Wordpress Parent Automattic Is Closing Its San Francisco Office Because Its Employees Never Show Up (qz.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Automattic, the technology company that owns WordPress.com, has a beautiful office in a converted San Francisco warehouse, with soaring ceilings, a library, and a custom-made barn door. If you like the space, you're free to move in. The office at 140 Hawthorne went on the market after CEO Matt Mullenweg came to the realization not enough employees used it. As he explained on the Stack Overflow podcast earlier this year: "We got an office there about six or seven years ago, pretty good lease, but nobody goes in it. Five people go in it and it's 15,000 square feet. They get like 3,000 square feet each. There are as many gaming tables as there are people." Automattic has always given its 550 employees the choice of working remotely; the San Francisco space was an optional co-working space, spokesman Mark Armstrong said. The company maintains similar offices in Cape Town, South Africa, and outside Portland, Maine, and gives employees a $250-a-month stipend if they want to use commercial co-working offices elsewhere. And if they'd rather work at Starbucks, Automattic will pay for their coffee.

Comments

Nice, real nice

[TimothyHollins]

What I would like to know is "Does it work?". Does it really work to have all/most of your employees working from wherever they want?
I would love to believe it does, but I also know that not everyone functions the same way.
So, assuming that my previous assertion holds, how do you go about getting everyone, including the undisciplined, to function in an office-less work environment?

Re:Nice, real nice

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Does it work?

You bet. Look how reliable and secure Wordpress is!

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah on my 3rd remote job. You keep regular hours at least that is what I do. Unless there is a scheduled maintenance.

I do it some from a travel trailer. Only issue is meeting days with kids. But when in a location in the midwest I have a small office. Its no different than any other job if you treat it correctly. It matters most if the company puts the tools in place for remote work like slack and insist the tools be used. One place I worked that was an issue, some people would have meetings in the office when a problem arose and ignored those of us on hipchat. But their remote issues were a small amount of things wrong with that place.

Re:Nice, real nice

[ron_ivi]

how do you go about getting everyone, including the undisciplined, to function in an office-less work environment?

You don't hire them; in the same way you wouldn't hire any other unqualified person.

The place I currently work also has no office, because they're too widely geographically distributed (in different countries) to easily meet in a single place more than about once a year.

Start people off as contractors -- and if they work will with your distributed team -- hire them. If they don't work in that environment, don't.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Plugh]

Same way to get "the undisciplined" to function in the face of any other adversity/distraction/what-have-you.

Do you have a daily interaction with your staff, such as a daily scrum? If not, that's your problem, you need frequent real-time interaction. It used to be called "management by walking around" and it's extremely effective. Nowadays it could be literally in-person walking around, or via video/webconf, or IM/slack, or via phone/Skype. Just make sure it's regular so people can plan for it, and make it real-time interactive. Make it in person or mandatory video at least once in a while. If in person, offer food. Even just coffee & donuts goes a long way.

Are there people who don't show up to those meetings, or who always seem to have an excuse, or just can't seem to get their shit done, or consistently produce poor-quality product? It doesn't matter whether their problem is family trouble, drugs/alcohol, or too much fantasy baseball. The work has to get done and the employees need to be able to produce, or else make way for someone who can. Those are good people to put on a buddy system (oh wait it's called "Agile" these days, right?) Make sure to give them clear realistic targets and deadlines, and let them know that if they are not met, they're not welcome to stay (and if they are met, they're fine).

Personally my executive VP drank some kind of kool-aide a few months ago, and decided that everybody has to work in the office 3-4 days a week. I'd been working from home 4 days a week for the past 12 years, during which time I got a house 45 mins from the office. I generally work 10+ hour days, despite being salaried. The loss in productivity having to drive to the office, deal with people who have too much free time and want to stop by to chat, etc, etc, is immense. I wear headphones all day so I can concentrate; most of the people I work with are thousands of miles away and we're in constant contact via webconf, IM, phone, and email. Having to come to the office is... incredibly counterproductive for me.

Re:Nice, real nice

[bhcompy]

1) Don't hire them if they don't fit your culture. All workplaces should do this, regardless of what constitutes the work culture. It fosters a better working environment in general.

