Office Space: TV Documentary Looks At the Dreadful Open Office

sandbagger writes "The CBC (it's like PBS only without the begging) is broadcasting a documentary about the open plan office this evening. You can hear a radio interview about the documentary here. In this documentary, the history of the open office is looked at, how it has evolved, and how the justifications for it being best for everyone else are used by those with offices. Advocates say fewer doors and walls means more collaboration. Critics say it's all driven by bottom line economics--crowding more people into smaller spaces saves money. Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the nobility in Downton Abbey?"

Comments

I like the open plan

[GlobalEcho]

> Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the nobility in Downton Abbey?

It's just you...here's my anecdote from which you can synthesize data.

I've had an office. It was lonely and I got sleepy. Give me an open plan any day, where I'm more productive and learn more about what's going on.

(And for what it's worth, in the last few places I've worked, the multimillionaire bosses have always sat right in the middle of the open plan with everybody else).

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.

I wonder if it's an extrovert/introvert thing.

Re:I like the open plan

[TechyImmigrant]

>And for what it's worth, in the last few places I've worked, the multimillionaire bosses have always sat right in the middle of the open plan with everybody else

I bet they didn't write much code.

Re:I like the open plan

[dyingtolive]

The original founder of the company that got bought out by the one I work for currently still comes in to what was his old home office years later (though he doesn't work there) to work on his own persuits. Guy refuses a assigned parking spot, didn't want an office. Just sits at a desk right in the middle of the floor, like anything else.

Re:I like the open plan

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm still in cubicle land- and the ONLY time I can get anything productive done, is between 6-8am. After that, there is just way too much noise. Even headphones don't really help.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should you learn more about what's going on?

Depending on your position, you SHOULDN'T know what's going on. The engineering department doesn't need to know that the payroll department is investigating suspicious sales commission claims. The marketing department doesn't need to know that the accountants are overworked and grumpy during tax season (as usual). The CEO doesn't need to know that Jane from compliance gets herself a cup of coffee from the break room at 3 PM everyday on the dot.

Re:I like the open plan

[Mahldcat]

They went over to this where I work (I call this the bullpen arrangement), and my biggest initial complaint was the managers were not in the bullpen with the rest of us. Thankfully at least some of the higher level execs had the wisdom to say "no that is not going to fly" and made them change it around...now the offices are "break out/mini conference rooms"....

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

The original founder of the company that got bought out by the one I work for currently still comes in to what was his old home office years later (though he doesn't work there) to work on his own persuits. Guy refuses a assigned parking spot, didn't want an office. Just sits at a desk right in the middle of the floor, like anything else.

Note the "his own persuits" - he doesn't depend on the job for his livelihood, so he is not harmed by the open office plan. If you are being stack-ranked, open offices are a hazard, because you cannot concentrate without headphones, and possible not even thien, if you require absence of visual distractions.

cpatcha: endured

Re:I like the open plan

[BonThomme]

perhaps I can interpret. you don't actually do any work. that's why you get sleepy when left alone. in the open plan, you keep yourself awake by bothering everyone who does do work.

Re:I like the open plan

[alexander_686]

It is kind of an extrovert/introvert thing. I have worked in both. Open offices encourages collaboration but discourages deep thinking. This has been my experience and there are studies that back this up. The odd thing is that you can skew people one way or the other depending on the environment. Extroverts skew towards collaboration but put them in a office and they do more deep thinking. Opposite is true of introverts. So it kind of depends on what you are trying to do.

Re:I like the open plan

[gabebear]

I prefer a well laid out open plan to anything else:

• Separate Office - I get bored and many questions are much more difficult to ask via Chat... why the fuck bother coming to an office building, but work from home
• Open plan with everyone scattered - interesting that you talk to more people on a day to day basis, but nearly as hard to actually communicate as when you have an office.
• Open plan with similar people grouped - You can see when people aren't stupid busy and actually talk about issues that are happening. You still run into other departments, but not as often

I'm an iOS developer.

Re:I like the open plan

[Pepix]

I wonder if it's an extrovert/introvert thing.

I am positive it is.

Ob. reference: http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/about-the-book/

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way related to the author, just liked her book.

Re:I like the open plan

[BonThomme]

yes, everyone with headphones on, you can just see the collaboration, can't you?

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

One new type of person I met I like to call the "punctuation farter." I met a fat, dumb slob who preferred to fart during certain words, but it was unclear whether or not he was trying to disguise his farts or reinforce his point. For example, he would say things like, "Yeah, if we drilled the hole *PBBBHHT*here, then we could have enough slack in the cable to move the light fixture that *PPBBBBHT*far from where it is (him farting plosively when he said "here" and "far").

This "real life" thing is amazing, you all should try it sometime. It's far more bizzarre than anything "reality" TV can cough up.

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:I like the open plan

[Antipater]

I like my company's open plan, too. Working in cubeville felt like I was in a pen - there was a subtle "what are you doing outside your cube? Your work isn't done yet!" vibe going on. It was dehumanizing.

At my current job, we have L-shaped desks arranged into plus-signs, with all the monitors at the center. So if you want human contact, all you have to do is lean back to talk to the guy next to you. If you don't want human contact, just don't talk to the guy next to you.

Now, I can definitely see how it can go bad. We keep peace and quiet because everyone in the room is also an engineer, and nobody wants to be Loud Howard. We keep our sales guys and people-on-the-phone-all-day in a different place. If those didn't happen, or if our "open office" was really just us being stuffed into a tiny space for budget reasons, then I would have a problem with it. But overall my experience has been very positive.

Re:I like the open plan

[CubicleZombie]

Any PHB who puts developers in an open plan has no clue what we do. Which they don't. Obviously. My last job put the developers AND phone tech support in the same room.

My current gig is so cheap that it's an open floating plan where nobody even has their own chair and we telecommute half the time. So half the time I'm in a noisy office with a shitty laptop PC and no personal space, and the other half I'm at home listening to a screaming baby from the next room.

I'm amazed at how much money they'll pay us in salary and then cheap out on little things that kill productivity.

Re:I like the open plan

[i kan reed]

I got moved to open office while still doing the same job. My productivity plummetted. I spend more time on slashdot than ever before because it's the only thing I can actually focus on.

Re:I like the open plan

[i kan reed]

I've noticed it doesn't impair slash-dotting at all.

Re:I like the open plan

[ebno-10db]

Open offices encourages collaboration but discourages deep thinking. This has been my experience and there are studies that back this up.

In other words it sucks for things that require sustained concentration, like programming and engineering. If you're supposedly in one of those fields, and you don't need to concentrate, then you're probably doing no more than glorified clerical work.

Yes, it's useful to informally hear about other things going on in the project, but continual eavesdropping (which also destroys concentration) isn't necessary. I find that the proverbial water cooler works fine. Even at times in the past when I had an office, they were kind enough not to lock me in during business hours. I could walk around to talk to other people (without disturbing everyone in the place), and could even go to the restroom without permission.

Re:I like the open plan

[denis-The-menace]

I come in late so that I can code late with no distractions

All they care is that I put in my hours and produce.

Re:I like the open plan

[ebno-10db]

Separate Office ... many questions are much more difficult to ask via Chat... why the fuck bother coming to an office building

Were you forbidden to go to other people's offices to talk to them? Just to make it easier, in places I've worked where I had an office, everyone kept the door open except if they were doing something that would distract/annoy others (e.g. small meeting).

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to get sleepy in my cube.

I was on an SSRI learning a bunch of sparsely documented DOS 'C' code.

One can only concentrate so long - even less when suffering from a side effect of somnolence. It was nice being bothered because it perked me up a little.

I tried getting up as much as I could until someone bitched to my boss about it - I even got written up for it.

Any job that requires sitting in front of a computer all day long sucks. After three to four hours, I'm toast and I need to get away for a few hours - I don't care how interesting the project is. We didn't evolve to sit all day.

Re:I like the open plan

[nitehawk214]

cough up

With all the farting you have to deal with, I can see why.

Re:I like the open plan

[operagost]

I'm a music lover, but I still don't want to listen to music through headphones while I'm working. And if you have to wear headphones to drown out the noise of your working environment, it means the working environment is faulty.

Re:I like the open plan

[alexander_686]

I would second that - it is a very good book.

Re:I like the open plan

[nitehawk214]

There is a difference between "knowing what is going on", and "a couple of guy's desk conversation or conference call makes it impossible for me to think."

Re:I like the open plan

[gbjbaanb]

it does vary, and a truly open office is a bad thing - you need partitions and plants around the place to break the sound from other teams up. You get to sit with your colleagues and chat about stuff instead of having to go to the water cooler for your fix of herd-instinct interaction.

But I find anywhere that had 'cubicles' or 'bays' were just as loud overall, and a personal office is just lonely and sad.

I know plenty of people who always wanted to sit with their backs to the wall, in a corner... a company I used to work at had one bloke like that - got sacked to surfing porn all day, and my colleague at the last place wanted that.. so he could surf facebook all day. You see where I'm going with this :)

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer offices per group of people working together all the time to open plan.

Complete open plan is so loud, you can't think straight, because someone will be talking at any given time. Headphones don't help at all, they just distract me (I'll be whistling along in my head instead of thinking straight).

When you have individual offices and all the people you need to talk to over and over during the day, you probably don't ask some of the questions you would have asked otherwise. But if your complete Scrum team (9 ppl!) is in the same room, but sheltered from everybody else in the company, you do get more collaboration and you get less distraction. Keep teams you talk to often in the adjacent big offices but with a door and wall in between. The last part will obviously become a game of optimization, which can never be won but hey ...

Re:I like the open plan

[pescadero]

I like an open plan too. With the right people (who aren't loud, and who still know how to be polite about interruptions), and the right floor layout (minimize foot traffic near where you sit), it can be a great environment to work.

I worked at a company that moved from a one-big-space office to one with lots of individual offices. It drastically increased the siloing of various teams; I think we had much more camaraderie before the move.

I haven't yet seen any decent research which proves one way or another whether an open plan helps. What I have seen, is some pretty flimsy and inconclusive research that people often quote as "overwhelming" evidence against an open plan.

Re:I like the open plan

[pepty]

Open offices encourages collaboration but discourages deep thinking. This has been my experience and there are studies that back this up.

In other words it sucks for things that require sustained concentration, .

Absolutely. If anything it's management that should be in the open plan environment: their jobs are the definition of continual multitasking, small interruptions, and needing to keep tabs on everything going on.

Re:I like the open plan

[ElectricTurtle]

Now, now Ethanol-fueled, we've been over this before. When you go into a room with a mirror, that's not a different person that you are "meeting".

Re:I like the open plan

[Meyaht]

Been there, find a new job, inject some change into your schedule.

Re:I like the open plan

[pepty]

Management are the ones who would benefit most from an open plan: constant interruptions, keeping tabs on everything so you can keep everything under control: this is their bailiwick. A separate "mini conference room" for those occasions when they need uninterrupted concentration sounds about right.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think the screaming baby is your employers fault. It's your responsibility to set up a home office where you can be productive if you work from home.

Re:I like the open plan

[mjwalshe]

Its because salary and building services come out of a different budget.

Re:I like the open plan

[pepty]

Then there's the other problem: there's a documented higher incidence of colds and flu in open plan environments. It's hard to concentrate when your head is exploding or you lack the energy to get out of bed. They also find higher blood pressure and stress associated with open plan, but that probably has more to do with the "stuffed into a tiny space for budget reasons" implementations.

Re:I like the open plan

[Marxist Hacker 42]

True enough, because *slashdotting is quiet* and the only people who actually get noticed in an open plan office are those being loud.

Everybody else is trying to keep their head down and do their work to, and is only bothered by excessive noise.

Re:I like the open plan

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Also, slashdotting is neither productive nor creative.

Re:I like the open plan

[penglust]

No, I don't know where you are going with this. A couple of people doing it wrong does not make an argument. I have worked on open floors, high cubes, low cubes, 2 people to a large office and everybody had their own 8x8 office with a door.

By far was the best was the 2 person office. My office mate and I were working 2 sides of the same development project most of the time and the collaboration worked well. At the same time I large blocks of time to think about some real low level code I was creating. At the same time we never closed the door to the office and when ever somebody wanted to talk, work together, etc. they just came in.

Since I have come back to cube land I have noticed there are many that sit in their cube, wear the head phones and will only communicate through chat or email even if they sit 3 feet away over a cube wall. Your lonely guy exists anyway.

Re:I like the open plan

[penglust]

I agree with you completely. A couple of jobs ago, for the first year our development group was kind of off in the back corner behind a wall of book cases. The 7 of us had a quite area where we could concentrate. Much good code was written and 2 products released. Then the new COO of the company decided to improve collaboration. We got split up and I was over the cube wall from one of the marketers. That ass hat refused to do a single phone call not on speaker. At the 3rd week yet another volume high call occurred just as I was about to track a long standing bug down. The result was I stood up, looked over the cube wall and yelled "shut the fuck up". I would probably have been in trouble had it not been that vigorous clapping up and down the isle was the immediate result.

I just don't need every bodies BS to know what is going on.

Re:I like the open plan

[nosfucious]

I'm in an open office. 10 people, in a space that is comfortable for 6, at the most. At the end of the day, I just want some quiet time. Fortunately, I have achieved the mythical /. status and have a girlfriend. Very, very fortunately she doesn't live with me, but continues to maintain her own apartment 100km away. So, most of the time, I can wind down after a day.

