Slashdot Mirror
Tech's Top 10 Workspaces
theodp writes "Looking to escape your Initech-like surroundings with your next job? Valleywag has culled its picks for Tech's Top 10 Workspaces from Office Snapshots, where you'll find plenty of other Best-Places-to-Work contenders. So how does your Cubicle measure up to the competition?" Pixar, Netflix, and other places. Makes the Slashdot Fortress look like a hovel even though we replaced the dirt floors last month.
with the real doll, eating a sandwich playing wii....
Most of those office spaces look cool and hip, but not very comfortable, productive, or private. Sitting in a windowsill with a laptop looks like fun for about 5 minutes.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Those listed are far too modern for my taste. My office hasn't changed much since this building used to be owned by IBM, but I can't help but wonder if in 40 years these unique offices don't seem hopelessly outdated. Till then, my generic flat surface works pretty well for my general office like tasks. My company gives me the option to work a bit from home, so I can implement my own personal style there.
I've tried to work in a few of the more avant garde spaces that some companies try to set up, it's hard to compete with what already 'works'. Too often I find that the curvy chair just doesn't feel as comfortable for over 10 minutes, and that the stylish workspace simply doesn't have enough space to work. And then, you still have the problem that you are working in a space designed by someone else. It won't fit anyone, and when you are dealing with something so unique, the minor annoyances end up feeling 10x worse.
At home, I can design my office to be exactly what I want in my office. It is perfect for the individual using it.
Now, that isn't to say that many of these places couldn't do with some colors other than grey and beige, but in my opinion a great workspace is the one that you barely notice when trying to do your work. My office may be grey and beige, but the facilities people here have created a beautiful nature trail that is designed to be used for a calm walk through a valley near the buildings.
It is simple, and doesn't try to force any of the employees into what almost feels like a lifestyle themed apartment instead of an office. It works great if it is your apartment, but what happens when you don't like the owner's taste in decoration?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I always wanted to work at a place you would see in the movies of the "typical" high-tech work area. Lot's of screens, overflowing with gadgets hooked up in arcane ways, sitting in your command chair of awsomeness in dark rooms with moody, dramatic lighting that would reflect part of the display into your face if you gazed into it a certain way.
Working in tech, you realize what a load of bullshit that is. I schlep my three year old Compaq laptop loaded with Xubuntu to my clients who have their servers stuck in closets or storage rooms. I have my one screen, dirty from use and abuse, I sit on folding chairs and bathed in florescent light, surrounded by boxes filled with office supplies.
I wonder how the others look like.
A lot of them look like you'll grow RSI within one month. I actually prefer my own office with an ergonomic setup, a proper adjustable office chair, large windows and a door.
Also, the dress code is much more relaxed - in that clothes are entirely optional!
* prances *
Note: working from home can instil bad habits, such as the above. Remember that other, real offices may look down upon such behaviour, so do remember to wear clothes for external meetings...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
All these neat looking open spaces and cubicles are my worst nightmare. I've managed to spend my entire career having my own private offices and my worst nightmare is to ever have to work in an open space or a cubicle--listening to every asshole in the office, having everyone looking over my shoulder, etc. THAT was one of the big things what made the fictional "Initech" such a terrible place to work (remember Peter having to listen to "Welcome to Initech. Please Hold." over-and-over again all day? Nothing builds morale like private offices. Open spaces just turn everyone into Less Nessmans (if anyone still remembers that reference).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I remember reading an article on Pixar's HQs a long time ago, and one thing that stood out to me was that there's only one pair of bathrooms in the entire complex. This is to encourage people to run into each other and interact more frequently. I'm sorry, but that would just bug me. When I need to go to the bathroom, I don't want to be interrupted to have a conversation, nor do I want to hear other people yapping away while they do their business. But I guess that's just me....
Oblig urinal joke: "I hear this is where all the dicks hang out."
This guy's the limit!
Google's Zürich offices also have a fireman's pole.
.riiiiiiiight.
. . . . . .
The "style" of the furniture in an office doesn't mean crap if the people are assholes and the policies oppressive. This article is about as asinine as the one a few months back attempting to explain why techies never make it in the boardroom... and proceeded to list off ten fashion faux pas.
/.
Gebus! Some people just don't get it.
Our friends at Slashdot really should re-title this piece as "Top 10 best looking tech workplaces"... otherwise, they're just being terribly disingenuous.
Shame on you
They missed Fog Creek.
Open Plan for the win.
Ugh, I don't like cubicles much, but I loathe "Open" designs.
They work well in living spaces where you feel safe and comfortable, and make optimal use of soft lighting to relax.
In an office environment, I want by back to a nice solid wall, only one easy approach vector to my side of the desk, a comfy chair, and a coffee pot. Outside that, I really don't care (though the fewer old-style fluorescent light tubes - Up to and including "total darkness" - the better).
Count me out for Open Designs.
They work well if you're ten people. They feel like sweatshops when you're 80. They're loud, lack privacy, and its too easy for people to yell across the room or walk up to your desk instead of forcing them to think about whether they really need to initiate the communication in the first place or if its something they can figure out/live without in the first place.
Open Concepts are music to a companies' ears. They're cheap as hell. Designers/artists/loud people love them. But engineers who can't do math while listening to music on headphones rightfully hate them.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I agree. I hate big, open floorplans. I'm not a huge fan of cubicles either, but at least they give some degree of privacy and isolation. A big open space just has too many distractions for me. People walking by, conversations I'm not interested in, etc.