2) Give people who require an office space (or who are unable to furnish their own office space that is separated from their living quarters) a stipend for a remote office workspace provider like Regus.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't hire them; in the same way you wouldn't hire any other unqualified person.

Well that explains the long-term jobless problem.

In my neighborhood we have a Starbucks next door to a Subway restaurant. All the winners who have remote jobs spend the day at Starbucks. All the losers who have no job spend the day at Subway. It's uncanny how the self-segregation happens.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Don't hire them if they don't fit your culture. All workplaces should do this, regardless of what constitutes the work culture. It fosters a better working environment in general.
 

I'm a countercultural misfit, you rich asshole. Pay me a basic income, or my ad hoc improvised culture will dictate murdering everyone who fits your culture until you have no one left to work for you.

Re:Nice, real nice

[unixisc]

Can't comment on others, but I for one cannot work from home. I essentially lose the difference b/w working & not working - not something that I experience when I'm physically in an office. At home, if I feel tired, I can just go take a nap, and nobody would be the wiser. At work, I'd have to keep myself awake, if in that predicament.

One thing that struck me - does Automattic have plenty of employees in San Francisco? It seems that they were just pissing away cash by having what would be an expensive office in prime location. And it wouldn't make sense for even conscientious employees living outside San Francisco to go there if given the option of working remotely: the traffic on Bayshore or Juniperro Serra alone would be enough to make it a big waste of time. The company would have saved a lot by having an office elsewhere - be it somewhere like Foster City, Emeryville, Redwood Shores - still nice locales, but not as stratospheric as the city.

Also, if they are paying people a $250 stipend for working remotely, how does it even begin to make sense to have any offices at all (other than headquarters, which could be just a suite in a big building somewhere in Anytown?

Re: Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have around 100 employees in the area the last time I was "in the know". It's quite likely many of them have moved further out of town to save cost of housing.

Re:Nice, real nice

[crackspackle]

Actually, a project oriented management style instead of a time management style works. Set quantifiable specific tasks which must be completed or modified by a certain date. Make them small enough for frequent measure to insure the overall goal is reached in time. If someone is not delivering their task, they would have to have a reasonable explanation as to why or be shown the door if it continued.

Re:Nice, real nice

[green1]

I work from home approximately 4 days a week right now. I get far more work done when I'm at home than I do when I'm at the office.

It's all about how you handle it though. I have a lot of flexibility in what I can do and when, but I only exercise it when I have a good reason to (an appointment I need to attend, etc) otherwise I sit down in my home office at 0800 and I leave at 1600 and between those hours I only leave the room to use the washroom or get lunch from the fridge. In short, I may as well be punching a time clock. My family also supports this knowing that when I'm in that office during the day I'm "at work" and that I'm no more accessible to them than I would be if I was at an office downtown (in other words, if they come to see me it should be no longer than they would otherwise place a phone call for if I wasn't home)

Each person is different though. I couldn't have done this 10 years ago, at that time I didn't have the self discipline, and I knew it at the time. Back then I had to go somewhere and punch a clock. I'm glad that I've found a way to do this though, because there are many advantages. I don't have any commute time, I DO have flexibility if I have an important appointment (e.g. if a technician needs to come out and fix my furnace, or if I have to go to a doctor's appointment, etc.) and being 50' from my kitchen has saved me a good deal on eating out (sure, I COULD pack a lunch to take to work, but it was more convenient to hit the food court, but at home it's more convenient to make my own lunch than go out and find food)

Additionally it's a good deal for my employer as the desk I use when I'm at the office is used by other people in similar arrangements when I'm not there saving quite a bit on real-estate. It also helps that the people I "work with" are scattered all over the country anyway, so going to the office doesn't get me any closer to them than I would be on a video conference from home.

As for your comment about "It seems that they were just pissing away cash by having what would be an expensive office in prime location"... yeah, they've realized that That's the whole point to the article.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it did. For a couple of years, I worked with a group in Toronto while I was in Winnipeg. For me, the hard part was stopping work at the end of the work day (I enjoyed the work and after supper, the office was 7 seconds down the hall).