Boss does let me work from home if I've project specific stuff that must be done and I'm up to my limit in distractions.

What I really need is a test lab area, that hurts me more than the open plan office.

You can blow up stuff outside the office or play some classic Diecide on 11 and I can work. But the constant bable of voices just pisses me off.

Re:I like the open plan

[ewibble]

Not for me, I would say I am introverted,I am shy, I won't be comfortable talking to someone about anything non pragmatic for about 6 months.
Took a online test at http://www.thepowerofintrovert... says I am an introvert, no real surprise.

But I like open offices, I am quite capable completely blocking out the rest of the world if I am busy, just ask my wife. But I like people, it definitely lets me know whats going on, since I won't actually go to the water cooler for a chat. In an office I would not make an effort to go and see someone, for a chat, ever.

Maybe you can't just categorize people into boxes.

Ps, I hate cubicles they are the worst of both worlds, I feel isolated, and surrounded by people, at the same time.

Re:I like the open plan

[ClickOnThis]

I was on an SSRI learning a bunch of sparsely documented DOS 'C' code.

For that task, I think most of us would need to take an SSRI.

Re:I like the open plan

[aaarrrgggh]

Fair enough!

The only reasons the managers in my company have private offices are: to simplify the process of confidential meetings; to allow conference calls to be conducted on speaker with another member of the project team present; additional work surfaces and storage; and because they were built before we moved in.

Better (more modern) office layouts with lots of teaming rooms (6x6' conference rooms), adequate medium and large conference rooms, and work surfaces and storage matched to job functions dramatically reduce the need for a private office. If you shrink the offices to 8x6 and get rid of the windows then most managers would prefer the cubes.

For me, the biggest impact is a cube would make it harder for me to ride my bike to work, as I keep all my work clothing and toiletries in the office. The savings to the company would be about $2,000/year per office eliminated.

Re: I like the open plan

[chromeronin799]

I only don't like it when the managers get their own offices. If they want a private conversation. They should have to grab one of the meeting rooms just like us plebs. The bank I am contracted to at the moment operates open an for all the areas I've worked in, and in most of their big corporate sites now have full wireless, standing desks you can move to, small meetingrooms, large kitchen and cafe space as well as cube farms. No one gets a perminant private office, and over all I like working there. The company that employs me however has got cramped open plan for the plebs, private offices for middle management and above, only one meeting room per floor and the tiny kitchen bay is right by the copier and printer so is never quiet. Luckily, I almost never have to work there.

Re:I like the open plan

[jordanjay29]

Quiet is a fantastic book!

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, so your desks are arranged as swastikas?

Re:I like the open plan

[sjames]

I hate using headphones when other people are around. The only exception is at home.

It may indeed be an introvert/extrovert thing.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

L-shaped desks arranged into plus-signs. Heil! Your entire post takes on a whole different meaning doesn't it. Let me paraphrase for you...

Working in the camp felt like I was in pen - there was a subtle "arbeit macht frei" vibe going on. It was dehumanizing.

At my current job as a sonderkommando we keep peace and quiet because everyone in the room is also a Jew, and nobody wants to be Loud Avigdor.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

They make you put in produce?

Re:I like the open plan

[orion205]

Ugh.
I'm an engineer and not a fan of the open office at my job. I have my favorite Dilbert on this subject posted on my bookcase:
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-05-31/

It is nice to be able to check if someone is at their desk without having to do anything more than turn my head, but I'm easily distracted and it can be very hard to focus on work even with the headphones. Oh yeah, back to work!

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

The data is all over the place but my on it is the open plans tend to make ineffective employees more effective by making those that can help them do their work more easily accessible. Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of distracting and disrupting the people that are most effective at what they do. In other words, the improvements a company may see in an open plan are largely masking a larger issue of under-performing workers. Hire effective people and let them work where they feel comfortable.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to collect a paycheck. That's usually the persuasion one way or the other.

Re:I like the open plan

[cusco]

I'm amazed at how much money they'll pay us in salary and then cheap out on little things that kill productivity.

My first real tech job put a $120/hr contracted DBA on an ancient piece of junk PC because they were too cheap to spend money on a workstation that was only supposed to be needed for 3 or 4 months. To make matters worse, they wouldn't cough up for a print server and had me attach the group printer to that PC and share it out. Every time someone needed to print the machine essentially locked up until the (ancient and painfully slow) printer was finished.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

How's that going to work when you have a wife and kids?

All they care is that I put in my hours and produce.

Truer words were never spoken.

Re:I like the open plan

[Antipater]

Hrm, /. won't let me draw an ascii diagram. But Nazi jokes aside, no. The corners of the four Ls are pressed together at the center, so the whole thing looks like a +.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a good thought. At my company, the management and above get offices with closed doors. And people fight over whether they're up the ladder enough to actually get an office.

I understand the need for privacy in some aspects of the position, but provide open office space for people to work in (not assigned spaces) when those needs occur. That way we can feel like we're all on the same team.

My boss currently sits in a cubicle 6 feet (as the crow flies) from me. Granted, we have high walls - because we're IT and we don't get the new fancy schmancy stuff - but it works well in my opinion. He goes to the conference room or an open office on the floor if he needs privacy in discussions with others.

Re:I like the open plan

[JudgeFurious]

Many years ago I preferred an open environment. Minimal cubical walls and hearing everything going on worked for me then. Back around 2008 I was moved to another location following Hurricane Ike (I'm in Houston TX) and ended up in my own office. Then in 2012 I again moved to another location (entirely new department actually) and found myself in one of those areas where there are offices after a fashion but no doors or ceiling tiles. It's got a kind of loft feel to it I guess but the place just seems noisy to me. I hear so much background chatter and random noise that I find I have a hard time focusing on harder problems. I wonder if my age is a factor. I'm almost 50 now and find that as I get older I'm having a harder time separating background noise from people talking directly to me. Could be my hearing I guess. Either way I find myself missing my office and peace and quiet it came with.

Re:I like the open plan

[slashmydots]

Well I work in IT and when I'm working on a website or software design, I do work faster when people shut up and leave me alone. Hurray, I have my own office.

Re:I like the open plan

[bill_mcgonigle]

Precisely - they do not respect his time outside of work, care that his job requires concentration, or that he may be an introvert or blessed with ADD.

Open plan offices work well for people who have jobs that require collaboration and not individual concentration. These jobs tend to be favored by extroverts who tend to occupy management positions because humans tend to favor the illusion of strong leaders.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

There's something between open offices and individual offices. Cubicles get a bad rap, but they help give some of the benefits of an open office without a lot of the distractions. The major distraction for me with an open office isn't sound, it's things moving in my peripheral vision. Cubes solve this. You can even get a bit more open office and have a group of desks surrounded by cubicle walls so that it's only your immediate group that can easily see and talk to each other.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually sounds like they're close to the optimal solution...no assigned desks. If you setup all the desks equally (same external monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc) and give everyone laptops, you can have some that are out in the open floor plan and some that are in smaller offices where people can agree to be silent. Then simply let everyone choose whether they need quiet or collaboration on a daily basis depending on what they're working on each day.

On days where you've got meetings and need to do collaborative design, you sit out in the open. When you need to hack through something, you pick a quieter spot. If you can entirely disconnect from your coworkers, you can work from home. Mandating an either or presumes that the substance of someone's work will remain constant, which isn't usually true for knowledge workers.

Re:I like the open plan

[weilawei]

I always thought Cold Fjord got pretty creative... ;)

Re:I like the open plan

[weilawei]

have a girlfriend. Very, very fortunately she doesn't live with me

You won't have one very long if that's your attitude toward coming home to her. Pro-tip: women usually expect you to move in with them (or vice versa) after a while.

Re:I like the open plan

[Admiral_Grinder]

Must be a small cube. All the ones I had I could ride my bike into work and keep it in my cube. Sorry, no measurements on my current which I do ride to work. One place I couldn't do it in was because all the cubes had a large cabinet that sat next to the entrance. I don't think anybody really needed it. It was too far to ride anyways so not a big deal.

I have saw smaller cubes though.

Re:I like the open plan

[Admiral_Grinder]

What happens when you start hearing your neighbors music because they are trying to drown out the noise? I had this happen in cube land.

Re:I like the open plan

[aaarrrgggh]

Our cubes are 8x8 and offices 10x17; I could fit the bike in the office but it is against policy.

The problem is I have a 8 laundered shirts, 8 dirty shirts, underwear, pants, and a towel from showering. Can't put any of those in a drawer. I use a valet cleaners to keep my clothes pressed, and less than 10 shirts has a higher fee.

Re:I like the open plan

[Tough Love]

Give me multiples of millions and I will happily sit in a cube farm. Give me a cube farm without multiple millions and I'm out of that dump.

Re: I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been a first/second level development manager and an individual contributor for all my career (about 50/50 - tending to alternate between the two).

I'm generally a big supporter of offices for both developers and managers where both are expected to keep their door open most of the time - i.e. unless they have a specific reason to close it (such as focusing on a perplexing core dump, reviewing complex concurrency related code, doing salary planning...).

However I think for many less experienced developers, more open/shared offices may be appropriate as they are still learning more 'basics' and often don't know what/how to ask and benefit more from picking things up via osmosis. For example, if an experienced developer is explaining something to an inexperienced developer and there are three similarly inexperienced developers around them in an open plan, those that are interested will overhear and join in and learn without the experienced developer having to explain it three more times over the coming months (or worse, and more likely, one of the others doing something wrong because they didn't even know to ask). Open plans also give less experienced developers more opportunities to become de facto technical leaders (or become widely know as de facto chumps so when they get fired, their colleagues breath a sigh of relief rather than being concerned or alarmed).

However, I think it's critical that first level managers have private offices as it makes honest employee/manager interaction easier and more organic. A developer who has a concern is much more likely to drop by my office with 'got a second?' if I can just say 'sure' and then as the nature of the conversation becomes obvious I can say 'can you get the door' if needed (or they can close the door immediately, which is nearly always bad news if the person rarely if ever does that). Similarly, if the developer starts a technical or administrative conversation with me that ends up calling for honest 'coaching' (to use a Dilbertesque term), if the conversation happens to be in my office, I can provide instant feedback with little or no drama and less stress as compared to "Let's grab a conference room". The "Let's grab a conference room" approach is followed by a public search for a conference room which breaks the context of the conversation, makes a fairly little issue seem big, and discourages giving the instant (but confidential) feedback until the next one-on-one (by which time the details and context are fuzzier to all).

Really, offices for the manager is the ultimate in agile management. Scheduled, and often intrusive, one-on-ones are much less necessary if managers have offices and developers feel free to, and are encouraged to, stop by when something crosses their mind and expect a quick and honest discussion unencumbered and uninterrupted by searches for a private venue.

If there's a mix of cubes and offices, put the offices in the inside areas w/o windows and let the cubiclists enjoy the windows and sunlight. That helps eliminate the "status" of having a private office.

Obviously, some types of technical jobs require more concentration or more collaboration than others and that's a factor in the value of offices for developers. My life has been spent mostly in fairly low level commercial enterprise infrastructure code with relatively high availability, concurrency, and performance requirements - it quite possible my view would be very different if I were involved in designing consumer web pages.

Re:I like the open plan

[xelah]

It encourages interaction. Whether it encourages collaboration or not is a related but different thing. Collaboration is about the coordinated work of several people achieving a particular goal. You need to interact to collaborate, but not all interaction is collaboration and you need to work effectively as individuals, too. I wish collaboration-worshiping managers (who, I suspect, are mostly extroverts and work in areas that don't require in-depth individual work) would recognize the difference.

Re:I like the open plan

[rk]

Or alternatively, he could have a sleep disorder. I had this problem too and got diagnosed with sleep apnea. Got a CPAP and once I got the right mask it was like night and day difference. I get better sleep and rarely get sleepy in the afternoons.

Re:I like the open plan

[xelah]

AIUI, and a quick Googling seems to confirm it, there are physiological responses to noise that don't go away with habituation (though you do get habituated at a conscious level). It seems to have been looked at most with aircraft noise (eg http://pss.sagepub.com/content... - higher stress in schoolchildren from aircraft noise - and http://pss.sagepub.com/content... - poorer long term memory and reading). So maybe you should blame the noise rather than lack of space.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Read peopleware. It's hideous for introverts and destroys their productivity. An open office plan is completely stupid. Dopamine vs adrenaline, which drives extroverts, who plan these kinds of offices.

Re:I like the open plan

[MillionthMonkey]

Cubicles really suck, especially if everyone has their own. The walls are just high enough so you can't see over them, giving the illusion of privacy. People get together and start gossiping about each other as if no one else can hear them.

Re:I like the open plan

[SimonInOz]

Ha - our multimillionaire bosses definitely do not sit amongst the cube farms in the bank where I work.
No, and they have made it far worse - try "Activity Based Working". You are supposed to change locations depending on your activity. Sounds ok, but this is what actually happens:
You come in and get your laptop from your tiny locker. Then you search for a desk. There aren't enough desks, so if you are late, you will search for a long, long time.
Ok, you've found a desk. You plug in your laptop - with luck it'll connect to the screen , network and keyboard. You try and do some work amidst the clamour.
And now it's time to talk to Jack ... but where IS Jack. You don't know. So you spend half the day wandering about trying to find people, and advising other wandering lost souls where someone might be. (No, we don't have a mapping system. I proposed and developed one 2 years ago, but they won't install it ... I don't understand).
If you have to leave your desk for a while you are encouraged to vacate it, but you don't because then you won't find a desk at all.

