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."
Here are a list of things I've had and loved...
-Fast internet connection. Not only useful for downloading tools/patches/etc fast, but people will want to use the internet to check news, email, slashdot in the morning. A fast internet connection will help them get it out of the way quicker (right now we have a 5 floor building on on T-1 that also serves as a connection between buildings. I'm lucky if I get 5k/sec).
-Budget in money for free sodas/water/coffee. I like to go for a morning coffee run, but I'd rather have an espresso machine and some cold Coke's at the office
-Aeron chairs. Spoil my ass please. These things are more comfortable to sit in than it is laying down. I bought the one I used when I quit one of my previous jobs
-Actually, modern looking furniture in general makes the place look a lot better and makes it seems like your job is more important than it really is, making you a little happier
-Cubes offer good privacy, but you can feel cramped. The best experience I had was a big open room. People had their l-shaped desks against the wall, so you couldn't see their monitor, but you could see their face. Also, moving desks is never fun!
First of all, I'd assert that fffice policies are just as important as office layout. If I'm told I can redecorate, then I'd almost rather do that than trading generic beige for something that some stranger decided is "artistic".
Here are ideas to consider:
No fluorescent lights. Try to provide full-spectrum sources where possible, and give people the ability to control how much light they work with. I have a big black insert in my window to keep glare off my screen and usually keep my overhead off too. Programmers and creative types are usually the most sensitive to this.
We have a couple people that are seldom in the office. We actually give them larger offices with a spare table and use them as mini-conference rooms while they're gone. And since they're seldom in, they usually have clean desks. (This assumes you have square footage to spare like that.)
If anyone in the office commutes by bicycle, a shower is a great thing to have. Appreciated by them *and* their coworkers. >:0
If you have a snack area, you'll probably have a microwave. Consider also having a toaster oven, or better yet a full size stove/oven. This makes it easier to fix whatever you're in the mood for. And I'm more likely to hang around the office if I can have what I'm in the mood for. (Microwaved bagels are right out, for instance). Ditto for an icemaker.
Have enough printers. Having to walk from one end of an office to another just to print a short doc is annoying. Make sure the printing facilities are split up and placed strategically around the office.
If you have creative types as mentioned, at least one conference room should be wall to wall with whiteboards (or smarter equivalents if you have the budget). I like to have two in my office alone.
Make sure there is good (and adjustable) air conditioning and heating. It's very hard to productive when you're too hot or cold.
At my current company we have an M&M jar on the front desk that gets emptied and replenished every couple of days. Nice for those times when you've got a munchie attack but don't have time before your next meeting to go get something. Doesn't have to be M&Ms, but just something along those lines.
In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
I agree about the computer thing. I personally hate over zealous admins that lock the hell out of everything. I mean, sure, there's a place for it. But often times it simply pisses people off because they feel as though they aren't trusted and it makes them dislike their work enviornment just a litle less.
This is a tough one. I've been a sysadmin in a couple small companies. I started at the company I'm at now (family business), and locked down the network a little bit, but users could install software, and change things a fair amount. What happened was eventually systems were becoming totally unusable as adware got installed, and all sorts of other garbage people were trying out got on there, and the system would need to be redone. Since my primary job wasn't being a sysadmin, this made me do a bunch of extra work.
I then went over to a software development company, and as we grew, I took on the role of sysadmin there as well. Initially I tried a mildly locked down environment with software delopment from Win2k server, and it was a nightmare. I took it off within a day because the programmers all hated it, and it was easier to install manually on the few support staff systems than it was to create packages.
When I came back to my current job (which is not a computer company), I decide it was time to redo the network. So now it runs on Samba, and the workstations are locked down so that users can't install software, and a few registry changes are forced at login. I also use wpkg for software deployment, which is a huge timesaver. Most of the security, however, comes from the permissions on network shares and folders.
While this is what the grandparent poster hated, I can totally understand why. The amount of time I deal with dumb problems of users screwing up their machines has dropped to almost nothing, and I only get a few people annoyed ocasionally that they have to get me to install software for them. (Well worth my reduced time). I think for the most part they understand too, because our workstations are basically never down.
Most people won't fill their machines with bullshit. And the ones that do are pretty easy to detect, and those are the ones you can lock down.
But then it's after-the-fact. You now still have to spend time reimaging and configuring the system. Then you lock it down, and the user is angry because they can't make changes like they could before and like everything else can.
Speak before you think
It seems it happens to the best of them. How sad. The job of the IT person is to free the mind of the employee -> allowing them to be productive -> so the company can make money. That is unless you are working in an Electronic Sweat Shop where the cost of the brain power is less then the cost of the computer. If the brain power is not doing the work they should be shown the door. It is that simple.
IT people have a large amount of power, and some of the correct use is making sure idiots (usally those outside the company) can't do bad thing to the company. The correct focus of the IT person should be the productivity of the employees, not your ability to make life easier on yourself.
New rant: This is someplace were Unix/Linux is wonderful. With Linux I can cheaply install more software on every machine then almost anyone would use. Very few applications are ever missing. Costomizations stay in the users own directory. If you have a problem expect me to restore yesterdays configuration. If your machine has a software problem, it's going to get wiped. In this world the User gets all the power and the admin gets a consistent easy to install system. Everyone wins.
Yes, I'm both the admin and the user. I have worn both hats often at the same time.
Everyone here's going to be pissed at me for saying so, but great code will get you nowhere if you can't sell it. Make sure the sales team has the privacy they need to close deals on the phone and have customer meetings without distractions like this.
Berto
Good points for the most part, though I think you have a rather narrow view of "true hackers". You can thank ESR for that. Some of us enjoy teamwork, because we realize that the manipulation of other people is a wonderful game in and of itself ;)
P.S. - If you mod this up, it means I win
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.