Doubtless, there are people who would abuse the situation. But if you have motivated people who enjoy the work, remote working should not be a problem.

Re:Nice, real nice

[dbIII]

Do you have a daily interaction with your staff, such as a daily scrum? If not, that's your problem

Some places have staff that are professional enough that daily meetings are not required to properly supervise their work.
The "daily scrum" fad is good for some situations but pointless for others.

Re:Nice, real nice

[rickb928]

The penalty for poor management is death.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Plugh]

Hello AC, nice to hear from you

Actually, it does matter. You the employer should offer (1) family counseling and (2) rehab, as medical benefits, or (3) more challenging work, since the fantasy baseball hobby is apparently more rewarding than the "productive" bullshit work you do.

You're quite right on the first two, of course. Counselling / rehab services are the right way to deal with family and substance issues. With respect to fantasy baseball and other distractions, I'd find it hard to give something more challenging to someone who's not able to get other presumably easier things done in a timely, high-quality fashion. If the employee specifically says they're bored with the current tasks, then sure, give them more and harder stuff to do -- provisionally, and make sure someone can catch the ball if this person who is already flaking drops it. Don't impact the customers just because internal styaffing issues.

The work has to get done and the employees need to be able to produce, or else make way for someone who can.

If you can't be bothered to invest in the wellbeing of your employees so that they can produce, then you're a soulless objectivist scumbag, and your company deserves to cease to exist immediately. FUCK YOU.

Well, someone's a bit sensitive on the topic. I'm not saying don't invest in people or help them succeed; I'm saying, if somebody consistently can't get work done in reasonable time at acceptable quality, they have to go. What is more fair, make everyone else work harder to carry their load? Collectivism generally doesn't incentivize people well for exactly this reason. At the end of the day, what matters is happy customers. Unless of course you're in a monopolistic situation where customers have no choice; the most extreme example of which is a government-provided service, in which people have to pay for it via taxes or else men with guns show up and *make* them pay. Not very ethical, that.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Plugh]

Fair enough. I know for some work -- especially detailed architecting/design work -- even a 15-minute meeting can spoil a whole day.

Uninterrupted time for constant attention is an incredibly scarce resource, and being "in the zone" can't be turned on and off like a lightbulb. If someone is in that mode, of course I'm sympathetic to it. Bear in mind that the OP was about employees who have a hard time staying on task when not in the office.

Also note that in my post above I didn't say "meetings"; I said "real-time interaction". For those employees having a hard time staying on task, you bet a daily chat with the boss or co-workers about what needs to be done and how to remove roadblocks is supremely useful.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

What's so bad about taking a nap if you need one?

Nobody is served by you writing shitty, incomprehensible garbage because you're too tired to think straight. As long as you make up for it in the end, who cares? There's no point in doing things just because you're supposed to do them if you can't do them well enough.

Soo many "WTF-bugs" just because people code when they shouldn't.. I'm sure there is more time and money wasted on fixing crap like that than ever was lost on someone sleeping "on the job".

Re:Nice, real nice

[dbIII]

Fair enough. I know for some work -- especially detailed architecting/design work -- even a 15-minute meeting can spoil a whole day.

It's not about that.
In some professions or projects a team can be expected to get things done and daily feedback is pointless. Three weeks of reporting daily "still going and don't need any help" gets nothing done.

For those employees having a hard time staying on task,

It just creates tension treating everyone like those.

Re:Nice, real nice

[BiggerIsBetter]

It just creates tension treating everyone like those.

Yep, it absolutely does. I'm about to change jobs because of this... I was quite happy and productive working remotely, hot-desking, etc..

And seriously, having a standup on Monday and thinking there might be some change since Friday when the production issues were going on? WTF? No, I don't work weekends.

Re:Nice, real nice

[rwa2]

Yeah, same here. We lost our nice office digs a couple of years ago, and the skeleton crew of 4-5 peeps 3000 miles away from HQ have been working from home since then. We still meet at a co-working space once a week when we can make it.