I don't know who dreams up this stuff - obviously extroverts, but apart from that - are they sadists? What is the point? Could anybody in their right mind believe this would be an improvement on the miserable previous cube farm.

Re: I like the open plan

[Vanderhoth]

Headphones aren't for noise canceling in my cube farm. I wear headphones because it's a signal to others to leave me alone.

Headphones on, door is shut, I'm busy. Headphones off, come have a chat, I need a distraction. 90% of the people in my building get it. There's really just a couple, one women in particular, that can't seem to understand the concept.

There are advantages to both. It'd be nice to almost sign out an office for a few hours a day. I like the interaction of the open floor, but sometimes I just need focus.

Re:I like the open plan

[stepho-wrs]

Wow, an 8 metre by 8 metre cube? Can I send you my resume?

Re: I like the open plan

[Gorobei]

That's a really good analysis. I'd add one idea: you can have more than one work location! I have my open plan desk (a massive 24 sq ft) of space where I try to spend most of my day: my direct reports are all within 20 feet, and 64 people are within "stand up and talk" distance. I also have an office for the confidential/chat stuff: we walk to it if needed. Almost all business gets done in the open: it's more transparent, we talk tech in the open, we talk strategy in the open, every direct and second level report can at least listen to what is going on and figure out if they can help.

Re:I like the open plan

[Gorobei]

>And for what it's worth, in the last few places I've worked, the multimillionaire bosses have always sat right in the middle of the open plan with everybody else

I bet they didn't write much code.

You'd lose that bet at my workplace. The MMBs are in the middle of the open plan and are the top 1% coders: that is why they are there.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I got moved to open office while still doing the same job.

Oh yes, I just love to hear the guy three desks down screaming at his ex on the phone.

Re:I like the open plan

[mjwx]

Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.

I wonder if it's an extrovert/introvert thing.

I don't like listening to music whilst working, its a distraction. I also don't like earplugs or other forms of hearing protection that block out noise (my ears end up covered in sweat, which is uncomfortable.

I like working in quiet areas, I can happily tolerate and filter out a certain level of background noise but open plan offices mean I have to listen to the vapid conversations of all the stupid people I inevitably have to sit near. In one of my previous jobs they put me right next to sales. I've lost count of the number of times I had to tell them to shut up because I couldn't hear my client (who expects me to fix their problems). Conversations about boring weekends, kids, cats, whatever crazy religion they've started following, almost nothing work related (not that sales and marketing do actual work). All of it driving me nuts when I've got a complex problem the client wants fixed 20 minutes ago.

So I'd rather be in a nice sensible cube farm. If anyone wants to talk to me they can use IM, email, the phone or just come to my cube. If I need the entire team, we'll go into a meeting room and when I need to get down to work I can be relatively isolated from distractions in my cube.

I also don't buy that whole collaboration thing. Open plan is nothing more than a tax dodge. A full sized partition is considered a wall (part of the building) and is depreciated over 40 years. Smaller partitions are considered furniture and depreciated in a much shorter time (3 years in Oz).

Re:I like the open plan

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

It's not just women -- it's people in general, either because they're happiest being with their partner *or* because they want the relationship to progress towards a marriage-like state. Beyond dating, most people are hoping to find someone that they'll get on with well enough to potentially remain together for the rest of their lives, and don't want to invest years in a relationship that's never going to reach that stage.

Iagree about the rest, though. From firsthand experience as the one that needed extra alone time to unwind, it's an extremely bad sign of the "find a solution or give up now because you're wasting each other's time" variety.

Re:I like the open plan

[chrismcb]

I've always though open office discourage collaboration... It is hard to have a chat in an open office. You either have to find a conference room, or you keep your voice down... or you disrupt others.

Re:I like the open plan

[alexander_686]

Think along the lines of “bullpen” from newspapers. Not so much chatting, more yelling. Fast pace, high energy, deadlines must be meet, need to crank out product, short production cycles. Where I have work and where it worked well was 1. support – everybody had a few specialized areas of knowledge so you could sling the call over to the right person. The other was a daily processing cycle that had to be done in 1 hour. 7 hours of boredom, 1 hour of excitement. If something odd happened it needed to be passed to a person who could either fix it or was authorized to make a judgment call.

I am also told it works well with sales as it fosters energy and a sense of competition. I can't speak to that because I have never been in sales.

Re:I like the open plan

[nosfucious]

We have talked about this at length. No marriage, no rings, no kids. I keep my motorbikes, she keeps her cars. She doesn't like my apartment, I don't like hers.

Re:I like the open plan

[DarthVain]

I think that is everywhere. It is a management thing (mismanagement). Separate ledgers for salary VS other stuff with zero perspective.

You pay me many tens of thousands of dollars a year, yet make me do big justification for an additional 4 year 50$ lease payment for a 2nd monitor?

You just paid me more than that to write up said justification and submit it to you...
(not to mention if it makes me 1% more productive it will pay for itself many times over).

Re:I like the open plan

[toddestan]

I don't think that'll work out well. People will pick our the desk they like, and then get upset when they come in and someone else is sitting in "their" desk. Or you'll have people fighting over the more desirable locations, and so on. Even if those things don't come up, you'll probably end up with most people sitting in the same place most of the time, which may not be a bad thing actually.

Re:I like the open plan

[Kaenneth]

The "Work will make you free" motivational posters don't help.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Air conditioning is a big contributor to noise in an office environment. Where I work, at 6pm it feels like the air pressure drops and suddenly you can hear clearly again. The AC is probably no more than 40dB but it's a continual white noise that gets very tiring. I wear IEM earphones to block it. Even without music they make it more comfortable.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess if you have a job that doesn't require any concentration at all it would be okay.

First thing I check on before applying for a job is whether or not they corral programmers into a wide open space. If they do I don't even bother sending in a resume.

I don't appreciate being treated like a brainless assembly-line worker.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez, and here I was thinking my 12x30 private office was getting a little confining.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.

No they dont. They are agrivating for the people who actually have to talk to you.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're a whore.

Good to know.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you didn't get past high school.

Universities have open seating, but people are territorial and tend to use that same seat the entire term.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a bluetooth Surflink connecting to my Range Platinum hearing aids. Look Ma, not wires coming out of my head! Also, the aids have a setting that gives all frequencies a -20 dB kick, which is quite nice in a bull pen.

Re:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Conversely, I was stuck in the middle of an open office and hated it. Actually took a part time admin job to get a shared office with another part-time admin (we taught 12 hours and admined 6, so a 1/3 work load for admin). That way I got what I care about more than private space or collaboration: a mother effin' window. Really, it is all I care about. If they had open office space with windows everywhere I would be happy, but they don't.
I support of your feeling though, When I came back to the US they put me in a pod with high walls and stuck in a windowless bunker. It only took about 3 weeks before I started applying for admin work to get a window. . Now I have no admin, share a relatively open office with 4 others and have a window wall along the long side. Life is good.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading the headline I seriously expected to see a documentary about Apache OpenOffice. That would've been a justified rant!

Re:Seriously?

[jellomizer]

However if they didn't make Libra Office, you would have been thoroughly outraged.

Re:Seriously?

[edittard]

However if they didn't make Libra Office, you would have been thoroughly outraged.

Wouldn't bother me, I think astrology is nonsense. I'm apparently a typical Aries in that respect.

At least one CEO eats his own dog food

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a case study in the book Lean Thinking where the CEO liked it so much that he also sits in the open office.

Re:At least one CEO eats his own dog food

[ebno-10db]

There is a case study in the book Lean Thinking where the CEO liked it so much that he also sits in the open office.

Did that include when he was talking about how large the next unnecessary round of layoffs will be?

Re:At least one CEO eats his own dog food

[crath]

Anyone with a serious interest in this subject needs to read "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom Demarco & Timothy Lister. They present empirical research data gathered in the 1970s that demonstrates the real productivity gains to be made through housing staff in appropriate office space. Note: open offices and cubical jungles do not constitute productive environments. The numbers tell no lies.

Re:At least one CEO eats his own dog food

[weilawei]

And the CEO was probably a full-on extrovert. Some people need peace and quiet and no distractions. If I'm coding something, I've got the entire chunk of code I'm working on and the state of the system in my head, as well as plans for what's getting done next and where. Interrupt me for something menial at the wrong moment, and I've got to spend the next 15-20 minutes trying to get my mental state back to what it was for efficiently working. Open plan offices encourage this bad behavior. Other jobs are less demanding of silence, however.

The solution is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to LibreOffice. It's much less dreadful.

Re:The solution is obvious

[jfdavis668]

Or Google Docs. Work anywhere.

Re:The solution is obvious

[0123456]

Or Google Docs. Work anywhere.

And you get a free backup at the NSA.

Re:The solution is obvious

[jfdavis668]

I had to call them the other day to restore some files I lost. Very helpful

Re:The solution is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

I now question if it was a good idea to start a zombie escape plan in Google Docs with a friend, for fun.
Such things like evacuating a large number of coastal areas to nearby islands, collecting up resources to build shelters and such, just a "shit hits the fan" plan to see what would happen, as well as securing a nuclear power station to continue to keep the power in the nearby area on for as long as possible with help from the staff and anyone with electrical knowledge. (and in the case of the site nearby that is being decommissioned, help them continue)

Some of the things we have come up with are pretty silly, but also about saving as much as possible.
It involves using 3 coastal islands efficiently. One is for inactive people, one will be entirely for farms (including animals), the other will be for people actively searching inland for any other survivors, rescuing animals left in houses with a + sign on the windows. (that was an instruction, if the animals were too large for the initial travel and if they never wanted to let them loose, just leave food out and people would return the next day with vans and trucks to rescue as many as possible)
You know, completely over the top superhero crap for an event that is still seriously unlikely to ever happen. (watch, I will say this and that mind-controlling fungus will make the jump and mutate with some other virus to make humans violently enraged)

Hey Mr NSA / GCHQ dude, we are just playing, honest. He's got asthma and has a bit of weight due to the steroids, and I am crippled with illness due to Crohns, we'll likely be the first meal of any zombies in the area, don't worry guys.

Still though, it does have a good purpose as a real escape plan if shit hit the fan some other way.
Of course, if a nuclear war happened, full-scale, one of those islands would be unreachable due to being too close to a huge major city, just by travel time and even a small-ish nuke that would leak radiation around that area by the time it was reached.
This plan would need huge tweaking to potentially survive a nuclear war, but the islands would still be heavily useful regardless.
Looks like we are building vaults in the mountains! Time to go Fallout-style.

Re:The solution is obvious

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

LO is only nicer for science/math-related work, as the team integrated a bunch of science/math extensions. For someone like me that will only use simple math (if even that) and primarily uses *O to write fiction, LO is primarily just a copy of OO that is bogged down with useless extras while lacking the few extensions that I really do like.

FWIW On my 2GHz Centrino / 1 GB of RAM Linux/KDE 4 desktop, AOO will become obnoxiously slow but still work on a text-only .odf at ~150k, while LO will make the entire system take 3-4 minutes to respond to input when handling an odf of maybe 85-100k.

Humans are territorial animals

[Anonymous Coward]

Forcing someone to work in the same space as someone else is psychologically stressful no matter how fine you are with it.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[jellomizer]

Working is psychologically stressful.
Every job has its annoying parts to it. And we can't have a world where everyone does what they want, because there will be a serious gap in what needs to be done.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[CanHasDIY]

Forcing someone to work in the same space as someone else is psychologically stressful no matter how fine you are with it.

You think that's bad? When the company I work for sends 2 same-sex employees off for any sort of training or event, they only spring for 1 hotel room.

I haven't found much in my career that's more unsettling than having to split a bedroom/shitter with someone who is, essentially, a complete stranger.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[ebno-10db]

Much as I dislike open office plans, you do have territory in the form of your desk and a small area near it. It's the same as traditional electronics labs, where there are long lines of benches and no partitions. Your bench is your territory.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Anonymous Coward]

That's sound awesome to me.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[jordanjay29]

Even for executives/management?

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

I mark my turf, carefully pissing along the perimeter of my cube. It really keeps people from bothering me, well, until the cops arrive..

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Anonymous Coward]

That's strange; every company I've worked for have expressly forbidden that exact thing, because they employ human resources experts and lawyers who have told them the risk of a lawsuit is too damn high.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. You'd find me not going on any trips at that point. I honestly don't really care to be friends with a lot of the people I work with - and that's no reflection of them, it's just I don't want to be that close. Chances of me wanting to share a hotel room with anyone other than my wife is slim to none.

I ultimately hate even sharing a car with co-workers when on trips; I just want to have some me time - especially on the road after work.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[CanHasDIY]

Even for executives/management?

Technically, yes. Except they do everything they can to avoid putting executives and managers into those situations.

Of course, since they all pull in at least 6 figures, I get the feeling paying for their own rooms is a lot more viable than it is for us lowly producers.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Darinbob]

In the lab though I have never seen anyone chatting about sports or politics, or a huge group of people all hanging around having a discussion. In the lab I find a few interruptions are ok and it is easier to block stuff out because you're physically performing actions. In a cube though I'm reading and writing code or such and the distractions are much more apparent. Cubes are noisy, labs are even noisier. Best is an office as you can close the door and get stuff done, but able to open the door and have a small meeting in it.

