor that will put in reasonable priced vending of both pop, juice and snacks.
finally.. the most important part is that whoever is in charge of the office after it is running.. MUST buy donuts/bagles every friday. make it a fricking expense line... it os nothing in cost to a company and is worth thousands in morale building. espically if the CEO/Divisional officer/director is there at least once a quarter to serve them to the employees...
the BEST CEO I ever worked for had the balls to show his employees that he valued them and personally served them donuts once a quarter.
but that is office politics and operation and outside of your control....
muted colors but NO BROWNS!!!! dont go nuts and try to pull a Salvador Dali or Escher.
finally, whatever you have planned for the IT department, double it's size. both in space and air conditioning.... dooming your IT to a closet with no AC will only haunt you down the road.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
As a consultant, I've worked in places where full-time programmers are shoe-horned into as small as 4x6 foot cubicles. It immediately reminded me of the cages used at commerical chicken farms (you know, where the chickens take-on the rectangular form of their cage). I refused to work in one, and made the client allocate a small conference room instead.
On the other hand, I've also worked in wide-open spaces. These are noisy, busy and distracting, and I found it difficult to concentrate with all the activity. But ironically, I got a lot of work done. You pick-up on other conversations, chime in or get new ideas, and then enter your coding trance to get work done.My favorite is what I have now: a 12 x 15 private room, french doors leading in, two windows with a nice wooded view, and a fully-stocked kitchen across the hall. Of course, not everyone can work from home!
I'd suggest the following from experience:- Available high-speed Internet
- Good cell phone coverage.
- Pleasant, accomodating landlord
- Pleasant location, safe surroundings, convenient parking and mass transit
- Sufficient space for all needs and 3-yr growth.
- Separate spaces for development, sales/marketing, accounting/admin, support.
- Open work area with space between desks.
- Two large desks in an L configuration with a 2-drawer file on one-end and 3-drawer unit on other.
- One powerful but quiet PC with dual LCD display, top-quality keyboard and mouse, no speakers
- High-end laptop w/DVD and port replicator and good mouse.
- Cordless (or cell) phones & headsets, no speakerphones
- Lots of electric and network plugs, with at least 4 electric & 2 net above the desktop.
- Large bookshelf, whiteboard and tackboard.
- Solid, comfortable, ergonomic chair
- Subdued room lighting, tasks lamps on desks
- Nicely painted walls (not white!)
- Good carpeting, acoustic ceiling and sound-absorbing wall panels for noise reduction.
- Framed artwork (not necessarily original) on the walls (not "Unix Magic" or product posters).
- A couple of small quiet rooms with a round table and two or three chairs.
- At least one conference room, fully equip'd w/presentaion and pro speakerphone.
- Break room with full kitchen. Hot/cold beverages (non-alcoholic) for free.
- Small exercise room (treadmill, lifecycle, bowflex, exercise mat) with shower.
- Receptionist to screen calls, take messages, greet visitors, make copies, etc.
- A gopher-type person on-staff to keep things clean, make minor repairs, run out for supplies, get lunch/dinner, pick-up prescriptions and such. Amazing how valuable this $8-10/hr person will be.
- Laundry/dry-cleaning pick-up & delivery service (either employee or employer pays)
- On-site hair stylist twice a month (either employee or employer pays).
That's all I can think of at the moment.--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
Keep those people stimulated
That is the best solution.
Take a lesson from the penitentiary folks. Razor wire, vertical window slits, tables chained to the floor and institutional heat-tray snacks really maximize the techs/sq.ft and teach those ingrates who pays the bills...
Sporks make great wi-fi antennas.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Bart: What's a muppet?
Homer: Well son, it's not quite a mop... and it's not quite a puppet, but boyyyyyyyy ah ha ha ha.......... *pause* to tell you the truth I don't know
...and that's all there is to it.
Having meeting rooms, bathrooms, and a kitchen is also nice.
Yeah, a bathroom would be nice. The last place I worked we all just pissed on the floor. Lemme tell ya, if you think cubicles offer a good amount of privacy, try taking a shit in one without attracting some attention to yourself.
No one is pissed at you for saying it. But we all know what it really means.
Sales needs a dark place where they can sleep off yesterday's hangover without getting caught, and they need somewhere to sell products that don't exist yet to customers that don't know what they want.
Don't get a public frig, unless you have someone assigned to clean it. It'd be better to just get those individual desk frigs; they don't hold much, but at least everyone would be responsible for their own.
. . . um, i don't even know where to begin with this one. are you speaking from experience here? did this previous job have hot secretaries? if so, are they hiring?
Yeah... that weed isn't going to smoke itself...