I don't have the discipline yet... I prefer being in a office with a constant supply of tea and people to communicate with in person. We get increasingly hostile towards each other when we're working remotely. Plus I'm having some sort of existential crisis by feeling like I'm in early retirement. But that said, it is nice being able to enjoy the home we just bought, and spend time raising the children at this critical juncture in our lives, just before we lose them.

Re:Nice, real nice

[sound vision]

From what I understand, wordpress.com (which Automattic runs) provides limited, free hosting for web sites that run on the Wordpress software. The software itself is open-source and not developed by the company.
It would be like blaming a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Linux kernel on the office policies at Red Hat.

Re:Nice, real nice

[arglebargle_xiv]

You've also got to look at that workspace, a huge, empty, echoing gymnasium with ghastly uncomfortable plastic tables and chairs, the whole lot looks like a temporary setup for refugees after a natural disaster. Would you want to work in that? If you sent Spartans in to work there they'd quit because it was too austere.

Re: Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Had a supervisor like this years ago, micromanager from hell, every day in his office, going over the assignments on the whiteboard- think we all hated that hour.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a major company where I work from home 80% of the time. Many of my co-workers have the same arrangement. Others work better by coming into the office. It works quite well for us.

I can't speak for everyone there, but I know I prefer it. Most days, my commute to work is about 20 feet away. On days I go in, it's an hour each way, and I can go during times that rush hour has died down. Plus, I can take off time and/or re-arrange my schedule (within reasonable limits) to tend to family matters. The result is that I'm more relaxed when I work and more passionate about what I do. I respect that the company offers it to me and put in a lot of energy to help them succeed.

I realize that some people can't focus at home and that's fine. But, for many people, they work better at home. And it's not necessarily about being anti-social with co-workers (I work with some great people). It's about a better work-life balance.

Just my two cents.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Bert64]

It works better for some than others, but then traditional office spaces don't work for some people either.

It's good to have options available, and let the staff choose what works best for them.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a recipe on how to fail and not do your job properly as a manager.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually no, it is a model that works extremely well. Basically what is being described is your standard task-list style of project management, which follows nicely with the LEAN/Kanban methodology. The only variation that you'd want to consider is not set the delivery date (if there's not a legal/contractual reason for it), but instead when you assign the task you have the assignee provide a work effort estimate and calculate the delivery date.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow - just wow.

Most companies offer Family counseling and rehab via their medical benefits package. However, most people never take advantage of them.

If someone is so disengaged from work (spending a lot of time on Fantasy Football for example) they need to get their act together. When you work, there is an exchange of effort for money. If you are not holding up your side, you deserve to be let go. Find a hole to fill, offer to help someone on a project you find interesting, talk to your manager about additional work. It is hard to imagine a manager (outside a union job) that will turn down an employee looking for more work.

This type of hyperbole "If you can't be bothered to invest in the wellbeing of your employees so that they can produce, then you're a soulless objectivist scumbag, and your company deserves to cease to exist immediately. FUCK YOU." works against those who want to advance workers right.

There is a balance. A manager has a duty up and down - to their employees AND to the company. Neither duty can overwhelm the other- that is dysfunctional, but an out of balance 'employee over company' situation is self correcting as the company goes out of business, and everyone looses including the employees.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, thanks for proving previous poster's point. I hear the paper pushers already espousing how important pushing paper is to the survival of the project. How did software get developed without Project Managers in the past...it was a miracle...lots of candles.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an interesting idea. Now, the efficiency and success will heavily be relied on the project manager. If the manager is good, then this method would weed out those who aren't discipline. However, if the manager is bad (e.g. not knowledgeable enough -- often miscalculates time, wants all credits to himself/herself, etc.), then there will be huge problems along the way. Even worse, the longer the bad manager is in the process, the more damage to the company will have (exponentially).

Re:Nice, real nice

[computational super]

The "daily scrum" fad is good for some situations

Daily standup meetings have been a fad for nearly 20 years now, and my consistent experience, across four different employers and almost two decades is that the daily standup turns almost immediately into an open discussion that drags on for a couple of hours most days. Inevitably at least one person has an issue that they really do need to talk to their manager about but for whatever reason seems to think that everybody else in the meeting needs to sit and listen to. Although the occasional manager will eventually cut them off and say "let's take this offline", that happens far too rarely for a standup to end in less than an hour.