As for territory, there are some open office plans where you do NOT get your own desk. It's first come first served, only personal items that you carry in and out with you.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[ChrisMaple]

I worked in an open office plan where nobody had a fixed desk and there weren't enough desks and computers for everybody that needed one. Leftover people - those with least seniority - had to work at a workbench, sitting on a high stool and shoving aside the oscilloscope and power supplies to make room for paper. All desks were IKEA tables (half of them assembled incorrectly so that they were swaybacked) that faced cinderblock walls. So there was no territory, and until law made workspace smoking illegal there was that problem also. It sucked.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Grishnakh]

Are you in the US? That sounds like a great recipe for a lawsuit here.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[CanHasDIY]

Are you in the US?

Indeed.

That sounds like a great recipe for a lawsuit here.

On what grounds, though?

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[mjr167]

I sleep nude so lets start with... Sexual harassment and Hostile work environment

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[internerdj]

Presumably the idea that opposite sex coworkers aren't forced into the same situation is sexual harassment lawsuits. Such a policy is hinged on an assumption of sexual orientation that is outdated.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[CanHasDIY]

Well, if ever I feel like it's worth losing my job over (or, say, I find a different job), I may have to contact my legal council.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Macgrrl]

I once had a interstate training session where the company initially booked for me to share a room with a coworker of the opposite sex - I had to complain to get them to book me in my own room. I got on with the guy well enough - but it doesn't mean I want to sleep 3 feet away from him.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Macgrrl]

Given I had one of my previous employers try and book me to share a room with an opposite sex coworker one time, I would have said potentially sexual harassment. I can't believe they though that idea was even remotely OK.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[mjwx]

Forcing someone to work in the same space as someone else is psychologically stressful no matter how fine you are with it.

You think that's bad? When the company I work for sends 2 same-sex employees off for any sort of training or event, they only spring for 1 hotel room.

I haven't found much in my career that's more unsettling than having to split a bedroom/shitter with someone who is, essentially, a complete stranger.

LLLLLuxury.

That's not cheap. Cheap is when they don't send you for any training that isn't free.

My last employer wouldn't spring for training due to the fact I was a contractor (fair enough) but the job before that was a full time position. Training was all self directed, I had to buy all resources myself (meaning I had to buy a course book and read it, if they didn't get a tax break for time I put down as "training" I would have had to do that in my own time too) and then take the test which I had to pay for and I'd get reimbursed only if I passed and it was useful to the company. That's cheap, your example is merely an annoyance.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[CanHasDIY]

LLLLLuxury.

That's not cheap. Cheap is when they don't send you for any training that isn't free.

My last employer wouldn't spring for training due to the fact I was a contractor (fair enough) but the job before that was a full time position. Training was all self directed, I had to buy all resources myself (meaning I had to buy a course book and read it, if they didn't get a tax break for time I put down as "training" I would have had to do that in my own time too) and then take the test which I had to pay for and I'd get reimbursed only if I passed and it was useful to the company. That's cheap, your example is merely an annoyance.

No, dude, that's straight up abuse. You don't have to put up with being treated like an indentured servant.

Re:Humans are territorial animals

[Ronin Developer]

Oh..They did that at one job I worked and we went to a Law Enforcement conference in LA. When somebody called the front desk, the response was like..."Oh, the room with the two guys". Went over real well with our clients who are extremely conservative. Plus, the guy and I shared the same first name. Not fun...rather embarrassing.

It was the LAST time anybody was forced to share a room. But, at another conference, I booked my own room (vs going home and having to drive in by 6am) and the management had the audacity to cancel my PERSONAL reservation and book me at another hotel because they "didn't want the employees socializing with the clients". I had booked the room on my own credit card and was paying out of pocket...yet they felt they could just do that. They got away with it....but, I quit a short time later. Had enough of their bullshit.

I miss walls...

[Moof123]

Cubeville is bad enough. I'm having to overhear folks politics the next row over right now (not my politics...). For real design work you need to be able to shut out enough outside noise and distraction to really immerse yourself for a couple hours at a shot, and a door would be awesome right now...

Re:I miss walls...

[Oligonicella]

Hell, I'll beat that. I had to endure two women talking very explicitly about their last births. Ain't no stacked wall of manuals that can keep that out.

Re:I miss walls...

[Anonymous Coward]

This morning, I listened to the harpies shriek about Justin Beaver's arrest. They've been quiet for a while, but I don't expect it to last. SSDD. :(

Re:I miss walls...

[evilviper]

Cubeville is bad enough. I'm having to overhear folks politics the next row over right now (not my politics...).

Never mind politics... It's the guy 3 cubes down ALWAYS making personal calls for mundane crap, like getting his car's oil changed, getting his house cleaned, arguing with his wife about who's going to pick up the kids, etc.

Re:I miss walls...

[ebno-10db]

Hell, I'll beat that. I had to endure two women talking very explicitly about their last births. Ain't no stacked wall of manuals that can keep that out.

I assume you're a man (as I am), but I'll guess you don't have kids, or at least didn't see them born. After that, you wouldn't bat an eyelash at such stories, any more than you'd think much of (literally) handling shit when they're still in diapers.

Re:I miss walls...

[johnlcallaway]

Maybe if the people around you had a good work ethic and worked it wouldn't be so noisy.

Maybe you need to tell them to shut the fuck up and get back to work. Or suggest to their manager they need additional work.

The company I work for pays me to work, not discuss politics while in their building. If I have to discuss something with someone in person, we have these things called 'conference rooms' with doors that close and keep the noise in the room. We also have this think called a 'network' so I can pick up my laptop, go to a conference room, and still have everything on my screen. I try to limit my talk about what I did this weekend to when I'm in the break room or walking down the hallways.

I have a 'U' shaped cubicle that is probably 10x8 feet. The desk area has two standard filing cabinets and one long one. It also has two book shelves. All I really need is space for my two monitors, keyboard, laptop, mouse, phone, and a place for drinks. I haven't cracked a physical book in probably 5 years, both bookshelves are empty. I could probably get by easily with half that space.

Had an office a couple of times. Didn't really care. Don't notice much of a difference between the quality or quantity of work I did then and now, except I've gotten better over the years and work a bit faster/smarter. None of that had anything to do with being in an office.

Re:I miss walls...

[Ardyvee]

Have you tried asking them politely to tone it down a bit? Or maybe talk to your boss about why it is reducing your productivity?

Re:I miss walls...

[Anonymous Coward]

But does it make it right?

Re:I miss walls...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you tried asking them politely to tone it down a bit? Or maybe talk to your boss about why it is reducing your productivity?

They're female. That would be "creating a hostile work environment".

Re:I miss walls...

[penglust]

Actually I believe the republicans had the correct pace maker installed to get his heart set to the jack boot rhythm.

Re:I miss walls...

[cusco]

I work in a Security Operations Center, where pretty much everyone needs to hear what everyone else is up to in order to make sure that alarms and events are handled without duplication. There's no cell reception here (in the basement of a data center), so anyone having to make personal calls steps out of the SOC anyway. It's really the first and only time that I have ever seen an open floor plan that actually made sense. Helps that the entire team gets along really well.

Re:I miss walls...

[Gryle]

Defecation is just as natural (and more common) than childbirth but having a loud and explicit conversation about how big of a turd you just left in the men's room will probably get you reported to HR. Granted, I'm not likely to discuss such a thing but if I'm required to tailor my conversation to the sensitivities of other, they could show me the same courtesy and tailor their conversation to my sensitivities (within reason of course, I'm not talking about two people arguing over politics).

Re:I miss walls...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about transparent headphones that let some noise in but you can still listen to music or the works of Sir Francis Bacon on audio book, or even some calming waterfall sounds?

Or is your manager one dick of a person that wouldn't allow that?

Re:I miss walls...

[ebno-10db]

having a loud and explicit conversation about how big of a turd you just left in the men's room will probably get you reported to HR

Why? It's non-discriminatory. There's even a children's book called "Everybody Poops".

Re:I miss walls...

[Darinbob]

The cube across from me tends to be the big hangout; people stopping by all day long for discussions about work, sports, finances (endless talk about which stocks to bet on), and so forth. When no on else is there though the guy still talks to his monitor. He's nice enough but it's really hard to concentrate.

Re:I miss walls...

[ChrisMaple]

They're female. They are a hostile work environment.

Re:I miss walls...

[ebno-10db]

Maybe it doesn't make it right, but it does make you not care.

Re:I miss walls...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if the people around you had a good work ethic and worked it wouldn't be so noisy.

Maybe you need to tell them to shut the fuck up and get back to work. Or suggest to their manager they need additional work.

The company I work for pays me to work, not discuss politics while in their building.

This is why I don't feel bad about reading /. at work.

Only if naked ladies

[Anonymous Coward]

are in the office. Then I am all for that. Exspecifically naked parachuting ladies.

Re:Only if naked ladies

[Anonymous Coward]

are in the office. Then I am all for that. Exspecifically naked parachuting ladies.

I don't think your concave (due to wind compression) boobs fetish is terribly common.

Re:Only if naked ladies

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor would most of us want to see what happens then the chute opens.

it isn't always about money...

[Anonymous Coward]

open spaces mean management can keep better eye on the peons... can peek at desks and computer screens at will and with ease and make sure that people are productive and not slacking.

Re:it isn't always about money...

[amiga3D]

You know, if a boss has to peek at desks or screens to know if people are productive they've got a real problem. I can tell if people are productive by what gets accomplished. If someone is working his ass off and just spinning his wheels getting nothing real done then he might just as well be fucking off. Bosses like that are incompetent little martinets.

Re:it isn't always about money...

[jordanjay29]

Just because someone's work is up and action is happening on the computer, it doesn't mean they're being productive. Most work that requires critical thinking and creativity (which is most non-clerical work) can benefit from work breaks just as much as the work itself.

I like them for Dev Teams

[Kagato]

So long as you give people enough desk space and drawers to store stuff I think it works well for agile and paired programming. When it doesn't work is when some bean counter decides "Let's throw all the contractors into a meeting room". Things get cramped and stuffy. It also doesn't work when you have resource that take a lot of phone calls. They just end up disturbing everyone else.

Re:I like them for Dev Teams

[ZombieBraintrust]

It works well if they co-locate the buisness people with the programmers during initial development. It is wonderfull just being able to stand up and ask a question about the requirements. The stuffy meeting room occurs sometimes. It can be really depressing. We have given official names to all the confernce rooms. Most are named after planets and stars. We have a room whose official nickname is "shawshank". Also called "the closet". It is a tiny room with 1 door, 0 windows, and 10+ peolple in it. I think it was originally a room that stored filing cabenets.

Human capital

[ThePhilips]

To me the reasons for the open office space are partially explained by this Dilbert strip.

Re:Human capital

[Anonymous Coward]

The only real reason for the "open office" phenomenon is that it requires fewer square feet per employee. End of discussion. Everything else people say about it is just FUD. Building out office space is expensive, and especially in "low cost centers" (read: China, India, etc.) it's a dominant cost. Facilities planners love "open office" layouts for this and only this reason. Managers then make up productivity arguments to match.

Re:Human capital

[dkleinsc]

There's another reason too: The company is too cheap to buy offices or cubes for its employees.

And of course the real reason for cubicles is this: The company is too cheap to buy offices for its employees, except for the executives who make the decisions about what kind of office plan to have.

Re:Human capital

[ThePhilips]

It's plain greed, you dummy.

I've seen the cost sheets. It's not dominant cost by far. E.g. I work in relatively expensive location (which is the cheapest location within city bounds you can find) and the rent for a large floor in the office complex (good for ~120 pople) costs per year about the same as an average mid-manager. Yet company's management layers gets fatter and fatter every reorg - while they constantly try to "optimize" the office space usage.

The "office space is expensive" excuse doesn't work for most location very long time now. Literally all cities have special programs to attract blue collar workforce and offer very generous rates for mid- to large-sized companies. I know that for a fact about Germany (where I work) and China (where we previously had an office). Never seen any hard data about India, but I doubt it is much different there.

Re:Human capital

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about office space. There are energy costs, insurance considerations, local taxes, etc. Your footprint can impact environmental certifications and is very hard to cost justify space that has no direct benefit to the bottom line. Space utilization is something that is important to society for economic and environmental gain. The idea that a company should occupy more physical space just because it's cheap doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Re:Human capital

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey dick face. Use fast. http://dilbert.com/fast/2002-08-05/

I know OpenOffice was terrible but..

[Anonymous Coward]

The bureaucracy of the organization was blocking many necessary bug fixes. That is one of many reasons why OpenOffice was forked into LibreOffice.

Libre Office is better

[jfdavis668]

Oh wait, that's not what they are talking about.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I prefer Libre Office

[cyber-vandal]

Things really went downhill when Oracle took it over.

It's the other factors.

[Admodieus]

The problem with open office floor plans is that every other office accommodation is also affected, but in a negative way - at least at the companies I've seen or worked in. Conference rooms are downsized as well and are given uncomfortable chairs (such as bar tools). Quiet places or "phone booths" are moved to reservation systems. Kitchens, cafes, and cafeterias are no longer respites from work, but just another area to hold meetings. Any office implementing an open floor plan should also set aside traditional offices, cubicles, or booths that can be rented out, ad-hoc, when a serious conference call or task comes up that requires undivided attention. Moreover, these workspaces should be equipped with all of the necessary amenities (laptop dock, second monitor, etc.) so that workers can truly come and go at a whim. Having to pack up my desk and wander the halls for half an hour just so I can hear myself think over the lady having the daily conversation with her college-aged daughter or the guy slurping his coffee is not productive at all.

