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

The solution is obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to LibreOffice. It's much less dreadful.

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

Human capital

[ThePhilips]

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

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.

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".

Re:Downton Abbey

[jfdavis668]

I want a cubical that is bigger on the inside.

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

[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.

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.

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".

remember this one?

[terryk29]

"He didn't fit in."

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

[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: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:I like the open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

They make you put in produce?