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Let's Take This Open Floor Plan To the Next Level
theodp writes: In response to those of you who are unhappy with your Open Office, McSweeney's has some ideas for taking the open floor plan to the next level. "Our open floor plan was decided upon after rigorous research that primarily involved looking at what cool internet companies were doing and reflexively copying them," writes Kelsey Rexroat. "We're dismayed and confused as to why their model isn't succeeding for our own business, and have concluded that we just haven't embraced the open floor plan ideals as fully as we possibly can. So team, let's take this open floor plan to the next level!" Among the changes being implemented in the spirit of transparency and collaboration: 1. "All tables, chairs, and filing cabinets will be replaced by see-through plastic furnishings." 2. "All desks will be mounted on wheels and arranged into four-desk clusters. At random intervals throughout the day, a whistle will blow, at which point you should quickly roll your desk into a new cluster." 3. "Employees' desktops will be randomly projected onto a movie screen in the center of the office." 4. "You can now dial into a designated phone line to listen in on any calls taking place within the office and add your opinion." Some workplaces might make you question just how tongue-in-cheek this description is.
...everybody should get naked. There...I said it.
It's the logical end state of this whole open office thing. Complete transparency and no place to hide.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Let's not and say we did.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"Those of you who are?" You are implying that there are people out there that have to endure open office and do enjoy the experience.
Open Office is an aberration and is a direct result of management-by-trend-chasing practice.
The suggestion box will be combined with the shredder.
Why is this one NEWS for nerds, stuff that MATTERS?
Companies where the open office approach succeeded had something in common: the population of the office chose it for themselves, early on. They had an open office environment because that's how they wanted to work, and because the dynamic that existed between the employees was compatible with it. Then later, a lot of other companies had executives look at both the success of those companies and the lower real estate costs that the model uses, and decided they would "choose" it for their own staff. And that's not quite how it works. It's rather like deciding that your goldfish would be better off in a salt water tank because of how big the fish were in some other tank you saw, and then finding yourself confused as to why the fish all died. Not all cultures are the same, and you can't change the culture by imposing something upon it that is toxic.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Back in the 80s my company was designing a new building for us to move into. Management was excited about the idea of a round lab in the middle of the building, with glass walls so everyone could see the engineers at work. Us guys were pretty unhappy with the idea, but the idea wasn't fully torpedoed until a female engineer said "so you don't want us wearing skirts anymore, huh?"
When something isn't working according to the theory, it's not because it's an incorrect theory, it's because people NEED TO TRY HARDER! More WILL needs to be applied. That is all.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
https://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/sales2.jpg
I worked at an office which specified the objects you could have on your desk. Leave your stapler on your desk, and Lumberg would come by and tell you to put it away and tidy up.
I was told it was part of their arrangement with the interior designer. Talk about form over function!
LOL, I thought this was about Apache Open Office
than in getting work done, then by all means, make sure I feel watched all day.
And a fish right in the middle of it all to remind everybody that this is an OPEN FLOOR PLAN DAMMIT!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I have some ideas for the bathrooms, uh, the bathroom.
It's easy to see the positives and negatives. Social interaction goes through the roof, at the expense of productivity. If we need to focus, we are told to put on headphones and the rest of the devs are to respect the headphones. But over 90% of the time, nobody respects the headphones and you either get tapped on the shoulder, people waving at you, or objects thrown at you. I don't know if it's the office setup or my teammates, or a bit of both, but this is by far the least productive team I've ever worked with and it's my first time in an open office setting.
If a dongle joke permanently harms the female mind, then imagine what seeing an actual dongle will do! They will need years of therapy and counseling (paid for by Obama care) to get over it.
People offended by naked people would naturally fail the job interview as "not a culture fit".
It's the same way we picked people for Hellstrom's Hive...
Thank you
Obviously they should have seen Einstein's desk.
Here's a pretty good picture of what it typically looked like:
http://blogs-images.forbes.com...
I worked for a place that moved to new office space, from cube land, into "modern" open office land.
The CEO said it was "cool" and "techie" and "everybody in 'the valley' was doing it."
It sucked wind. I mean, it blew, hard. Cube land was no bargain, the cubes were about 7 by 6 feet, but at least you could pretend you had a bit of privacy to make a phone call, to send an email, to generally have your own space. Open office land was 24 inch deep, 5-foot wide desks with a foot tall divider between you and the next person. You could swivel your head and see heads in all directions, and hear and see what everybody was doing, and it was loud. You could not roll your chair back too fast for fear of clobbering the person behind you. It sucked. (Did I mention that it sucked?)
It was no place to concentrate -- it was quite focus-proof.
The open office was not chosen for the "cool" factor, it was chosen for the "cheap" factor, because it could better than double the employee per square foot density. This was a growing, profitable, privately held company, and there was no need for it, except to make the owner's take better.