I like my own office, thanks

[TWiTfan]

Am I the only programmer in America who still has his own office (with four walls, and a door, and everything)? To me, the idea of working in a cubicle (or, god forbid, one of these weird open offices) sounds like a fucking nightmare. Shit, I hate it when the person in the office next to mine turns her goddamn music up too loud. I can't imagine working in an office where my co-workers were literally looking over my shoulder all day too.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[i.r.id10t]

Music? No problem... most of us here in our offices like music.

However, one lady has planned 3 weddings in the past 2 years, as well as various conferences and stuff that is barely job related.

And, I found out last week that her son is getting married, so we're going thru another wedding plan....

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[93 Escort Wagon]

Am I the only programmer in America who still has his own office (with four walls, and a door, and everything)? To me, the idea of working in a cubicle (or, god forbid, one of these weird open offices) sounds like a fucking nightmare. Shit, I hate it when the person in the office next to mine turns her goddamn music up too loud. I can't imagine working in an office where my co-workers were literally looking over my shoulder all day too.

You're not the only one - I am fortunate to have my own office at a university (staff, not faculty).

However lately - no joke - some of the faculty have been talking about wanting to replace everyone's walls with glass panels. They've even got a design person to work on plans. Yeah, that'll work out well...

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

It definately is a personality thing (and one can be accustomed to it), but I have really come to love the collaboration of an open office. I am more systems admin then coding, so that maybe one reason.

However, I have heard of people in my area worrying about others looking over their shoulder. The thing to remember is that most of the people don't care what your doing at any given point in time enough to want to watch your screen. And the ones that do will realize that it is noticeable when they try.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[CanHasDIY]

Music? No problem... most of us here in our offices like music.

But do you like all music?

Because, see, I've got this Anal Cunt* CD I've been wanting to bring in....

*Yes, it's a real band, and yes, they are absolutely terrible.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[ebno-10db]

Am I the only programmer in America who still has his own office

Probably. I had one back when I was a very junior engineer, and there was nothing unusual about it back then. I worked best that way. Nowadays it's very unusual.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[fisted]

I'm the lead singer, you insensitive cunt

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[CanHasDIY]

Nice try, but if you'd ever listened to them you'd know the term "singing" is definitely not in their vernacular.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[dkleinsc]

I actually have recently made the move from a position in cubicle-land to an actual office. It hadn't been used in a while, but I was overjoyed to clean it out and have an actual space I could call my own at work.

And it helps, a lot: If I need to be uninterrupted (e.g. on the phone with a vendor), I can close the door and know that I'll be left alone. If I need to have a private discussion with my boss, we can go in there and not have to worry much about being overheard. If I'm away from the office, it's locked and I know there's little chance of random people messing with my desk. And so forth.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[RabidReindeer]

Music? No problem... most of us here in our offices like music.

However, one lady has planned 3 weddings in the past 2 years, as well as various conferences and stuff that is barely job related.

And, I found out last week that her son is getting married, so we're going thru another wedding plan....

Sounds like she's in the wrong line of work!

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Pope]

Two words: Government Alpha.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[penglust]

Actually you may be the only one who has a issue with the music. At my job in San Diego a few years ago I came in one morning, put on the head phones, started playing Queen at high volume and started coding. A while later in the middle of "Fat Bottomed Girls" I realized I had not plugged the headphones into the little jack in the front of the PC speakers. When I did I immediately paused the music. The only complaint I heard was that I actually turned it off.

Surprised the hell out of me.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Seth Putnam is a stupid dead junkie. He was also a master of vulgar insensitivity. If he called someone an "insensitive cunt", he would have meant it as a high compliment.

And as a band, they were terrible, but they had the best song titles in the business. The band is really just all about the titles. No need to buy or listen to the music, the lyrics are unintelligible. For best value, look them up on Amazon and just read the titles.

You'll find gems like:
"I Snuck a Retard Into the Sperm Bank"
"Your Son Killed Himself Because You Suck" (about Eric Clapton's baby falling out a window)
"Hitler was a Sensitive Man"
"I Lit your Baby on Fire"
"Easy-E Got AIDS from Freddie Mercury"
And many more!

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[CanHasDIY]

When I was in college, I hung out with a group who would sit around a tiny, single room apartment on weeknights, watching "music videos" that mainly consisted of a half-dozen German guys in various leather outfits, using power tools to hack away at random objects in a scrapyard.

People say drugs are bad, but I say if not for the fact someone left a bottle of ether uncapped in the room, I probably wouldn't have been able to sit through the overture.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[ebno-10db]

You would have gotten a complaint from me right away (albeit politely at first). Music destroys my concentration. I know other people are different, so let them use headphones.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

debatable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[weilawei]

IOW, he'd fit right in with /. trolls.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Tugrik]

I still don't understand why Hasbro didn't leap on the opportunity to use AC's version of "Hungry Hungry Hippos" for use in commercials... :)

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[ChrisMaple]

I worked in an electronics lab where a lady technician played insipid easy-listening music all day long. I was so happy when I found a frequency modulated square wave could block the whole FM band.

Thinking for a living and music (even music I like) are not compatible.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubly nice try, the singer died in 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/seth-putnam-dies-aged-43

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Glass panels aren't too bad. Half the time it's frosted glass so you can't see anything, which I think is stupid. Frosted glass lets through some light, but no one dims the overhead lights so what's the point? The other half the time you get clear glass. If you don't like people being able to see in, put up posters, technical documents, or whatever. A covered class wall is almost the same as a normal wall.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm pretty sure this is clear glass since the designer was selling it as "side to side view across the building". But yeah, I figured I'd just put newspaper up first chance I got. When I'm in here my door is open anyway...

What's funny, though, is that I don't think faculty have come to realize this would mean people can see into *their* offices too.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[c_jonescc]

When NYU was designing their new soft matter center in the physics department the faculty wanted glass office walls on the perimeters of the labs for better communication/collaboration (and oversight).

The grad students and postdocs, fulfilling just what you'd expect form introvert scientists-in-training, responded by taping up posters on the glass under the pretext of "decoration" to gain some privacy.

Looked horrible in the end.

Re:I like my own office, thanks

[Macgrrl]

Australia has their own anarchist songsters called TISM, possibly their best known album was Great Trucking Songs of the Renaissance.

TISM's first concert was on 6 December 1983. The Get Fucked Concert at the Duncan McKinnon Athletics Reserve in the small suburb of Murrumbeena was considered a complete failure which caused the band to officially split up. They reformed in February 1984 and returned to their recordings. They consider every subsequent performance a "re-union gig".[1] By 1985 the band was playing regularly around Melbourne and soon released a 10-track demo composed of selections from their recordings followed by their debut single, "Defecate on My Face" (1986), a 7" vinyl record packaged in a 12" sleeve with all four sides glued shut.

Open Office Plan, Cheap Boss

[thevirtualcat]

The only place I've ever worked that had an "open office plan" was because the boss was a penny-pincher who had deemed cubicle walls to be an unnecessary expense. Our "desks" were mostly mismatched folding tables that he'd picked up from various places and all desks faced the wall so he could watch what you were doing. (Think "panopticon.")

Fortunately, I got out of there quick.

That's not to say *all* open office plans are a result of that, of course. But it has soured my opinion of the concept.

Re:Open Office Plan, Cheap Boss

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how I want to work
https://d2gpw04v015qcw.cloudfr...
Armpit to asshole with your cow-orkers

Re:Open Office Plan, Cheap Boss

[Grishnakh]

That looks like the typical workspace for programmers in NYC. I looked into getting a job there and found out that what you see in that photo is considered perfectly normal there.

Hearing loss

[jordanjay29]

I'm someone with a hearing loss (mildly hard of hearing, good enough for one-on-one conversation, adequate in group situations, bad in loud environments) and open office plans drive me crazy. My brain spends half the time trying to catch what people are saying, even as I'm consciously trying to block it out, and then I can't hear when someone actually needs to get my attention.

It's worse when the folks who are used to talking at a low volume, to their computer screens, and can still be heard by the other person then have to talk to me, and can't figure out why I can't understand what they're saying. If they had to physically get up and walk over to me, instead of just talking across the open office, it would be far easier to work with.

Re:Hearing loss

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you try to catch what people are saying (situation awareness) and try to not pay attention to it or get drawn into it.

One item that really drives me up a wall is the impromptu at desk discussion just behind me. Everyone is on the same team, and someone comes over and starts up a conversation. Sometimes my will power to stay out of the conversation lasts for an entire fifteen or twenty minutes. However, if they get lost in a detail that I happen to know, it takes a lot of willpower to not entangle one's self into the conversation.

Either way, you lose productivity. You're either working in a distracting environment, or joining the distraction.

Re:Hearing loss

[hodet]

I am in the same boat as you. Quiet environments are actually more essential to hard of hearing people.

Re:Hearing loss

[Brama]

My solution to this problem is to wear over-the-head headphones that block out outside noise, and put some constant noise on (ocean waves, brown noise, ..). It suppresses outside sounds really well.

I'd like to try those really expensive noise-cancelling headphones as well. They work amazingly well in the noisy stores that sell them.

Re:Hearing loss

[Darinbob]

Overhearing office conversations is just like the internet. You hear someone say something wrong and you can not resist the impulse to butt in and correct everyone...

Re:Hearing loss

[Anonymous Coward]

Overhearing office conversations is just like the internet. You hear someone say something wrong and you can not resist the impulse to butt in and correct everyone...

Correction: in offices, unlike on the internet, sometimes something actually gets DONE. :)

Re:Downton Abbey

[gstoddart]

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey. Make a reference to Doctor Who and I might get it, though.

Bah, it's also an oblique reference to Iron Man 3 -- try to pay attention next time, this will be on the final exam. ;-)

Choice

[ChodeMonkey]

Probably participation in an open office design should be optional so that all the extraverts can follow their desires and get together in one ginormous noisy collaborative hive and all the introverts can follow their desires and perform deep contemplative naval gazing in their alone-cave.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahahahahahahaha, good one

Re:Choice

[BonThomme]

followed quickly by, "hey, where'd all the extroverts go?"

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality, it would work better to take the preferences, then do the opposite. As someone else posted, extroverts become slightly more contemplative in seclusion and introverts become slightly more sociable in open environments.
Still, put a dozen introverts in a room, and the loudest sound you will hear is the clicking of the keyboards until something serious happens and assistance is right there. They'll probably rig up some sort of non-interruptive-assistance-request system, possibly involving LEDs or maybe automatic semaphores.
Split up a dozen extroverts in closed offices, and they will call/walk back and forth often, but still find themselves showing more independence in their decision making.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

participation in an open office design should be optional

And probably 1% would choose open office. Good idea for a Slashdot poll.

Re:Choice

[jordanjay29]

In reality, it would work better to take the preferences, then do the opposite.

Right, because that's how you foster positive employee morale.

Re:Choice

[BradMajors]

I once work at a company that had a crazy desk assignment scheme... the workers chose with whom they wanted to share an office.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

No no, thats called torture!

Dreadful Open Office

[Anonymous Coward]

The article title made me think that the documentary was on bad alternatives for Microsoft Office.

Misleading article

[Blake1024]

Be careful, open office can be confused with openoffice.org but has nothing to do with it. In fact, the article you refer to doesn't even use the term "open office".

Re:Downton Abbey

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey

Neither does the submitter, since there's no way Lord Grantham would talk that way about "commoners".

They're probably right

[Anonymous Coward]

You do get more collaboration, and people are more in tune with what everybody else is doing. The problem is that the additional cost is mostly in the form of stress, which is borne by the office workers. So yes, it has its ups and downs, but the downs are the workers' problem, the ups are the capitalists benefit.

The New Yorker: The Open-Office Trap

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/01/the-open-office-trap.html

Re:The New Yorker: The Open-Office Trap

[PPH]

TFA says the open office concept originated in Germany in the 1950's. Take a look at the interiors of Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building (1906). But in those days, office work was a lot like assembly line work. Not very creative.

Re:Downton Abbey

[jfdavis668]

I want a cubical that is bigger on the inside.

As long as the toilet stalls are not like these

[Anonymous Coward]

http://msn.foxsports.com/conte...

Re:As long as the toilet stalls are not like these

[Anonymous Coward]

Gay building contractor in Sochi gets his revenge.

No privacy = lost possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

It means the teams get sick together, you can't have any personal calls if you need to make them (within reason), and conference rooms are needlessly booked up for what could have been handled in a cube. If you want an employee to always be looking elsewhere take away their emotional attachment to where they work. If you need to have teams that collaborate, but don't require constant communication give them plenty of open spaces, but give them their privacy when they need it. Happy employees are more productive and come up with ways to make your company more money for less overhead. Too much efficiency ruins long term effectiveness, just look at IBM. Focused too much on saving money and cutting waste and it's basically gutted their company. Same thing with Microsoft. Short term gain, long term pain. I can say I have personally saved the company multiple times my yearly salary because I was given time and space to play when I needed to. I think the actual thinking is rote tasks are okay for this type of set up, but creative/thinking tasks require space to breathe.

Re:Downton Abbey

[BonThomme]

ok, maybe they sound like the Cybermen.

