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Apple Employees Rebelling Against Apple Park's Open Floor Plan, Report Says (neowin.net)
During a new episode of The Talk Show podcast on Daring Fireball, John Gruber touched on the topic of the open floor plans that Apple has implemented within its new campus, Apple Park. A WSJ profile of Jony Ive, where he talked about Apple Park, mentioned how programmers, engineers, and other employees had already expressed concerns about working in such an environment. Gruber shared what he has heard: I heard that when floor plans were announced, that there was some meeting with [Apple Vice President] Johny Srouji's team. He's in charge of Apple's silicon, the A10, the A11, all of their custom silicon. Obviously a very successful group at Apple, and a large growing one with a lot on their shoulders. When he [Srouji] was shown the floor plans, he was more or less just "F--- that, f--- you, f--- this, this is bulls---." And they built his team their own building, off to the side on the campus ... My understanding is that that building was built because Srouji was like, 'F--- this, my team isn't working like this.'"
The did this for half of my building (top floor is open while the bottom is still the standard cubicals) and every HATES it. Not that the little half-cubes we had before were spacious, but the shared desks are tiny! You get about 3 feet to yourself an two little dividers between you and the next person. That's about enough room for a computer, phone, and a piece of paper. They also gave everyone a little rolling footstool instead of a chair. People are in pure hell now. The noise is unbearable, no one has any room to do actual work, and everyone is ready to kill the person next to them. Thankfully I'm in a locked lab where they decided not to do this. Sometimes I think the only reason I stay in my position is so I don't have to be in one of those open desk areas.
When they first floated the idea of an open floor plan the response of universally negative (like 200+ negative comments to one positive). The management said they'd take our concerns into consideration and then promptly installed the new desks a week later. Turns out they already had everything ordered and the whole 'tell us what you think' discussions were just a smokescreen to placate people.
apple is right everyone else is wrong.
I don't think so. There is evidence that open offices are bad for productivity. Some people like to work in a bullpen, but even for those people their productivity may go down more than they realize. Other people hate open offices, and refuse to work in them. These are often the best people, who have plenty of other employment options. Open offices are false economy. The cost of providing a real office is negligible compared to a typical tech salary in Cupertino.
My company has some open office space, and I work there sometimes. But I also have an office with real walls where I can sit and focus. It is small, about 8 ft by 10 ft, but that is enough for two chairs, a desk, and a bookshelf.
I will not accept any job that requires me to work in a cubicle or open office, although I did work that way when I was young and desperate.
I once worked for a company that did this. Why? Thermostats. The women were constantly pushing them higher, while the men were pushing them lower, leading to many arguments. The CEO finally got fed up and put the "hot" people in one room and the "cold" people in the other. This led to mostly segregation by gender, although there were some scrawny guys that went to the warm area, and a few "big" women preferred the cooler section.
I worked in one tolerable open floor plan, and it worked for a few reasons: It was a small, close-knit team of a dozen, working on one project, with long tables to spread out over instead of cramped desks or cubes, with comfy chairs, and it was a corner room with windows the full length of two walls, with a private bathroom and kitchenette. Compared to where we moved from, that was fantastic. Offices would have been a step up, but compared to the dark dungeon of an open floor plan we came from, that quiet sunny office was amazing.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I will not accept any job that requires me to work in a cubicle or open office
I don't mind a cube if the walls are tall enough.
It's interesting that people have forgotten that when cubicles were invented, office workers rejoiced -- because cubicles brought an end to the nightmare of the open floor plans that used to be the standard office environment.
That's exactly what we're trying to do at my company for exactly that reason.
I am a manager, and I need to talk to way too many people every day. I hate repeating the same conversation over and over. And I really hate when people feel like they're out of the loop because they didn't get a chance to be in on an important conversation. Still, we're a small company, need to move fast, and simply can't schedule absolutely everything that needs to happen.
The solution is that the management needs to be out in the open and accessible at most times. A couple conference rooms with doors are all we need; most conversations I have shouldn't be hidden.
I'm also the technical lead at my company. The folks I manage under no circumstances want to work the way I have to. They want solid blocks of time with no interruptions. I want them to have that too!
I'm also the founder of my company. That is why these things can happen here and why our business folks understand the value of the technical team's culture.
It suits architects because most of them aren't doing the actual design work. You can bet the master designer is sitting somewhere completely undisturbed in a state of intense focus for a few hours at a time. But you only need one of those.