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

Posted by BeauHD on from the waste-of-space dept.

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.

4 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. Open-Plan Offices Are Death. by cunina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Open-Plan Offices Are Death. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  2. Card tables? by neurovish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Open floorplan by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.