The movie

[gurps_npc]

We have an 'open' office space. There is a scene in the movie where the hero finally gets fed up with his cubicle's stupidity and disassembles his cubicle wall. You see the bosses situated the hero's cubicle next to a window but with the cube wall BLOCKING the window. I used to have a nice cubicle with a great window behind me so I could look outside. But they recently moved me to a worse cubicle. But I can't really complain. The guy behind me has a cubicle next to the window. Guess how they put his cubicle.... No, it is not load bearing - he has three walls around him, one blocking a window for no reason except the total stupidity and bureaucratic rules. If I were him I would go to our boss and tell them "Look, I like my job, and I hope you like my work. But I need to know: 1) Is this a joke? Because it's in bad taste. 2) Am I being punished? If so, what can I do to fix the situation. 3) Did no one comment on the situation before I did? Am I really the first person to notice this? 4) Is there any possibility of taking down that temporary wall in the next oh say, week? I don't know whether to feel sorry for him or laugh.

Re:The movie

[cusco]

Best cubicle that I've ever had was back in 1998, on the 4th floor overlooking the canal that bordered the Mercer Slough Nature Preserve. It was at a non-profit, where management tends to be generally smarter and less rigid. Saw osprey, eagles, beavers, herons, and thousands of waterfowl. It was wonderful. I still miss that window.

Re:The movie

[Admiral_Grinder]

The last cube I had with a window became a oven in the afternoon as the sun shined in...during the winter. I would walk to the corner store a half mile away for a snack because I couldn't focus. It also didn't help that the sun would wash out my monitor as well.

retarded managers

[JustNiz]

>> it's all driven by bottom line economics--crowding more people into smaller spaces saves money. ...and massively decreases productivity. Its amazing how most managers can never see the obvious unless it has a directly quantifiable $ value.

Office ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a look at some nice modern office layouts for more relaxed and creative offices.

Re:Office ideas

[PPH]

Cool. But that 'artsy' feeling wears off after a while. There's only so many times I can look at the decor (even the Mona Lisa) before it starts to get old. Put people in the Cistene Chapel and they'll be trying to stick pencils in the ceiling inside of a couple of months.

The best office art I've ever seen is the kind that changes frequently. Let people bring in their own pictures or knick knacks. I'll bet that management would have a fit if employees started messing around with the expensive, professionally designed interiors.

OTOH, that 'wall of books' look in the photos. I've had cubicles that looked like that. But it was our project documentation.

No

[MikeRT]

Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the nobility in Downton Abbey?"

Lord Grantham (Robert) and his family regretted having to change with the times to become more efficiency-focused in their dealings with their renters and workers. These people are gleeful by comparison.

Best office layout ...

[PPH]

... individual offices with glass wall, a door (sliding glass would be nice) and blinds. Each worker can open close door and/or blinds to suit their current working requirements.

I've also found in my travels between individual offices and open bays of a few acres in size: The people that seem to love to continuous shoulder to shoulder contact with fellow workers are social creatures. They tend to come to work to make friends (no social life outside) rather than be productive. And they get upset if some people don't participate in their sports pools or go out drinking with them at lunch time. Closed offices drive them nuts. They either quit or start bothering people with closed doors and get canned. Either way, good for the company.

Semi Open

[Grizzley9]

Why not both? I prefer the semi-open office plan where you have multiple cubicles in a group where 4 people share the square space and their cubicles have only two walls. Basically a large 4 person cubicle. It promotes communication between the people there but can be private and quiet enough so that you can focus and get things done.

Re:Semi Open

[jordanjay29]

2 walls aren't much different than 3, and they're no more soundproof.

Re:Semi Open

[chrismcb]

So... the worst of both worlds then?

Hate Open Office

[ToasterTester]

The last place I worked had open office plan and I hated it. Noisy, no sense of my area to feel comforatable in. Just rows of tables not eveb desks. The owner and managers were a big part of making it feel so uptight, they discouraaged conversation, that SCRUM or meetings were time to exchange ideas. Development and SysAdmin involves sharing of problems, solutions, and communication is the key.

I like having cubes and co-workers would come by to disuss work, or there would be group talks outside of the cubes. What would appear to some as people just hanging out was a very creative enviromnet.

What I could see working is a mixed open area and then cubes for people that want to get away to think. Options are good.

I work in an open office

[Peter Simpson]

It's not bad, as long as you can manage to claim a spot on the periphery (as I have). If I had to work in the middle of the floor, I think I'd have a problem. I've done this, but as soon as I was offered an opportunity to move, I chose a place out of the mainstream. I'm an electrical engineer, I do circuit, firmware and programmable logic design. When I'm head-down, the office plan makes no difference at all. When I'm less busy, it's not really any more distracting than a cube farm. I am glad, however, for the carpeted floor and acoustic tile ceiling. Downstairs, it's a bare metal high-bay type ceiling and the noise reflected off it is so bad I couldn't stand it (I spent a short time desk-hopping as an experiment).

What's best for the employees?

[quietwalker]

I've worked with an industrial psychologist for quite a while now - they focus on things like pre-employment screening, improving employee efficiency, hiring (both from the company and candidate viewpoints) and so on.

One of the things they'll point out is that not every employee has the same motivations or same 'best' work environment. You're going to get some that thrive in an open environment, and others that don't. You'll get some that spend more time chatting, and others that use collaboration to become more productive. Unfortunately, there's no silver bullet to say which is best, and office layout is only a small part of that anyway.

However, you can do an employee survey (by which I mean an actual scientific survey with statistical analysis, not just a slopped together 'do you want open seating yes/no' form), and determine which environments work best for your best workers and average workers. This gives you the information you need to make a good decision. For example:

- Does it make sense to change the environment to make the average workers more efficient?
- Alternatively, should you change the environment to make your star workers most efficient and expect that the environment will help turn your average workers into stars (and weed out the underperformers)?
- Are your tasks inherently better suited to solo efforts or team efforts?
- Are your employees good communicators?

Of course, most of this is moot.

There are only a few cases where an immediate manager has the ability to radically restructure the work environment - those decisions are made higher up. At the same time, those higher up are making decisions primarily on immediate financial costs - so cubes and open offices are much more cost effective.

Personally, I'd rather have a small office with complete control of the light and temp, and don't have a chance that someone's looking over my shoulder.

Team rooms

[Kjella]

I'm in an office and honestly, I'm not sure it's very productive (particularly not right now, heh). At a former employer we were five people in a fairly large room - IT&Ops. At yet another employer I know at least one sprint team that was placed in their own corner of the open office because they chatted so much with each other, they were annoying everyone else but they were very effective. I'm really not an extrovert and yet the office is lonely. Unless someone explictly tells me, I don't gleam into what anyone else is doing. I can never hear two people discuss and put in a "I have a solution for that" or "No, don't do it that way". And you are really starved for social interaction, I guess you could hover at the coffee machine or water cooler or use Lync but exchanging a little banter is so much more natural.

However, make sure there's enough quiet rooms for people to go to - particular one man rooms for people on the phone or something as it 's often off-topic and loud. Or as a big "Do Not Disturb" sign. Or to just grab when two or three people need to discuss something on a whiteboard. Those that are extremely tight fisted with space and only look at rent per square meter is missing the point, it's like skimping on office supplies which are ultimately petty change when you spend five minutes chasing down a paperclip. Meaningful communication is extremely valuable to the company, noise is just annoying. The point is to get the signal-to-noise ratio up, neither blasting everyone with everything nor to cut it off entirely.

Re:Team rooms

[sjames]

You just need to develop a few conventions to make conversations happen when needed. Lunch in a common area, semi-official breaks in an open area with comfortable seating, etc.

AKA:

[Anonymous Coward]

Veal pens

The shrinking cubicle wall, from cube farm to open

[netsavior]

I worked for a big corporate overlord for a long time, and for some reason every 3 years or so our cubicle walls got shorter. They started out at 6 feet high, which was great and quiet and semi-private. They got short enough so if you sat up straight and leaned forward, you could barely peak over... which was a little distracting.
The breaking point was when they got lower than the average person's stupid mouth. Then EVERY phone call was basically broadcast across the entire warehouse of an office complex. Seriously, god help you if you are within shouting distance of sales, because you are never ever ever going to get any work done.

As a final insult they shrunk our desks from U shape to L shape, then lowered the cube walls to desk height... so if something rolled off your desk, it could roll down the hall too. It was insanely stupid...

Eventually they just sent all the tech people to work from home... since they had sabotaged our work so much at the office, we might as well take the initial hit on telecommute.
I am all for ruining the office so badly that we no longer regard meat based presence as mandatory, but I wish it could happen faster, rather than the phased "lets ruin everything every 3 years" approach.

Worst idea ever

[Bearded Frog]

I work in an office that is extremely poorly designed as an open office. There are still two cubes for mid level managers, and offices along the wall for the high level managers. The rest is all a mix of half height cube walls or no walls at all. There's an "island" counter near our area where people tend to put snacks and treats. It is IMPOSSIBLE to concentrate or get any work done 90% of the time. It drives me insane, and after 5 years I am to the point of telling management I am going to leave if at least our area (IT) is not changed soon. People are constantly talking/shouting nonsense and completely non work related shit across the entire office. Technically, this is still possible with cube walls as its not like they have any sound deadening but this atmosphere completely encourages people to talk to their neighbors and even their neighbor's neighbors. People don't even use phones a lot of the time and just yell across the office. The worst part is our area, with the island of snacks makes people show up like it's a water cooler and have little inter-office meetings and cell conversations there (again rarely work related). They also try to prod me and my co-worker into conversations with them from the island. I am a Network Administrator and my co-worker who is a programmer are distracted the majority of the day by these drive by visits and shouts across the office (whether involving us or not). When you're trying to solve a critical server issue, multi-task multiple issues, or just concentrate on reading tech whitepapers it is impossible most of the time to effectively do it in this environment. I can't even imagine how bad it is for him as well being that writing code rarely goes well with constant interruptions. This type of environment on paper might look good for "communication," but in reality it just breeds the wrong kind of communication. People are not getting their work done effectively because they are distracted which leads to them joining in on the distraction. If I had my own office or we had a normal cube setup around here, our IT team alone would be like 400% more efficient and effective. Don't get me wrong I am not against taking breaks and the occasional distraction can be helpful, it's the constant nature of it in this office; and the way that it affects everyone at the same time that is an issue.

Open office = grade school mentality

[Akratist]

I have worked in nothing but open office environments over the years, and I hate them. I know all the usual BS arguments for them, such as "fostering collaboration" and other buzzword crap, but if that works so well, why does everyone grab a meeting room in order to work on something? Instead of having a quiet space to focus on a problem, I get to hear my coworkers going on about how they're sick, the sports game I don't care about, and a hundred other things that I have no interest in, none of which are conducive to a good programming environment. Wherever I'm at, I'll find the "quiet corner" of the building I can go work in, be it a lab, or an unused conference room, or some other place that the voices of meaningless don't penetrate.

Re:Open Plan currently suffering this situation

[ebno-10db]

goyims

The correct plural is goyim; the singular is goy. If you're going to use Yiddish, at least be a mensch and do it right.

Re:Downton Abbey

[AthanasiusKircher]

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey

Neither does the submitter, since there's no way Lord Grantham would talk that way about "commoners".

Oh, I don't know. The aristocratic class on Downton Abbey often seem to express confusion when those "below them" even talk about concepts of concern to the ordinary worker. Witness, for example, Dame Maggie Smith (the Dowage Countess) completely befuddled when someone talks about having time off from work on the weekend to attend to other things in his life: "What is a week-end?"

I think there are plenty of workers in office environments who also believe that their bosses have no concept of what a "weekend" is supposed to be.

Don't generalize; not all open offices are bad

[harvestsun]

Example of a bad open office: "Let's make the cubicles smaller and shorten the walls!" (seen at Intel)
Example of a good open office: "Let's put everyone on this small team in the same walled-off space" (seen at a lot of local startups)

Re:Don't generalize; not all open offices are bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel is just strange. I was amused and perplexed at the same time when I visited Intel and saw that every 5 feet or so there seemed to be a poster telling people it's wrong to lean back against the wall with one knee bent so that your foot is on the wall. I am not joking. This was apparently the biggest problem plaguing mankind.

Re:Don't generalize; not all open offices are bad

[Grishnakh]

Example of a bad open office: "Let's make the cubicles smaller and shorten the walls!" (seen at Intel)

Holy shit, did they really do that there? Company-wide? I worked there up until 2007, and they had nice-size cubicles with pretty tall walls during my tenure, though in some places they were moving to compressed cubicles (but still with tall walls).

Re:Don't generalize; not all open offices are bad

[harvestsun]

No, not company-wide; it was just an experimental thing in a few places. They also experimented with the concept of "mobile workstations", where you don't HAVE an office, you just find a different desk to use every day. Which is nice for people who travel a lot and don't have stuff they actually need to STORE in an office. And strongly disliked by most everyone else.

We already know the answer to these questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

There have already been extensive studies done on this subject. The studies concluded that companies can expect a 33% gain in productivity by moving engineers into individual offices.

But corporations are loathe to do this for various reasons, cost and vanity included. Although there are a few exceptions.

Re:We already know the answer to these questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they do. In my organization, this would be the follow up:

"How does that lowly IT person who is a grade lower than me getting an office? I need an office now."

It would seriously spiral out of control. People think they're entitled to what others have, and should have NICER offices as they move up. It makes me a little sick to think that the real world works just like high school.

Illuminate Education

[Anonymous Coward]

At my work we have a mostly open office area, with several openly available office rooms around the main work area. Most of us work out in the open, no cubicles. We have developers, customer support, etc all in an open area. We do tend to collect, of course, with developers typically sitting around one or two large tables (depending on how many of us are in the office that day, or working from home) while the customer support people are on the other side of the office (where the phones are...).