Open office can work in places where it is not done for the wrong reasons. Give people some personal space, install acoustic treatments and dividers, and it can work. Treat people like sardines, and those that can swim away, will.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
When was it ever not? This article just moved it up one notch from first post to the zeroth post.
And that means there will be even fewer women in tech. And that means we will be seeing even more of these clickbait shit articles on this stupid site.
It's almost time to set up a filter to hide any posts with "girl", " woman", "women", " sexism", "sexist", " discrimination ", or " discriminate" in the title. Or to automatically first post in them about how men and women are actually different and that's the largest cause of the lack of women in STEM, not sexism or discrimination.
Wish that was possible. But until then, I guess a filter will have to do.
Look like the feminist police went this way. If you don't know what this is referring too google 'dongle gate'. And yes, apparently some women mind is fragile that mentioning 'dongle' in a crowd will 'trigger' in her 'rape culture' fantasies that will permanently damage her. Hence why we need 'safe space' where infantile-women can play without risk of being exposed to reality. And no, all of this is serious feminist business. Do you research, our society has reached that low already.
FTFA:
Program Intellivision!
.
If you want to follow the trend, find a way to put people in an office that costs less than tables.
.
Maybe cushions on the floor?
I have had both an open concept office and I have also been in the situation where I have had an private office (as a developer/ team leader). If I am engaged in the work and I enjoy going into work and getting stuff done.... I prefer a more open environment (4 or 6 people on the same team). I found that when I had an office I found myself becoming more isolated and interacted with other developers less. Yes, I don't get interrupted as much -- but then people that I am managing get stuck more often and I don't notice... my productivity goes up and the team goes down....
:p I do find I have to call up people every few months to figure out what is going on.... and even then it is annoying being so far out of the loop. (if I am in work -- I know almost everything -- for some reason I have the innate ability to convince people I already know what I don't know and they tell me anyway).
If I am not engaged -- bored and not fully loaded with work.... then an office is better of course because you don't want others seeing you play mine-sweep or browsing the internet for other jobs....
Currently I just work at home, but if I had the option (I am 12 time zones away from work) I would actually prefer being in an office (open).... but the commute would be a killer
I have never worked anywhere else but on an open floorplan. basicaly at least it is each department that has their own room. Directors will have, most of the times, a separate office due to the fact that they will have some need for cprivacy due to confidintiality, but most of the trime this is limited to glass walls, so you can't hear what they are talking about on the phone.
Managers are sitting on the same foor as the rest though.
Only in once place I ever worked or visited, they had semi-walls between desks. I had them removed and the first two days they hated it (because people hate change) and afterwards they loved it. Noise went down. Morale went up. Productivity improved. Everybody happy (except for one person who now had to work)
I have seen many offices in Europe and basically they all had some sort of open floorplan. Some were huge rooms. Those I did not like. I was like sitting in a huge factory. Mosty had rooms where rooms were devided in departments, where each department would have one room.
Often the rooms where connected by halls, but seldom by doors or the doors. And if there were doors, they would be open anyway, unless there was a good reason to have them closed, like airo, or security.
I know (from experience) I would be less productive in a cubicle or in my own office. I know (again from experience) this is the case for the majority of people. Sure, it won't be ideal for everybody, but even those who think it won't be good, most of them it will be.
I am sure everybody here will say "But I get distracted when I have people around me. I am a loner. I dfo not need anybody because I code." Great, get to your moms basement and unsubscribe form thios social media called /. if you are not a social person.
OTOH if you are like the IT Crowd, you are still an awkward social being. (Yes, I know YOU are special and not like all the rest, get in a room with all the other ones, just like you)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Those of us unlucky enough to find ourselves working for Canadian banks in tech don't even have desks of our own. I, for example, work in a hot-desking dungeon where I have to book a desk by the day and carry my meagre belongings around in an old shoe-box. I had a manager for a while who even made us move desks during the day, because that was agile! I long for an office environment only as unpleasant as an open plan one, I really do.
my blog of work misery - http://beastofbaystreet.com
I know the article is a joke, but I've heard of open office designs that have X employees and (X-0.1*X) desks. Desks are not assigned, and early birds get the worms. They are miserable places.
No roof, no walls, no floor. Take your chalkboard and jumbo chalk, go sit in the middle of a cow pasture.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
I really hate to say it, but what happens with the Open Floor Plan is that nobody gets any work done as the more-socialable people will just keep roving around wasting peoples time. At least the "office cubicle" and the "dedicated office" floor plans removed that distraction.
Call centers are terrible to have open plans due to the noise levels, so if your office requires a lot of phone use, this plan is not for you, and it shows. Because when you call places that have open floor plans, you can usually hear 3-4 voices in the background that are fairly audible. How is that good for privacy?