Re:Nice, real nice

[computational super]

I for one cannot work from home

I feel the same way, but I also think that we're in a tiny (and shrinking) minority these days. I've never tried to work full-time remote, though... I wonder (hope) whether it wouldn't be possible to get into a rhythm once you got used to it where you could be productive that way. I suspect that you and I will both find out in the near future.

Re:Nice, real nice

[lactose99]

They're making money

From a company perspective that's the important thing

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't say anything about project managers, said it was a style of project management. So you tell us, if you don't keep a list of the things you need to do in your project, how exactly do you know what it is you are actually building and how do you know when what you've built is ready to release? I'm willing to bet that To Do lists have been used in software development since the beginning.

Re:Nice, real nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayup - Wordpress is right up there with Adobe software.

Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[cunina]

From the looks of it, their office seems to be more of that open-plan nonsense. No wonder no one shows up. Open plan has been shown again and again to result in less productive and more unhappy employees.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree - unless there are some photos of the nice cozy nooks where people can sit and work, it's no wonder the place is empty. The echo and noise in that huge open room must be unbearable.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what my current group has. Absolutely the single worst aspect of my job. Anyone who advocates for open plan
a. either has never been in one
b. or wears slip-on shoes because he's too stupid to operate velcro.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[SimonInOz]

I worked for a major bank. They built these beautiful new offices. Gorgeous, lovely atrium, glass lifts, great coffee machines, lovely building.
And then they populated it with desks. Not even cubicles, just desk dividers.
And then they said "pick your desk when you come into the office" - yup, hot desking.
Well, I hated it.
If you came in late, there were no desks available (so you don't want me to do any work then? Ok, sure).
When you did find a desk, you had to spend a while moving everything so it fitted you.
Then you had to get the computer going - that mostly worked, but not always.
And of course the killer - what if you need to chat with someone - where the hell are they? People wandered the office, seeking - I built a "FindPeople" app but they took years to get it installed.
And of course, it's so lovely to work among strangers every day. Great for morale.

It was horrible. I cannot imagine what miserable effect it had on morale overall, but mine certainly plummeted. Eventually my work deteriorated so much I had to leave.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[BronsCon]

Genuinely curious, is "had to leave" code for "got fired" or are you actually one of the few responsible employees who recognizes when their talents would be put to better use elsewhere?

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate the damn open-plan office that I have to work in.

My manager is very good at looking concerned and writing in his notebook when we complain. Nothing changes. They don't give a shit. Every other damn place has an open plan too, and its cheaper this way.

I can't wait to retire.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I had to leave" means either:

(a) "I got fired" or
(b) "I quit to avoid getting fired after my boss gave me the 'this is your final warning' talk"

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse - people don't really have desks, there's no electrical plugs or LAN. Everything seems to be on battery powered laptops and wifi. Even when I was working for broke startups I had better working conditions. Even our meeting rooms are better furnished.

The chairs seem good at least.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. I was thinking the exact same thing. It's sad that we (office drones) are so good at picking up on this kind of phrasing..

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

The locale would work better as a gym rather than a workplace. Anybody trying to focus and get work done in such noisy and hard halls would quickly get frustrated and seek alternative placements. I've seen some awful places to work, but this really marks a new low. Shared tables, so no way to regulate them ergonomically. Stupid non-adjustable chairs with legs touching others' chairs. And wtf are those bubbles for, nothing there pleasing to eyes or ears, and probably not to nose either, ugh! What a joke of a workplace, and what kind of people designs something like this for other human beings?

Fuck these shitbags!

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[SimonInOz]

No I wasn't fired - it was close, though. They put me on a special watch for a while (yet more meetings and [oh joy] counseling), but I survived that, then finally a chap I previously worked for offered me a spot and I jumped at the chance.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I am in the same situation, no assigned seats, open office garbage. And people still wonder "Why is no one coming into the office?" because it is a noisy, distracting mess.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

At the start up where I work it is the open plan thing. Head phones are mandatory if you want to get work done because of the constant chit-chat (not work related).