We have a stand up office room.

We have a room with some couches.

Etc.

You work where you feel you need to. If a developer is intensely into something, he might go into an office and close the door.

Collaboration is easy, and we encourage open and frequent communication between all the groups in the company.

Recently the owner/CEO/whatever declared he doesnt think we should even have titles per se, although clearly some of us are "developers" or "data support" or "customer support" etc. He's eschewed his own title and his private office, and now uses it only for meetings when needed.

We have a flat organization, there are no bosses and no hierarchy. There's no bureaucracy. No politics. At least thats the goal. Of course we're human and sometimes stupid human things get in the way.

It works extremely well. It is assumed that every employee is of equal value and is intelligent and motivated to do his/her job without needing to be managed. We're all treated like family, and as if we are permanent members of the team.

No, we're not a bunch of hipster, holier-than-thou types either.

Completely different than any other company I've ever worked at.

Re:Downton Abbey

[mjwalshe]

Yes they upstairs lot in Downtown Abby are old school patrician one nation torys' - the ones that push open plan working are the doggy barrow boy tendency that infested the Tory party after Maggie came to power.

I got more done on the bus to from work

[presidenteloco]

I had a programming job in a startup where not only was it open plan but the sales team was in the same space (so you could hear in real time the lies about the product you hadn't finished building yet, and the laughter, oh god the vacuous fake forced jocular hilarity!!!! shudder) , and also, the CEO would come to ask a question about 5 times a day, and would redirect the each programmer's work at least twice a day. Hint ADHD and programming are not a productive mix.

Needless to say, I was more productive hacking in 30 minute blocks in the back seat of the crowded bus on the way to and from work. It's too bad for the company that that hacking was for my own different product. We were underpaid and no equity so there was no way I was going to hack on the bus for the company.

Bad scene altogether. Happens when anti-programmers try to lead programmers.

Re:I got more done on the bus to from work

[weilawei]

I've been in that boat before. You do bring up something odd though: I find that open plan offices drive me crazy (my favorite thus far has been pair programming with another person in our own shared office, just the two of us), but I also notice that I can work productively in a coffee shop (usually with headphones). For some reason, that doesn't translate into an open office...

remember this one?

[terryk29]

"He didn't fit in."

Re:remember this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only people with shit for brains don't use Fast. http://dilbert.com/fast/1996-02-14/

Re:Downton Abbey

[zerosomething]

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey. Make a reference to Doctor Who and I might get it, though.

The Open Office building is actually smaller on the inside.

8 year open office veteran here...

[flanders123]

I've worked in an open office environment with about 250ish people for 8 years. I am a software developer / architect for our business systems. The office is shared with all departments from finance to IT to HR to Sales.... Here are my thoughts:

• I generally am okay with the environment. I do feel it fosters better communication. I know everyone in the office, mostly by passers by stopping and saying hi. I do like this aspect if I'm not in the middle of something. I can see how this would slowly kill very introverted people.
• When I really need to focus on a difficult problem and come up with a creative solution, I dislike this environment due to the distractions. I usually work from home when I need to do these tasks.
• I work in the US. My company is HQ'd in Denmark, presumably where this idea came from as the HQ office is also open. After working in both places one thing is clear: We Americans are f*cking loud. Loud on the phone. Loud when conversing with people 50 feet away. Loud. The open environment may not be for us.
• Execs still get offices with glass walls and doors. Conference rooms and even phone booths are very scarce. I often have to take private calls in my car, which is pretty ridiculous.
• The HQ office does have more common areas for collaboration and private rooms for isolation. I think this setup is ideal. You cant simply be 100% open due to the need for both individual focused productivity as well as collaboration.
• My desk has foot traffic around it on all sides. I have a standing desk. Needless to say I use a privacy guard on my monitors. Not surprisingly everyone wants the desks where your back is against a wall.
• I use headphones when necessary. My coworker coined this "going under the knife", as people seem less inclined to interrupt. I often fake being on a phone call (with a headset) for the same effect. Hey it works.

Re:8 year open office veteran here...

[jordanjay29]

I'm curious how much of your day you'd say you spend shutting out distractions, faking being on a phone call and so forth?

Re:8 year open office veteran here...

[Grishnakh]

I use headphones when necessary. My coworker coined this "going under the knife", as people seem less inclined to interrupt.

I worked at a company with an open office environment (mostly; each work group had its own section with cubicle walls separating them, but there were no real walls between the team members in each group), and I tried using headphones, but people interrupted me at least as much as when I wasn't wearing them.

Anecdotal Experience

[FellowConspirator]

The company I work for has been migrating to the open-office concept over the past year or so, first with a new building, and then by doing floor-by-floor conversions of existing buildings on the campus. Some of the people are being migrated from offices to desks, some from cubicles to desks. Almost everyone has been very good about going along with the plan and giving it a shot. The results are a mixed bag, overall, but as time goes on, it's proving to be more a liability than an improvement.

Pros:
Everyone gets new furniture, and the worse shape their old furniture was in, the better the first impression.
The lighting is MUCH better - even in areas that don't have direct sunlight; the large number of smaller light sources on the ceiling with little obstruction works well.
There's more people in the same area
- makes more efficient use of space
- don't have to walk as far to get to someone

Cons:
There's more people are in the same area
- in the older buildings, this means that the number of toilets is no longer proportional to the demand
- its noisy; sometimes a little, sometimes a lot
- people sneeze and it hits their neighbors
- you can't make a phone call without annoying everyone, so now nobody uses the phone unless in a conference room; phone communication in general has dropped precipitously and now takes a back-seat to e-mail
- folks are increasingly annoyed with their neighbors and it increases stress and some talk less
There's visual distraction (things always coming in and out of your field of view)
The clever storage ideas don't make up for the overall lack of storage volume or shelf space
You can't have a conversation without annoying everyone, so you have to spend time hunting for a "huddle room" or chat in a stairwell or utility closet
Older employees (>40) especially have a hard time with the din (and the white-noise generators don't help).
It's super difficult to work on certain types of things - anything that has personnel info, or HIPPA protected info that you're not supposed to let your neighbors
Anything that really takes focus (reading a complex scientific paper, for example), is really out of the question
Lots of people try and drown out the din with headphones (which produces noises that annoy those without), and effectively the employees are being trained to tune each other out
There's lots of "unplanned interactions"

I think everyone agrees that we: are less productive, are not collaborating any more than before, and are collaborating less with the outside. HR is already noticing that people are using more sick days. However, I presume that the loss in productivity and decreasing office morale are offset by gains in energy and space efficiency (lower cost facilities).

For me, it means that my work space has shrunk by 50% and I no longer have shelf space that I used to put reference materials and manuals on (all that's not sitting in boxes in my attic). I also just walk away from my desk when the din gets to a certain level where I can't concentrate on what I'm supposed to be working on. If you call my phone extension, it automatically forwards you to a voicemail instructing the caller to e-mail me (there's not even a phone at my new desk, none of have them). I don't read papers in the office anymore, and sometimes take what the office calls "productivity days" where I work from home (no, they don't give anyone money for home office stuff or to pay for Internet service). All of our experienced job candidates that have rejected offers have cited the open-office plan as a contributing factor in their decision not to accept the offer (we lead in compensation, so it's not like they wouldn't be well compensated).

Re:Anecdotal Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

> You can't have a conversation without annoying everyone, so you have to spend time hunting for a "huddle room" or chat in a stairwell or utility closet

Pffft. You guys should take a page from our "corporate culture" and just talk loudly whenever you feel like. Why hide? That's what the open floor plan is for - to foster collaboration.

(Yes, I'm being sarcastic. Yes, it's called the Charles Dickens Floor Plan for a reason. Or the Franz Kafka Floor Plan, depending.)

Re:Anecdotal Experience

[subreality]

you can't make a phone call without annoying everyone, so now nobody uses the phone unless in a conference room; phone communication in general has dropped precipitously and now takes a back-seat to e-mail

How is that a con?

Scrum?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been called a scrum-bag before!

Re:Scrum?!?

[jordanjay29]

Scrum

Company I worked at in the 90s did this

[mrflash818]

I worked for a Japanese company in the 90s.

The white-collar workers all worked in a single large room. Desks all facing the top-level boss, and the bosses desk faced them, almost like an American elementary school classroom.

We mostly worked like we were in a library: quietly.

Zero privacy.

It did seem to keep people from being chatty or goofing off in the office, if I remember correctly.

Re:Company I worked at in the 90s did this

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear , have you watched "Brazil" ....

I telecommute 4 days out of 5 currently

[mrflash818]

I telecommute 4 days out of 5 currently.

So now, my dept only meets in person on Mondays.

For my current job, an open office floor plan would be terrible, as the jobs of our dept requires lots of phone use, and I would find the constant voices of others destracting as I tried to concentrate on my work.

OpenOffice is dreadful?

[rossdee]

I wouldn't say that, even though I have switched to LibreOffice, thats more because I don't trust Oracle...

Depends on the kind of work you're doing...

[erp_consultant]

If I'm doing programming I prefer to be in an office with a door that I can close if I need to concentrate. If I find myself in a cube then I'll just use headphones for such occasions. Like when an impromptu meeting starts right beside your desk while you're trying to work on something that requires focus.

If I'm doing management tasks I also prefer an office to a cube. Why? It gives me a place that I can conduct confidential conversations. Also, your computer screen is more visible in a cube than an office and it might be showing something that not everyone is supposed to see.

Sadly, to many an office is just seen as another management perk. Like the reserved parking spot and the conferences. It's the same reason that "the bosses" tend to get the best computers and the biggest screens. Not because they need them to do their jobs more effectively but because they are "the boss" and they control the budget that pays for that stuff. And the best chairs. Despite the fact that they spend most of the day sitting in other chairs - at various meetings - leaving their expensive office chair unused for most of the day while the staff sit all day on a chair with the comfort equivalent of an orange crate.

It's the "tax man" mentality (that's one for you, nineteen for me). Many of the management people I have worked with see this kind of entitlement behavior as a reward for their hard work. They deserve a better chair than you because they worked hard to get to where they are. Ego, in other words.

Re:Downton Abbey

[RabidReindeer]

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey

Neither does the submitter, since there's no way Lord Grantham would talk that way about "commoners".

Oh, I don't know. The aristocratic class on Downton Abbey often seem to express confusion when those "below them" even talk about concepts of concern to the ordinary worker. Witness, for example, Dame Maggie Smith (the Dowage Countess) completely befuddled when someone talks about having time off from work on the weekend to attend to other things in his life: "What is a week-end?"

I think there are plenty of workers in office environments who also believe that their bosses have no concept of what a "weekend" is supposed to be.

Or, as one former employer liked to call it: "72-hour Friday".

We are still monkeys.

[EmperorOfCanada]

The key is that we are all a bunch of monkeys. In an open area with lots of other monkeys we will play our monkey games such as watching for predators, seeing who is grooming whom, etc. This is all very distracting. So we try to raise the walls of the cubicles higher which helps a bit. The best open concept that I have been in were when small teams(5-7) were grouped in large walled offices. The worst was in a long office that was open all the way down to a dead end with the bosses all having the best window offices. So you had not too many places with a view but people walking by you all day. It sucked. Headphones didn't change people moving in the corner of your eye.

In cubeville I have noticed that many workers hunch right over their desks with headphones on trying to shut out the useless distractions around. The best is when the bosses themselves walk around being the distraction (because they are lonely in their offices) and then ban headphones because it makes it harder for them to interrupt their drones.

wanted: standing desk!

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

My kingdom for a standing-capable desk!

Re:wanted: standing desk!

[Cryacin]

One standing desk for one house. Done.

Re:wanted: standing desk!

[The_Noid]

You mean one basement... With his mother still living upstairs.

I'd pass, I find my electronically-height-adjustable desk much more valuable ;)

Re:wanted: standing desk!

[Zynder]

Whaaaaa? You actually LIKE standing desks? Are you a coder? How can you possibly type for hours on end while standing? If my fat ass stands for more than 15 mins, my arches let me feel their wrath. There is no way I could do anything on a standing desk and I don't have to code. Filling out a spreadsheet of like 10 values is annoying as hell for me while standing, let alone my actual job that requires plenty of soldering. YMMV but I have no motor skills.

Re:wanted: standing desk!

[ThatsDrDangerToYou]

Yes, a coder here. I don't want to stand all the time, but being able to stand and work for 15 or 20 minutes every now and then. No soldering for me--I did one soldering job in my last job and it was glorious--but anyway, my ass gets tired from sitting.

Actually, I can get it made with a beer tap, right? Because, productivity!

Not Downton Abbey

[DaveAtFraud]

Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the nobility in Downton Abbey?

No, the nobility in Downton Abbey seem to genuinely care about their help. I think some of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn books more sucinctly capture how management views and treats employees.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Downton Abbey

[penglust]

I just want the Tardis.

Wearing headphones = ugh

[sjbe]

Decent headphones make open plan offices bearable.

Unless you hate wearing headphones and find music/talk distracting. Personally having to wear headphones all day would drive me insane in short order. I like a relatively quiet office with minimal visual or auditory distractions when I'm trying to get serious work done.

Re:Wearing headphones = ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Noise Canceling Headphones on, with nothing playing is Bliss.

