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.

Comments

Missing the 'why' of it.

[Shoten]

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.

Re:Those of you who are?

[TheGratefulNet]

I recently had 2 interviews: one at HP and one at ebay.

both were 'rows and rows of desks in an OO grid'. made me sick to see how dehumanizing it was. no, I did not get any offers from either of those 2 places. maybe it was a good thing.

I saw next to no personal stuff on peoples' desks, there. I tend to bring things in from home (sometimes even computers or networking boxes that I need for a short term 'lab') but I would not feel ok doing that when no desk actually belongs to you, you come in, grab one of the 'open desks' and then use someone's grubby keyboard, probably still with cold and flu virus on the keys. not enough lockers (the concept of a locker at work also turns me off; as our desks USED to be lockers in their own right; stable ones we could always use and count on) and no security so I would not feel good about leaving my stuff there.

there really seems to be a unified effort to dehumanize employees. also to reduce their pay, make them compete with foreigners (who live 6 or 12 to a house that only has 3 bedrooms), keep their payscales at an all-time low and fire you when your project is done.

we truly are slipping back to the bad old days of millworkers in sweatshops. unions don't exist for hw/sw guys (generally) and there are no signs of anything coming back to help balance the power again.

one thing is for sure: each time I see an OO plan, I throw up a little and I weep for us all, in our collective losses. HR keeps telling us 'the kids love it!' but even when I talk to 20somethings they really don't love this OO idea either.

ha, these guys are total beginners!

[thebeastofbaystreet]

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.