But the worst part for the tech department, at one end of the big space is a purely gratuitous atrocity that is self-created by the tech department culture. Nerf guns and drones. There are frequent nerf gun wars, and when someone doesn't have anything to do, or takes a break, he will break out his little drone and start flying it around the office - it is occasionally a hazard though no one had been seriously hurt by them - yet (minor injuries have occurred). Without the open plan this type of nonsense would not occur.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[pscottdv]

Their employees would rather work from home than in on a folding table in a gymnasium? Who'da thunk?

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Headw1nd]

This is what I was thinking, the office isn't "beautiful", it's basically a cavernous empty room. I can only imagine how much it echos...

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hired by Ford Motor Company as one of their first external hires to become security experts in their research & advanced electronics division. The work was challenging and I love working hard to build a difficult product (cars). But, honestly, the cube farm destroyed, destroyed my happiness. I put on 40 lbs. I drank too much. I guess some people are immune to that shit, but not me. I basically left because I simply couldn't be a high performer in that environment. Oh, and my boss was EXTREMELY skeptical of work-from-home, despite the company having an official policy to be pro-work-from-home.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Grishnakh]

I haven't read the article or looked at the photos, but TFS did say that the office was so under-used that each employee had 3000 square feet of space.

I hate open-plan offices with a passion, but if I had that much room around me it wouldn't be so bad...

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Grishnakh]

I just looked at the article, and I take that back. That place looks like sheer hell.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[MonteCarloMethod]

In the large facility in which I work, a new building was recently opened with a pseudo open-concept office space. In the older buildings, we have Dilbert-grey cubicles and fluorescent lighting. In the new building, cubicles are replaced with 4.5" dividers that separate you from your neighbor. Because my company makes standing desks available to employees, your desk can actually extend above the top of this divider.

A friend of mine from another department was recently relocated to this new office space and he absolutely hates it. He spends half of his working hours in empty conference rooms trying to get any sort of privacy and solitude in which to work. The other day I went over to the new office space to meet with someone else in his group and I found that almost 50% of the half-height cubicles were festooned with CubeShields (trade name, look them up) mounted vertically to add privacy. From the looks of it, my friend isn't alone.

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[Anonymous Coward]

CubeShields - interesting. At my place of work I put a couple of enormous plastic trees that reach the ceiling and a beach umbrella. I thought the building manager might object to a load of sand on the floor...

Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death.

[SimonInOz]

The underlying problem is in fact, a misunderstanding. Modern culture is obsessed with cooperation, groupthink, all that stuff. This suits extroverts well. But some half of the human race are in fact introverts - who attain results in quiet solitude.
Extroverts tend to be noisy and loud in meetings. Extroverts less so.
Result - extrovert style offices (and of course the fact they are cheaper sneaks in there well).

Overall result - miserable. The introverts feel horribly oppressed and hate their workplace, and desperately seek a quiet spot to actually work. Extroverts wander about, busily being social. Resultant work - lousy.

It's no wonder business outsource work if they cannot get productivity out of their local staff.

I know it's rash, but have they tried actually listening to their unhappy employees. ALL OF THEM, not just the loud ones?

I could do about 40% of my job remotely

[p51d007]

But, I still make service calls that require me to be "on site". But, the rest of it is on the web. I prefer going to the office, if for anything else, the interaction with people, versus being stuck at home

Re:I could do about 40% of my job remotely

[Anonymous Coward]

But, I still make service calls that require me to be "on site". But, the rest of it is on the web.
I prefer going to the office, if for anything else, the interaction with people, versus being stuck
at home

I could do 100% of my job remotely. I am also 100% sure that I would be more productive and more content with my job. I could give back 5% of my paycheck for the privilege of working at home and still come out ahead when time, transportation and meals are accounted for. I could parlay the saved time and money into interaction with people, except more on my terms and only if I chose to do so.

I'm never "stuck" at home. But I spend an inordinate amount of time stuck at the office.

Re:I could do about 40% of my job remotely

[computational super]

I prefer going to the office

I think it sort of depends on your family situation, too - I genuinely don't believe that I could be married to the woman I'm married to right now and work from home full time. "Oh, hey, honey, since you're here, could you just..." I do wish the (open plan nightmare) office I worked in wasn't so full of constant distractions, though.

Horrendous

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked at the pictures. I don't know what the CEO was thinking, but it's awful. No wonder it was cheap. It's like working in a cafeteria. It's a giant, ungodly, space. There's no art, no sense of scale, no sense of personal space. I can't imagine being there for 8 hours a day.

Card tables?

[neurovish]

So, their office basically looks like it is a basketball court with a few card tables thrown together. Not even some external monitors. No surprise that nobody shows up to that office. At least provide some proper desks and decent KVM setups with dual monitors.

Re: Card tables?

[yabos]

Agree. Looks like shit. Who wants to work at a crappy table with a bunch of other people on laptops. Looks retarded and no privacy. Lots of startups seem to think this is the cool new thing for offices but itâ(TM)s actually just a cheap way of setting up an office so you donâ(TM)t have to get anyone a desk and private space

Re:Card tables?

[David_Hart]

So, their office basically looks like it is a basketball court with a few card tables thrown together. Not even some external monitors. No surprise that nobody shows up to that office. At least provide some proper desks and decent KVM setups with dual monitors.

Our office is open seating but each seating area has a a group of proper office desks, every other station has dual monitors, KVM, mini-walls, and lockers. It also includes tables with bar type stools, areas with stand desks, and proper office carpeting for noise reduction. Plus we have meeting rooms and huddle rooms for when you need privacy. Everything from decor, desks, chairs, etc. is set up like a real office. The main difference being un-assigned seating and the mini-walls which creates an open space.

The WordPress office looks like an empty warehouse space with a couple of card tables thrown together. I wouldn't want to work in a space like that. Without proper carpeting and sound dampening every noise would be amplified.

Re: Card tables?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Starbucks is so much better.

Re:Card tables?

[stephanruby]

Not to mention, the ping pong table is a bad idea where it's placed.

Every time a ping pong ball is missed, it will bounce on the concrete floor for one minute and it will roll 75 feet away. This is neither good for the employees actually working because of the distraction, nor is it good for the employees that are actually playing (unless they're Olympic level ping pong players). This problem could have easily been handled with some carpeting and some glass partitions.

Same goes for the movie watching/presentation screening area. The screen is obviously too small to be watched by everyone. But the visual distractions and the sound distractions that come out of that area will be one more source of distractions.

The problem with this space is that their original intent may have been to start a co-working space. Since most of their customers are bloggers, it would make sense that they do that. But then, no place seems to have been assigned to their actual employees. There is no place to put work artifacts, no place to meet privately. Like you said, there are also no large external LCD monitors. There is not even a bean bag or a small table that I could take to the side of the room so I could work without getting interrupted. A large public train station has actually better amenities than this place.

Re:Card tables?

[zippthorne]

My guess is that they bought it as real estate speculation and just threw in some disposable "office stuff" to try to get some use out of it while waiting for prices to grise. There doesn't seem to be anything in those pictures that couldn't be packed up and moved out in a single day.

Re: Card tables?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the point - if your office is so shit that Starbucks is better, then it is probably better to shut it down.

let me get this straight

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if you pay people to not come into the office then people won't come in to the office?
Whodda thunk it

Open floorplan

[110010001000]

That is because no one wants to work in an open floorplan. They did that at my office and now no one comes in either.

Re:Open floorplan

[Anonymous Coward]

> no one comes in either

It sounds like, ironically, that office's gotta be pretty quiet then, which would make it a great incentive to come in...

Re:Open floorplan

[Anonymous Coward]

That is because no one wants to work in an open floorplan. They did that at my office and now no one comes in either.

How Millenial of you... "wants to" versus "has to".

Back in the day, having a job in an office was something to be happy about.

Re:Open floorplan

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously?

They make their employees type on the laptop keyboards? with the laptop screens? I wouldn't want to show up either.