Give everyone their own sandbox.
Trying to work in an open office is like trying to write music in a bus station.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Software is a concentrations job and hard enough without the fishbowl. Any potential employer that thinks this type of environment is productive is put on the same list as companies with "Underwear Gnome" business plans.
I certainly get the appeal of everyone having a nice office, but in a lot of cities that's simply not going to happen - the space is just far too expensive. So you end up with the choice between a more compact layout, firing a bunch of people, or moving to the burbs.
I work at a tech company in Manhattan, we have open plan offices because there's really no other option here. But there are things we do which I think help alleviate some of the common complaints I hear:
I think there are advantages to the open layout over an all office setup - I do like being able to hear what people are talking about because many, many times I've been able to get involved in something I can help with, or learn about something useful. Overall I'm pretty sure if offered the alternative (moving out of the city) pretty much everyone there would vote to stick with what we have.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Wow. He had real mail. And I bet they weren't Cabela's catalogs.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I interviewed at Analog Devices a year back (didn't get an offer, sadly). At this particular design center all design engineers had offices. It was specifically understood that good hard design work required periods of intense focus with no distractions. Their model was to encourage folks to leave their door open when they could, but to encourage folks who really needed to focus to close it, or if discussions/phone calls in your office would distract others to encourage folks to close the door.
There were still some cubicles, but those were for the secretary, and for setting up test equipment.
Where I went to is a good company and all, but boy are there days I really wish I could close off the rest of the office din and distraction. I still get more done on weekends during my kids nap time than I can get done in a full work day more of the time.
Cubes are cheap, but I think the real cost in lost productivity vastly outweighs savings in building materials for those doing the really complex stuff.
"We value all of your ideas equally, so all decisions will be made by randomly drawing employees’ proposals out of a hat."
This one actually has high entertainment value!
How about, within reason, letting individual employees set up their environments in the way that makes them the most productive? Obviously there's some need for social interaction, but forcing its extreme on geeks who are stereotypically not that social and prone to attention deficits, is a recipe for wasteful, unproductive stress. When it comes time to push those buttons, a quiet space is required, and reasonable accommodations should be provided by the employer if the expectation is that employees be productive.
I think you're actually referring to hipsters, not geeks. They thrive on social interaction because they're inherently insecure types who need constant affirmation of their 'alternative' status.
See subject: From http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ?
Your "DNS lookup" b.s.? 1st: AdBlocking gains speed!
2nd: Hosts exceed SLOWER remote DNS lookup (prone to exploit via Kaminsky redirect flaw & 99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it!) - how?
I avoid DNS by putting WHERE I SPEND 95%++ OF TIME ONLINE @ TOP OF MY HOSTS FILE via 30 favs
Thus, exceeding remote DNS indexed lookup lag after query/turnaround for resolution (do the math binary search) over 3++ million records w/ the most efficient blocking format = better loadspeed + internal parse & no bloat in hosts cached in LOCAL system RAM via 2 kernelmode subsystems (diskcache & ip stack = no context switch overhead to usermode) vs. remote DNS for utmost in speed, efficiency + reliability (my program keeps hardcodes current) vs. downed DNS too.
Remote DNS match hosts ability not efficiency or speed. They're inferior for users on many levels!
* Hosts = MORE SPEED + EFFICIENCY & ease of maintenance (via http://start64.com/index.php?o...) versus.:
1.) Remote DNS & hosts do so w/ less resource use + added on app complexity/room for breakdown & exploit w/ added CPU & power use w/ a local setup DNS (worse if separate system) + complexity of deny rules vs. hosts simple entries
+ vs.
2.) "Almost ALL Ads Blocked": Hosts are far more efficient doing more w/ less vs. AdBlock's BLOAT & regex complexity vs. hosts simple entries. Addons add overheads layered over slower browsers in usermode increasing messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode (run some addons concurrently see what I mean). Addons do more added I/O operations + consume more memory & create CPU overuse + complexity (regex vs. hosts entries) bolted-on in SLOW usemode vs. hosts in PURE kernelmode via a high cpu serviced layer of ops by IP stack. Addons = easily detected by native browser methods + clarityray shuts 'em down (hosts aren't).
APK
P.S.=> Lastly? Hosts != bribed (like AdBlock/ABP to NOT DO 1 JOB IT HAD by default)... apk
See subject: From http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ?
Your "DNS lookup" b.s.? 1st: AdBlocking gains speed!
2nd: Hosts exceed SLOWER remote DNS lookup (prone to exploit via Kaminsky redirect flaw & 99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it!) - how?
I avoid DNS by putting WHERE I SPEND 95%++ OF TIME ONLINE @ TOP OF MY HOSTS FILE via 30 favs!
