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."
If you could create your perfect office how would it work?
I'm a fan of Joel Spolsky's writings (see Joel on Software), so I was fascinated to read about the office space he has designed at his company, Fog Creek Software.
I like what he's built here because the emphasis is not just on catering to developers, but providing an atmosphere where great coding can thrive.
Sigs cause cancer.
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!
If at all possible, give everyone their own office. I feel 100% more productive now that I don't have to work in a cube.
-- Bryan
- 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.
by demarco and lister.
Any suggestions I would give are probably covered there.
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
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/
Next comes the offices. If you've got programmers, give them the offices, and let the directors and VPs, who are never in their offices anyway, have the cubes. Programmers need peace and quiet, and the ability to hang a "stay the hell away from me" sign on the door.
And a good flyswatter.
pants optional
Windows (the kind you look through to see the outside world) are nice, too...
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."
I'd quit the minute they let you bring a dog in the building. Hate the animals, can't stand them. I freeze up if they get within a few feet of me. Work would be a living hell. The reason you're NOT allowed to bring animals is that despite how much you love your pet, nobody else there like the fucker. And we don't want the distraction and hassle of dealing with it when you lose control of the dumb animal. So leave your dog at home, I'll do you the same courtesy and leave my pet guinea pigs.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
What he said. User-controllable lights are a must. Ask people about their light preferences, and group your people accordingly.
If you work with papers on your desk all day, or a telephone and a Rolodex, you're probably a "light person". If you say things like "I hate a dark office! I can't work in a cave!", you're a light person.
(Light Person Symptoms: 3.0 GHz PC under the desk with 21" monitor with fingerprints all over the screen, the contrast and brightness both cranked all the way up, but running at 640x480x60Hz, and that's just fine with him because all he uses his computer for is PowerPoint slides)
If you work with a CRT all day, and use IM and email, you're probably a "dark person". You can't work in a lit room, you need to see your screen. If you say things like "Fuck, I hate the glare! I can't see a goddamn thing in here!", you're a dark person.
(Dark Person Symptoms: 3.0 GHz PC with the cover off and assorted computer guts splayed all over the desk, and a 21" monitor that gets a daily spritzing of Windex every morning and has the on-screen adjustments have been perfectly tweaked for razor-sharp convergence at 1600x1200, because every fucking pixel counts - not just when using Photoshop or paging through reams of code, but when fragging his cubemates at 5:01 pm!)
Group the dark people together and the light people together. Don't believe the bullshit from light people about how a "dark office" makes people sick and unproductive. Don't believe the bullshit from dark people about how a "light office" makes it impossible to read the screen. Just acknowledge that these two types of people are different, and provide adequate space for both.
In a small company, it's reasonable to say "either trust me, or get rid of me". I used to work in a 5-developers-and-a-secretary company that was like that, and nobody abused the trust.
In a larger company (the one I'm in now has about 2000 employees), you have to assume that there WILL be employees who will be stupid, who will be malicious, etc., etc., so you probably NEED to have some central control.
And that is one of the reasons why I GREATLY prefer working for small companies.
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.
Keep those people stimulated
That is the best solution.
I, and I'm sure many others, would agree that flourescent lighting (the standard stuff anyway) can be a pain in the ass. The artificialness and 60 Hz buzz in poorly wired rooms can lead to all sorts of strain.
For not too much more, however, you can get the office properly wired to avoid any such 60 Hz buzz. Installing "Happy-Lights" that more closely reproduce natural sunlight is a HUGE PLUS. So shop wisely for the lights and you can find some pretty relaxing spectrums that not only keep people happy inside longer, but allow them to see better as well.