Re:Wearing headphones = ugh

[toddestan]

For me it would be the same problem, I don't like people being able to sneak up on me, and most every cube puts your back to the hallway.

Dreadful Open Office

[Culture20]

This show has been brought to you by Microsoft, makers of Microsoft Office.

The Savings is Debatable

[damn_registrars]

When you take down walls, you also lose storage space. This is important more often than you might think. You also lose privacy; while it may seem like reducing privacy could be good for keeping peoples' noses clean, it can make for a generally uncomfortable environment for occasional important necessities like calling your doctor to schedule an appointment.

Why not either or

[rbubb2]

Could it be that difficult to provide choices for one's preference to allow respective offices/cubes or the open office spaces?

It's not you

[whitroth]

They *do* think they're the new nobility.

Back in '87-'88, I worked in what's now called an open plan office. Five of us in one room, no dividers at all - desk, desk, desk on one side, and desk, desk on the other. Two of the people were on the phone at *least* 40% of the time to in-house people. After listening to some training tapes one week, I brought in music for my player (and I had to bring my own player). A day or so later, my manager, the VP, asked me if I was done the tapes. I told him I was, but that I had music, so I could concentrate better and improve my productivity.

He told me to take off the headphones and improve my productivity.

He had an office with a door he could shut, with real walls, not like my manager now, where the walls stop about 8" under the ceiling....

First thing they told us, when I first went to college, in an orientation, was to study, or do homework, etc, to ->find a quiet place where you wouldn't be distracted-

Open office is a lot cheaper. Managers can show that they've lowered costs, and so increased ROI, and so they should get more money....

And if you *really* think you do better work in an open office plan, then I predict that you also tend to work 50 and 60 hour weeks and up, and think this is "normal".

                      mark "I was never that young and stupid"

Open Office vs. Microsoft Office

[Tablizer]

If you don't like it, try Microsoft Office. It's great as long as Microsoft Bob's dog doesn't drag the fire from the fire-place onto the desk again.

For what it's worth...

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, given the proper environment, cubes aren't as restricting as a lot of people feel them to be.

Where I work we're set up with 10x10 cubes with the 'doors' facing an aisle with more cubes across it, and the walls are just short enough that an average-sized dude can stand on his toes and rest his chin on the edge. We don't have an oppressive 'no talking, sub-human' atmosphere, so neighbors can chat if they want, cubes come with a second chair for visitors, you're not totally walled off, and the desks can be arranged to face however you want if seeing the hall is distracting. If you need to knuckle down and get some stuff done with zero interruptions, it's easy enough to just put on some headphones or look like you're concentrating, then people leave you alone unless it's important.

Of course all this kind of depends on how your managers and coworkers behave. If your manager regards any social interaction no matter how small as the death of all productivity, or you're next door to somebody who just can't shut up then it'll be a problem.

The CBC isn't like PBS

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucking giant retard.

Re:Downton Abbey

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the nobility in Downton Abbey?"

It's just you, since I don't watch Downton Abbey. Make a reference to Doctor Who and I might get it, though.

Let me try:

Is it just me or do the people who want you to work in open offices sound like the Daleks in Dr. Who ?"

Actually, after reading this, that's probably the better analogy anyway.

Dilbert reference

[walterbyrd]

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/100000/20000/3000/800/123838/123838.strip.print.gif

Re:Downton Abbey

[Darinbob]

I describe Downon Abbey nobility in terms of office metaphors.

cubicle farm anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is old is new again.

Why not just herd them into camps

[gestalt_n_pepper]

It's clearly the direction we're going. Herd the lumpenproletariat into open spaces so they can be survielled and managed more efficiently.

works if you do it right

[r2kordmaa]

Depends on how you do the open office, I work in one and I'd say it works great. But the ones I saw in trailer, urg, no thank you. The operative word in "open office" is "open", not cluttered with crap that everyone leaves lying around, or stuffed so tightly nobody has a decent amount of deskspace or even room to move. Sure it can be a pain in the backside when you are concentrated on some task and get interrupted, but well, you are hardly the only one with an important task are you, whatever you are interrupted with is probably quite important for someone too. And well, if you are doing something you really dont want to get interrupted on, headphones send a pretty clear message.

Open office can work just fine, maybe better in many cases when you have many people working on same project. But do it right, make it comfortable, not just the coffee room but actual work area, enough deskspace, enough room to move etc. And if someone insists on cluttering work are with some crap, enforce some cleanliness, if you havent needed something for a month, it probably shouldnt be on your desk. For many people, computer is really only thing you need on your desk, maybe some temporary note papers, but not piles of crap. Clean up and you'll feel better working in an area with some air in it.

Re:The shrinking cubicle wall, from cube farm to o

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they know how to boil a frog.

PBS -- CBC -- BBC

[ansak]

The CBC is almost like PBS without the begging. That's because (a) it gets a certain amount of money from government and (b) it actually runs commercials.

Its funding base was never as secure as that of the BBC (which used to be entirely funded from Television licenses) but once upon a time Canada used to practice "Universality" (not socialism, just good-neighbourliness) and living in a town in the 60s where the only available media was CBC (the then-equivalent of Radio 1 and CBC TV), we were thankful that their funding was stable and that they weren't an outright organ of any government.

As I said, it used to get a lot more money from the government than it does now, but thanks to Reagan-Thatcher-Murdoch and their local toad-in-Canada (Brian Mulroney) these moneys have shrunk, not quite to insignificance but substantially. Our current RTM-toad, Stephen Harper, has been cutting this cash still further -- along with his near Koch-like commitment to small government, this is also thought to be in revenge for the voice the CBC gave to folks from Ontario who were scared of him. (as his behaviour in office shows that they were right to be)

But other than a tendency to idolize Barbara Frum (skewer question) and Peter Gzowski (friendly to the point of deferential) too much, it still produces stuff like this.

Peace, Order and Good Governance forever! ...ank

The Open-Office Trap (The New Yorker)

[Josuah]

The New Yorker published an article named The Open-Office Trap a couple weeks ago about open offices as well, and included research data that showed open offices are a net negative to productivity. Feeling good about doing something didn't actually make that thing good. :)

panem et circenses

[lmcgeoch]

I would like my bread and circus office space please with a window view....

Architecture isn't magic.

[hey!]

If you want the office plan to encourage people to work together, you have to provide those with shared spaces that attract them. It's not like you can collaborate with someone effectively over a divider or squeeze a ten person team into a 10x10 cubicle for a working meeting.

Buy your Research here!!!!!

[tompaulco]

Looking for justification for your latest cost cutting, employee inconveniencing measure? Just subscribe to Management Weekly, where we take the latest trends in cost cutting and spin them positively so that they look like they are good for morale and productivity, while in fact they are demoralizing, dehumanizing and even your lowest paid, least educated employee will see right through the ruse. Of course, like any good manager, you consider all of your employees to be dumber than rocks, and you figure that the fact they don't immediately quit is proof positive that you have once again successfully pulled the wool over their eyes.
Here are some highlights from upcoming issues:
Have your Christmas party in January. It is much cheaper, but you can tell your employees it is because you respect their busy holiday schedules!
Convert your employee's vacation and sick leave plans into one Paid Time Off plan. You can effectively reduce the amount of potential paid time off by up to an infinite amount, and if you start them off with three weeks vacation, they will think you are doing them a FAVOR!
Convert the employees offices and cubes into an open plan. This reduces the cost of furniture and walls, while only greatly decreasing productivity and employee privacy. Your higher-ups will grant you a huge bonus in cost savings long before all of the employees quit in disgust and besides, you will have moved on to the next high paying gig where you can ruin them too, and if you get fired, hey, there is always your golden parachute which insures you will never have to work again in your life.

Taylor's "Scientific Management"

[dpbsmith]

Very reminiscent of the sad story of Frederick Taylor and "Scientific Management." Taylor meant to be a good guy, and believed he researches on the best ways to organize industrial work would be a good-for-everything win-win. He advocated good pay, good treatment, frequent breaks, etc.

He actually believed that scientific management would put an end to labor-management conflict: "The great revolution that takes place in the mental attitude of the two parties under scientific management is that both sides take their eyes off the division of the surplus as the all-important matter, and together turn their attention toward increasing the size of the surplus until this surplus becomes so large that it is unnecessary to quarrel over how it shall be divided."

Labor unions opposed "scientific management" as just a kind of speed-up, a way of squeezing workers, and that essentially is how it was applied. In his later years Taylor regretted what he said was the misapplication of his methodology, but the damage was done.

And so it is with the open office. What might originally have become a well-intentioned effort at innovating on office architecture quickly became just a way of squeezing workers--almost literally, into smaller and smaller spaces, with facile "proof by repeated assertion" that it was an actual improvement on what had gone before.

The best that can be said about it is that cubicles are at least better than the arrangements of some office in the 1960s and 1970s, which looked just like classrooms but with bigger desks.

Cubicle vs. interior office is often a wash, finan

[Anonymous Coward]

In the day, construction management wanted to move an entire academic department into "open offices." An uproar ensued, faculty wanted both quiet for work and space to talk with students privately. A high-level meeting was called, with the department management, provost, and head of construction on campus.

Finally, someone asked about the cost differential between cubicles and offices. The construction head pulled out a calculator, punched in some numbers, and said, "It's a wash." The provost rolled his eyes--"Why am I here?"--and whoever advocated cubicles was defeated.

I work in an open office

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't stand it.

The guy next to me is a noisy clod.

I've seriously been tempted to drop other people's cell phone, left abandoned on their desk and ringing loudly, into their coffee.

Open offices are disasters for development

[drew_eckhardt]

The problems are noise and interrupts. For simple problems less communication is better because minutes lost by an engineer using Google instead of his friend make a smaller impact than the fifteen minutes of context switch overhead which can result for the person interrupted. When more communication is needed people can always grab a conference room.

IIRC IBM's Santa Tersa Laboratory - Architectural design for program development lists a 40% throughput delta for engineers in quiet spaces provided by enclosed offices or with partitions at least six feet high.

With fully burdened per-engineer costs that can break $200K per annum open offices can waste at least $58K (I don't recall if the comparison was stated as 140% for the good performers implying you get $142.9K of work for $200K from slow ones or slow movers loose 40% of their throughput and don't do $80K worth of work) per engineer per year and cost more than closed offices.

_Peopleware Productive Projects and Teams_ by Demarco and Lister provides some anecdotes and hard numbers in chapters 8 "You never get anything done around here between 9 and 5" and 9 "Saving money on space."

Comparing coding wargames participants who performed in the first and fourth quartiles

57% versus 29% have "acceptably quiet" space
62% versus 19% have "acceptably private" space
38% versus 76% do not have "people often interrupt them needlessly"

Median time to complete the programming tasks was 2.1 times the best and bottom half as a whole 1.9 times the top half.

Participants with acceptably quiet spaces were also one third more likely
to produce zero defect work.

I think I see the flaw...

[Radical Moderate]

in Taylor's theory: "until this surplus becomes so large that it is unnecessary to quarrel over how it shall be divided."

Open for all, not just minions..

[Rick in China]

As some other people have mentioned - in my current company everyone is in the same open office. It's an open office of over 100 people, and no matter the level of the team member or visiting 'executive' everyone shares the same big desk spaces with no specific assigned (but sometimes habitually claimed :D) seating. There are tons of offices for people to use, but nobody uses them for long and often only for noise-reduced client conversations. I can, however, see why people can lean towards the critics *or* the advocates point of view, because every office is different and every company has different levels of trust and transparency, if I worked in an office with execs in private offices and everyone else forced into an open space, I'd be critical too.

Brown walls

[david999]

I feel like I am working at UPS. The walls are painted a dark brown and we have multiple shades of brown speckled carpet.
The air exchange is poor to middling. No windows. Can be quite boring but I have a job.
The cubes are high enough when you sit and when you stand you can look over the top. We are side by side with a aisle in between. I face away from my co-worker. Not too bad for noise as it is a small office. Occasionally you can hear someone getting louder and louder and louder... during a call. You just know they are frustrated. The last place I was at was a call center that had 300+ people in one large room with desks lined up in rows and low enough walls that you could look over them with a minor stretch. Very loud all the time. Did not miss it when I left. I would love walls with a door but can only draw a line with yellow tape and ask my co-workers to knock on an imaginary door (Les from WKRP..)

I too have co-workers who will not talk but will IM you from the desk next to you.

The forks are even more dreadful

[larpon]

... maybe it's time we all move to Office 360?

One size surely doesn't fit all.

[jotaeleemeese]

A French company I know about has different spaces for different functions.

People doing clerical repetitive work sit in an open office area, but in small clusters of 2-3 seats so you don't feel like participating in a dystopian future.

People that require to concentrate for long stretches of time have offices, shared between 2 people at most. In the middle of that area there are standing up long desks were these people can congregate with colleagues to discuss technical matters.

There are lots of offices since most people are not doing repetitive work.

They also have several meeting rooms of different sizes, tables of differing sizes where quick improvised meetings can be held, and the canteen is communal, airy with striking views of town centre.

This is not a tech firm, it is an old school utilities company (oil, gas, that kind of stuff).

A company that is not going to great lengths to understand the kind of working space its workforce needs is not helping itself.

The book "WE"

[DarthVain]

So the great benefactor can watch out for you and keep you safe. You can always apply for a certificate to lower your shade for several minutes. Do you have anything to hide citizen?

CBC is not PBS "without the begging"

[Kubla Kahhhn!]

That's BBC. CBC is American TV without the content.