Thus, exceeding remote DNS indexed lookup lag after query/turnaround for resolution (do the math binary search) over 3++ million records w/ the most efficient blocking format = better loadspeed + internal parse & no bloat in hosts cached in LOCAL system RAM via 2 kernelmode subsystems (diskcache & ip stack = no context switch overhead to usermode) vs. remote DNS for utmost in speed, efficiency + reliability (my program keeps hardcodes current) vs. downed DNS too.
Remote DNS match hosts ability not efficiency or speed. They're inferior for users on many levels!
* Hosts = MORE SPEED + EFFICIENCY & ease of maintenance (via http://start64.com/index.php?o...) versus.:
1.) Remote DNS & hosts do so w/ less resource use + added on app complexity/room for breakdown & exploit w/ added CPU & power use w/ a local setup DNS (worse if separate system) + complexity of deny rules vs. hosts simple entries
+ vs.
2.) "Almost ALL Ads Blocked": Hosts are far more efficient doing more w/ less vs. AdBlock's BLOAT & regex complexity vs. hosts simple entries. Addons add overheads layered over slower browsers in usermode increasing messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode (run some addons concurrently see what I mean). Addons do more added I/O operations + consume more memory & create CPU overuse + complexity (regex vs. hosts entries) bolted-on in SLOW usemode vs. hosts in PURE kernelmode via a high cpu serviced layer of ops by IP stack. Addons = easily detected by native browser methods + clarityray shuts 'em down (hosts aren't).
APK
P.S.=> Lastly? Hosts != bribed (like AdBlock/ABP to NOT DO 1 JOB IT HAD by default)... apk
See subject: From http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ?
Your "DNS lookup" b.s.? 1st: AdBlocking gains speed!
2nd: Hosts exceed SLOWER remote DNS lookup (prone to exploit via Kaminsky redirect flaw & 99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it!) - how?
I avoid DNS by putting WHERE I SPEND 95%++ OF TIME ONLINE @ TOP OF MY HOSTS FILE via 30 favs!
Thus, exceeding remote DNS indexed lookup lag after query/turnaround for resolution (do the math binary search) over 3++ million records w/ the most efficient blocking format = better loadspeed + internal parse & no bloat in hosts cached in LOCAL system RAM via 2 kernelmode subsystems (diskcache & ip stack = no context switch overhead to usermode) vs. remote DNS for utmost in speed, efficiency + reliability (my program keeps hardcodes current) vs. downed DNS too.
Remote DNS match hosts ability not efficiency or speed. They're inferior for users on many levels!
* Hosts = MORE SPEED + EFFICIENCY & ease of maintenance (via http://start64.com/index.php?o...) versus.:
1.) Remote DNS & hosts do so w/ less resource use + added on app complexity/room for breakdown & exploit w/ added CPU & power use w/ a local setup DNS (worse if separate system) + complexity of deny rules vs. hosts simple entries
+ vs.
2.) "Almost ALL Ads Blocked": Hosts are far more efficient doing more w/ less vs. AdBlock's BLOAT & regex complexity vs. hosts simple entries. Addons add overheads layered over slower browsers in usermode increasing messagepassing overheads vs. hosts in kernelmode (run some addons concurrently see what I mean). Addons do more added I/O operations + consume more memory & create CPU overuse + complexity (regex vs. hosts entries) bolted-on in SLOW usemode vs. hosts in PURE kernelmode via a high cpu serviced layer of ops by IP stack. Addons = easily detected by native browser methods + clarityray shuts 'em down (hosts aren't).
APK
P.S.=> Lastly? Hosts != bribed (like AdBlock/ABP to NOT DO 1 JOB IT HAD by default)... apk
5. Company restrooms will be removed. In their place, toilets will be sporadically placed between desks, with no stalls or any other "privacy" walls.
If you're going to be open, why not be open about everything? Besides, less time wasted walking to and from the restroom, and no "hiding out" in the stalls either.
Open floor plans have nothing to do with improving innovation or creativity. That's just what they tell people.
The real reason is the realest of all reasons: cost savings.
In the 90s software companies offered everyone "their own office". It was a source of pride for them (I've never worked any other way).
There was also research that supported it. A famous book was Tom DeMarco's "Peopleware" that stated that companies with private offices had programmers that were 5-10x more productive. (This book also started the "rock star" idea that some programmers are 10x more productive.. but people have forgotten that the central conclusion was that PRIVATE OFFICES were a key piece of this equation)
Then these companies come along in the post-dotCom era and say that productivity will be better with smaller offices. They simply are making things up to make the MBAs happy.
There's no lack of women in nudist camps...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Work outside.
One half of my brain definitely found this humorous. The other half knew there were some idiots out there who would think this a good idea. I got cold shivers from that other half.
"Office employees worked naked for a month as social experiment"
http://www.deccanchronicle.com... ;-)
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.