I've worked at Initech (except we called it "Motorola"). I've worked in a private office with real walls and a real door. I've worked in a big bullpen. For me, the best environment is working in a real office (with a door and walls all the way to the ceiling) with about four other people who are working on the same project. We can have relevant work conversations without having to all pack up and move to a conference room, and without having to hear the guys next door who are working on something else.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
The problem with gray and beige is that they are offensive precisely because they are trying to be so inoffensive. They're bland and ugly. Gray reminds me of concrete, which is durable but hideous unless you're designing parking garages. And beige seems to be the default color of anything that isn't supposed to look dirty... but it never really looks clean either. Have you ever tried to get an old beige box to look clean? It's impossible.
You want inoffensive? Silver is metallic, but clean. White gets dirty, looks boring on walls, but if office furniture isn't white on a white floor against a white wall, it can look pretty good. Black can look good if the rest of the office isn't gray and beige. Browns look great if they're actual wood, and dark stained wood can look downright elegant as long as it's not fiberboard crap from Ikea. Hell, even transparent glass or plastic for countertops or work surfaces looks pretty good (as long as you don't have to run an optical mouse on it). Other colors might offend certain people, but at least they won't be bland.
Here's offensive: every single office worker's desk in Japan is made out of metal, and painted gray and beige, and is exactly the same dimensions, right down to the three shelves. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I swear there must be a single company that makes all office desks in this country. They're so generic and utilitarian it makes me want to find the guy who designed them and slit his throat, spilling his blood all over the damn things. Maybe at least that would give it some color. And you wonder why the suicide rate is so high here, it's because of all the gray and beige in the concrete cities and in the offices and in the prefab apartments with their beige plastic walls. People need color and variety and texture or they go nuts. Does painting the thing navy blue instead of beige really cost all that much more?
You've forgotten perhaps the #1 benefit of working from home...
NEVER NEEDING TO POOP IN PUBLIC PLACES!!!
Remember this: no matter how nice your office space is, if you're an "interactive agency" with an unspellable/unpronounceable name like "Tocquigny", you're going to be the first to go out of business when the Dot-Com Crash 2.0 happens.
Enjoy the pretty scenery while it lasts.
I worked for an employer that had some of the amenities that would help them rank in the top-10. Among them were an outdoor volleyball court and basketball court, pool tables and a chef in the cafeteria. Luckily my work hours were flexible and I didn't work more than 10 hours a day. I know some had to work longer, but they didn't seem to mind because of all the conveniences and "fun things to do" while at work. You could, on occasion, take a 5-min break to play basketball.
I've read some major employers in the US such as insurance companies, have salons, barbershops, daycare, grocery stores all in the building. While immensely convenient (there's no denying), and as impressive looking as these offices are (looks better than most people's homes), I believe that these are all simply intended to keep employees at work as long as possible. It may be obvious to some, but I think some are in flat-out denial.
Just do what we do in Ottawa. No modifications required.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
My big objection to open workspaces is the lack of noise control. As a creative worker (software developer), I get most of my job done by switching back and forth between two modes: discussion mode and focused mode.
Discussion mode is typically animated and noisy; happens at random unpredictable times; most frequently involves the same one or two people, occasionally involves others; often needs a whiteboard; etc.
Focus mode is the rest of the time, mostly happens at my desk, and I need quiet in order to be at my most productive. No music, no white noise, no intercom, no fax machine beeping that it's out of paper, no cell phones with hip-hop ring tones ringing at full volume, no animated discussions happening "right over there".
IMHO, open office plans are the worst of all worlds for creative workers. When I'm in discussion mode, I'm bothering everyone else. And because everyone else needs to have those discussions too, it's nearly impossible for me to really get into focus mode. I don't need to be alone in an office, but the ability to close the door around two or three or four people who can be noisy without disrupting others or be quiet and get some creative work done is not optional, it's essential. If you can't do that, you just turned down the productivity knob by some significant fraction.
If that's your opinion then I'm grateful that I don't have to work for you.
You have either found an amazingly rare breed of programmers (those that function well in a noisy environment) or you simply have no idea how programmers actually work. I strongly suspect the latter.
Read up on some of the comments from the "trenches". We don't make up this stuff about "conversation mode" and "focus mode". We don't ask for offices with doors because we like status-symbols. We ask for them because we can work better that way by pretty much every metric.
How did you come to the conclusion that separate offices would kill your team's collaboration work?
Do they literally yell across the room "Joe, can you review my last checkin?" or spontanously summon flashmob meetings?
Yes, working in one big room can work well for up to maybe 10 people. But I have witnessed time after time that it simply doesn't scale beyond that.
People have a natural tendency to take the shortest path to solve their problems and when the shortest path means walking (or yelling) across the room then that will be used. No policy helps that. Furthermore there's always a "new guy" around asking a constant stream of questions, there's always some important gossip to exchange and there's always someone walking around behind your back.
As much as we like to deny it, we're still animals. You can not defy psychology. Someone talking or just walking behind your back *will* disturb your concentration. Most of the time you don't even notice because we all have developed filters against such distractions. But keeping those filters up constantly costs energy. Energy that can not be used for productive work anymore.
In each new economy "loft" that I have worked in so far there were some people who'd regularly come in very early, stay in when everybody else went for food,
or stay very late. When asked about that they all had the same answer: "These are the best (read: only) times where I can actually get shit done."
So, for god's sake, if you want to get the most out of your employees then give them choice. Some people *like* to work in a big-room, maybe because they're really that rare breed or (my pet theory) because they think they can make up for their slacking with socializing. But most tech workers, and programmers in particular, will happily take the office with a door and will thank it with a highly improved performance.