Re:Open floorplan

[dwpro]

I like to call that progress. Empowered workers having an influence on work policy, what's not to like?

Re:Open floorplan

[computational super]

Haha, yeah - am I the only one here who just wishes that everybody else would go work from home?

That's a beautiful gym!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's play some b-ball!

The robots took its job

[Tony Isaac]

The office was replaced by robots, which did everything that the office used to do. Now the office is out of a job and looking for work.

Funny - the article mentioned Marissa Mayer

[93 Escort Wagon]

It was supposed to be a counterpoint regarding how some companies don't believe in remote work. But given her inability to turn Yahoo around (I'm being charitable)... I think they might've been better served by looking around for a non-dying company to hold up as a counter-example.

Effectiveness matters more

[dbIII]

1) Don't hire them if they don't fit your culture. All workplaces should do this, regardless of what constitutes the work culture. It fosters a better working environment in general.

That's the road to failure as an org. The organisation is going to have to interact with external people who do not fit your culture and those "difficult" people are what gets you ready for those interactions and/or the people that handle them. Clients sometimes don't pay, and a nice guy who is just happy to let it all go in not the sort of person you want resolving the situation.
If you have a bunch of people as similar as a high school tennis club you end up having a bunch as ineffective as a high school tennis club while your competitors are employing world class talent.
See political fuckups from employing cronies on all sides of politics for examples. "Heck of a job Brownie" is a good example of fitting the culture instead of employing for competence.

Re:Effectiveness matters more

[bhcompy]

Who's talking politics?

Re:Effectiveness matters more

[dbIII]

It's called an example of hiring from a shallow pool and getting a tiny fish when a whale is required, and it's an example that everyone has heard of.
I even wrote "on all sides of politics" in an attempt to avoid such replies.
Please just take it as an example to show that I think you have been fed utter trash that led you to getting your point above so spectacularly wrong. A nice little club where everyone cheers for the same football team may be great in social situations, but when getting a job done it's a rather stupid exclusion of talent. Monocultures can also be called single points of failure. If nobody in the org understands the people you are selling to or otherwise dealing with then what appears to be an utter newbie mistake is bound to happen some day.

Good, save the money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you blame them? San Francisco is a serious shithole. Why pay the overhead anyway....

Do they give each other wedgies

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would want to go there? It looks like a high school gym with a couple of folding tables set up in the middle.

Forgot something...

[ZenShadow]

I bet people would use it more if they'd actually remembered to furnish the place.

Oops.

Read the signs

[Anonymous Coward]

So they need cash. First step, sell off lower-priority assets. Next step, early retirements and some layoffs. Followed by business line re-prioritization. Then they'll probably force the remaining workers back into offices in lower-cost real estate. Unless there are lawsuits, in which case it can all happen at once...

Automattic is a pretty cool company

[Qbertino]

Automattic appears to be a pretty cool companyto work with. There's a bestseller book written on it "The year without pants". A read I recommend. Small Teams working together, zero paperwork,everything online, teammeeting every 3 months in a place of their choosing anywhere in the world and an anual global Meetup that Mat organises. Basically a digital nomad Hippster paradise. They do get work work done but for someone who likes to travel or can muster the discipline it's an amazing company. That no one comes to the office in SF when you can be chilling in Bali is no big surprise.

"Wordpress Parent Automattic Is Closing"

[nospam007]

It's that damn auto-correct in their navigating apps that prevents them from driving to work.:-)

Office Space Digitally Transformed

[Anonymous Coward]

Office space market gets "Uberized". Just think of the effects on city planning, development and investments! Virtual offices sprout over Azures, AWSes and GCPs. Milton has to travel extensively to get his revenge.

Why don't people like open plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

As subject.

I'm genuinely curious. I've worked tech jobs for the last 17 years and in all of them I was in an open plan office, so I don't know any different. I imagine it's a bit more social than isolating yourself in cubicles (which I don't think we have so much in the UK).

If I need to cut out distractions, the headphones go on.

Re:Starbucks?

[computational super]

Bonus if you take up a table but don't actually order anything.