Slashdot Mirror
How Much Do You Value Your Office Space?
reason asks: "I've heard that office space costs around $10,000 per employee, and sometimes much more. I have a great office: it's a nice size and I have a lovely view out the window. It's a good working environment, and I know I'm lucky. Still, if it came down to dollar terms, I'd be willing to share my office with a colleague or even move into a cubicle in exchange for a mere $5,000/year pay rise. Am I undervaluing what I have? If you have an office to yourself, how much would they have to pay you to make you willingly give it up? If you don't have an office, how much of a pay cut would you be prepared to take to get one?"
This is how my office works as well, and being able to have a quick discussion without leaving your desk is pretty handy. It is a pain though when you need to get rolling on something and have to fight through distractions.
Considering the distractions that I get (network operations center, so phones, various alarms, and a television tuned to one of several news stations), I'd love to get some time alone, even in a small place. I don't have a lot of paper around, so I don't need space. I just need quiet.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
But shutting the door and thus muting the conversation about what is going on in the latest edition of American Idol is pretty damn valuable to me.
Being able to control the lighting is also very valuable.
Privacy too. I don't like people to hearing what I am saying unless I actually want them to overhear it regardless of what I am talking about.
Ohhh - closed door meetings - those have lots of value.
I think I'd need at least a 50% raise.
Sadly, there is no one room I spend more time in than my office. I spend about 35% of my LIFE in that room.
Since I am alone in it, I have spent a couple thousand dollars in additional furnishing in it ( Lamps, artwork, stereo, TV, various knick-knacks ). I figure if I spend the time, I should make the investment to make it a comfortable room I want to be in.
I'd be hard pressed to give it up for more salary. Would I sell it for a cube? Sure -- but then I'd look for a new job.
Given the obvious cost savings, why do employers hate telecommuniting so much? Some employers seem to say that telecommuting is ok but not telecommuting 100% of the time which defeats most of the cost savings since having someone come in 3 days and work from home 2 days is probobly MORE expensive than having them come in to work for 5 days a week. On the other hand, having someone work from home 5 days a week is significantly cheaper than having them work in the office 5 days a week (since they dont even need a desk, office or cube)
Look at Google. They have very few offices, but instead many small rooms with 4-6 people in each.
:-)
I will point out, however, that they are rooms. I imagine that background noise is minimal, and people are allowed to focus on their tasks. In comparison, I've worked in environments with tons of open cubicles. The background noise really interferes with trying to focus on what you're doing. You don't even notice it at first, but the moment you find a quiet space you suddenly notice the difference.
So in short, you need a conductive workspace, of which offices are only one type.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
i think this is the most productive setup, unless you're rooming with someone you can't stand.
The only problem with that is the problem I've had -- stupid people suddenly turn you into a walking question and answer machine.
Collaboration only works when everyone is willing to work. Otherwise you get people who are lazy, stupid, and would much rather ask you instead of figuring it out for themselves.
Something else to consider -- if you work from home, you are always at the office, and can be called upon at any hour to log in to the corporate network (on call -- yes, I know...). We had a problem with this 100 or so years ago with people doing "piecework" from their homes. There are laws against this for a reason. Lets not be quite so eager to give up our personal space...
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
I work in a fairly large office with two other people and lots of media related gear. The three of us cover all media related events and equipment (including around 60 electronic classrooms) on a small liberal arts college campus.
We each have our specialties, but I'd say that 60% of the work that each of us does could be done by any of us. When the batphone rings, any one of us answers it, and any one of us can respond if it is an "emergency."
If we didn't share an office, we would constantly be going back and forth between offices to discuss things. In my case colaboration makes for a much better work environment.
Some managers can't get their heads around the notion that professionals are paid to "produce", not "populate". If they can't see you, you must not be working.
Yet, they love to Off Shore jobs to India, where they REALLY can't see the workers.
Offices are already set up to provide meeting rooms and such for anything from a productive brainstorming session to a mundane "status" meeting. Trying to cope with conference calls with or without a video conference feed just adds more expense and delay to the equation.
No everyone's jobs involve useless meetings. Check out any Dilbert cartoon- meetings just get in the way of getting stuff done.
Politically, it's bad if you're not in the office for extended periods of time. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that.
How is that bad? I don't have a manager micro-managing me, and can actually get more work done. I can work days I wouldn't other wise (sick days, etc). I can put in partial days, or even do overtime or on-call shifts a lot easier.
How is this bad?
if you work from home, you are always at the office, and can be called upon at any hour to log in to the corporate network
Great!! I'd love the overtime! And the on-call pay!! And if I didn't want to be bothered, I'd not answer the phone.
I'm American. I'll always go with the bigger and more expensive machine. Must mean it's better.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Yah, seriously what is WITH these article submitters lately? First there was the guy that had a dream job and wanted to know if he should quit to work at some startup with a pay cut - and now THIS crap.
EARTH TO "REASON": You've " made it " and have ARRIVED at where most of us would LIKE TO BE!! Why in the world would you give up a private office for a lousy extra five grand, you MORON!?
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
I've worked in a private office, a not so private office, shared an office, and worked in an open floor plan.
The best option i've seen is where we had some communal computers with a standard setup that anyone (and groups) could sit down and work at, plus offices for when we needed to work privately. That was fantastic for productivity (having the offices didn't isolate us), yet also was pleasant because we could retreat to the offices to take phone calls, or to work solo when that was more effective. That's the model every development company ought to have in my opinion.
That's hard to come by though. When deciding between having to work surrounded by people with no privacy, vs having an office with privacy, vs having an office with a view, I value it at $10k/year for each step. I'm currently working in the open floor plan with no view, but I took the job because they offered me $20k more than I was making before plus bonus opportunities that may be worth even more. I've also taken a $10k paycut to go from an internal office to an office with a beautiful view (similar work). Totally worth it. That daily pleasantness did so much for my stress level, helping to improve my health, it was great. I'm actually slightly regretting taking the 20k step up right now given the stress of the environment I'm in now, but hopefully the extra money will let me have kids, and that's important enough for me to make the trade off, at least for a while.
Anyway, all in all I'd strongly urge you to consider just how much value your personal space has for you. Consider: how much extra would you pay in rent not to have to deal with a roommate?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
hey now, how can you call him a moran when you don't know what is going on in his life? Money talks foo. Extra 5K a year can buy a boat load of mac and cheese or at least a good meal now and then. and if reason has kids - a few presents so the shorties are happy. so please, have a cup of reality and grow up.
So asking "how much pay would you give up to have an office" isn't really paying attention to corporate culture; the submitter appears to be assuming that the two can be linked negatively (i.e., you can exchange pay for better office arrangement, which doesn't normally happen).
And anyway, they don't generally say, "Okay, now you have an office mate, what concessions would you like from us to compensate for your loss of privacy?" They generally say, "Okay, now you have an office mate."
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster