
What makes the perfect office? - gpresot
http://timharford.com/2017/02/what_makes_the_perfect_office/
======
cr0sh
One of the best ever work environments I had the pleasure to experience was at
my last employer, when I first started.

At that time, me and two other new guys all started at the same time, and we
were assigned their lead developer to on-board us into the environment. It was
all new stuff to all of use (especially the other two guys - one was fresh out
of uni, the other had never had a full-time office job - only contract work).
I had only regular web-dev experience (front and back end) - but this was
completely new to me.

It was server automation and management, for a hosting company. The stack was
a combination of PHP mixed with Java and shell scripting. They wanted to move
into cloud hosting services (VPS) - so our task was to learn the system,
maintain it where necessary, and also transition things over to (ultimately)
an OpenStack/OpenCloud environment (while keeping the old stuff still going,
of course). It was being thrown to the wolves, because we had to get this all
done in a very short time frame.

Unfortunately, they had no where to seat us in the small office - except one
spot: The conference room they had interviewed us in. This was a small 9 x 12
room, with a single door, and a glass wall.

They brought in a desk system, and set up the machines (well, we set them up).
We got to work. It was hot inside, because the AC had no vent into the room
(and we're in Phoenix, Arizona which didn't help). We called the room -
initially - the "oven". It was miserable - so we all had fans. We turned off
the lights. Just the glow of the monitors to light the room.

The lead - he set up spotify and would run his music (or whatever) and we
would listen. I was the old guy (I'm in my 40s) - so the music was new to me,
but I liked it. It was a crazy mix of Kesha, some kind of pirate metal,
dubstep, Dragonforce, and other weirdness. I loved the mix. We hacked to that,
and I gained an appreciation for music I had never experienced before.

Eventually we got our first mascot - someone drew a dickbutt on the glass next
to the door, with a flower coming out the rear. Awesome. Described our stack
perfectly (I eventually cranked out a fake O'Reilly "book" for the stack) -
when it worked, it worked great, but most of the time it was a dickbutt and
there was nothing we could do about it (most of those problems were on the
server side, which we could only barely touch because our IT guy wasn't the
most personable, and held total control over the 10k+ servers in the queue).

At another point, our manager decided to rescue us from our oven, and we got a
portable A/C unit - vented into the ceiling. That made things bearable - well,
until the thing overflow with condensation (nobody told us to empty it). But -
the oven became the "barn" in no time. We called it the barn out of a joke
involving bronies or something, I dunno.

And...we got a new mascot. Our lead was culturally jewish, and he told us of a
tale called "Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins". Apparently this is a real
book. Well - to fit into the theme, our new mascot that appeared one day was a
hobby horse we named "Hershel". We propped it up on our desk system, added a
hat and feather, and continued to work.

We got the system done - well, working to the point that it was real, did what
it was supposed to do...

Eventually, the barn was dismantled when we moved to a new office - to an open
floorplan (ugh). Too much light. The camaraderie that was developed in our
oven barn, while it continued to a certain point - it wasn't quite the same.
About a year later, the company was sold, I quit and moved on to other
pastures, and the new company eventually got rid of the dev team (because they
never wanted it in the first place, nor the software we developed).

But it was a great time while it lasted. Take from it what you can or will...

~~~
bvinc
The pirate metal had to be Alestorm, right?

~~~
cr0sh
Yes.

------
wainstead
See also: chapter 9 of the seminal "Peopleware," 3rd edition:

[snip] Before drawing the plans for its Santa Teresa facility, IBM violated
all industry standards by carefully studying the work habits of those who
would occupy the space. The study was designed by the architect Gerald McCue
with the assistance of IBM area managers. Researchers observed the work
processes in action in current work spaces and in mock-ups of proposed work
spaces. They watched programmers, engineers, quality control workers, and
managers go about their normal activities. From their studies, they concluded
that a minimum accommodation for the mix of people slated to occupy the new
space would be the following:

• 100 square feet of dedicated space per worker • 30 square feet of work
surface per person • Noise protection in the form of enclosed offices or
6-foot-high partitions (they ended up with about half of all professional
personnel in enclosed one- and two-person offices)

The rationale for building the new laboratory to respect these minimums was
simple: People in the roles studied needed the space and quiet in order to
perform optimally. Cost reduction to provide work space below the minimum
would result in a loss of effectiveness that would more than offset the cost
savings. Other studies have looked into the same questions and come up with
more or less the same answers. [/snip]

I just read "Deep Work" (due to another HN user's comment somewhere) and it's
full of good information. Being able to work free of distractions and
interruptions means incredible productivity.

See also
[http://wiki.c2.com/?LordOfTheFlies](http://wiki.c2.com/?LordOfTheFlies)

~~~
ickler9
Deep Work also has a whole part on Building 20, similar to the article. It
really articulated my thoughts on open work spaces.

------
junipergreen
The results of that study do not surprise me at all. At my company, there are
no rules about clutter, but the cleaners wipe down everyone's desk every day
as best they can. I'm a clutter-free type of person: my desk has nothing but
my monitor/keyboard, phone, lamp, a notepad, and a small potted plant. When I
come in and everything's been moved a few inches (like the plant all the way
to the edge of the desk or phone right up against the monitor) it drives me
insane. And then I feel bad, because someone cleans my fucking desk everyday
and I just get annoyed about it.

~~~
chmars
I'm curious: What makes daily cleaning necessary?

We've weekly cleaning and it seems to be sufficient.

~~~
mschuster91
Probably it's just to provide a clean-feeling workspace. It's nice to start a
day and the coffee machine is clean and the trash bins are empty - especially
the latter is important, given that food waste etc. can quickly develop a
nasty smell.

~~~
chmars
I agree but couldn't the employees themselves take care of such stuff?

We share such minor duties in the office (and food waste goes to the bio waste
bin if suitable or gets packed in small bags). Maybe we're simply not spoiled
enough! ;)

------
lb1lf
A door I can close when I need to concentrate.

Adjustable lighting so I won't need sunglasses. (My current employer got a bit
carried away; I have modded my overhead lights with a warm yellow gel film to
make it more agreeable.)

Coffee (or the means for making such) within easy reach.

~~~
xyzzy4
I'm going to mount an umbrella in a few days to block the overhead lighting. I
requested that the lighting be turned off, and it was, but another employee
(who only comes to the office once per week) had it turned back on a few days
later.

~~~
drivers99
People in my office use something like this:

[https://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Lova-Canopy-Green-
Leaf/dp/B001QS...](https://www.amazon.com/Ikea-Lova-Canopy-Green-
Leaf/dp/B001QSAAOQ)

edit: one of the comments says it's 1/4th that price in the actual store

~~~
lb1lf
I used a gel similar to this[0]; cheap and effective. (Though the hue chosen
is probably open for debate; I am somewhat chromatographically challenged.)

[0][http://www.stagelightingstore.com/15-Deep-
Straw?sc=25&catego...](http://www.stagelightingstore.com/15-Deep-
Straw?sc=25&category=827816)

~~~
stan_rogers
CTS (Color Temperature Straw) is just about right, actually. The other
alternative, CTO (Color Temperature Orange) is, in some senses, "more
correct", but the heavier red bias makes some people feel like they're working
by candlelight - even in brighter light, it feels a bit dim and closer to
bedtime.

------
munificent

        > When workers were deliberately disempowered, their work suffered
        > and of course, they hated it. “I wanted to hit you,” one
        > participant later admitted to an experimenter.
    

Everything everything _everything_ makes more sense when you remember that
humans are tribal, territorial mammals.

If you're given autonomy over your space, it becomes your territory. Even team
automony is OK if you are emotionally tied to your team enough for them to
feel like "your tribe".

But if you are not, you are forever in some _other_ mammal's territory.
Imagine a wolf walking through their own woods, smelling the scent of their
packmates. They are confident, relaxed, calm. Now put that wolf in anothers'
forest. Anxious, hunted, always on the alert for an attack. This is what it
feels like to inhabit a space you can't have any influence on.

------
theandrewbailey
A clean, cubicle-free environment, but with desks in a small-ish room, with no
more than 3 other people that you can get along with. There should be spaces
for professional and personal belongings. The building should be near
amenities like convenience stores and restaurants, and as a bonus, located
such that cars aren't necessary for commuting.

~~~
brandon272
To me personally, it doesn't matter if I am sitting among a group of 30 people
or 3 people, I don't want to hear my coworkers' typing, coughing, eating,
drinking, phone calls, chair adjustments, conversations, etc.

Those are all distractions that I can do without and that I think I am
personally more sensitive to than others may be. Not to mention that in a
shared office you are sharing the lighting, temperature, decor, etc. In a
private office those are all things that I control and are personalized to my
preferences and comfort.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Agreed, the quieter, the better. For myself, I share a room with another
programmer and 2 designers. Things are usually pretty quiet until our manager
steps in. Our CEO came by when the manager was off, and noted how quiet it
was.

------
peterclary
Reading these comments about territorialism and control over environment has
brought into focus why users are upset when an application or OS changes its
UI, even slightly; it's not just that they have to relearn something, it's
that their environment has been changed. Maybe they reluctantly accepted that
in advance as a price worth paying to get new functionality or bug fixes or
maybe the software auto-updated or the update was imposed by Tech Services and
the change was unexpected.

Same kind of thing with the recent discussions on here about software becoming
obsolete and non-functional due to support being dropped (either because the
OS won't run it, because r because the software depended on servers which have
been shut down). This is another case of users losing control over their
environment, and it's important to recognise the issue and the emotions
involved, even if you don't relate yourself.

------
stevens32
It seems like the important thing is having some influence over your
environment. If everything seems to have been placed with care, an occupant
might hesitate to change things to their preference. But if the place doesn't
seem to have any form, than they can feel free to change the form to suit.

------
phd514
Loved the bit about Building 20 at MIT. It really did embody the hacker ethos
with its freedom even to rebuild the physical space to suit your project.
Oddly enough, some of my German classes were in that building and I remember
walking through the halls and ducking under bundles of cables that were
running overhead to different labs where real work was getting done. It really
was a legendary place and I'm glad I got to see it before it was torn down.

~~~
spitfire
The Swiss furniture company USM had the ultimate building system. It was
essentially Mechano or Construx for building.

Their furniture is similar, they have three basic pieces - girder (tube),
joints (balls) and panel. Out of that you can make any of their furniture. [1]

A similar system existed for buildings. You could expand and deconstruct your
building quickly and easily as need changed. Unfortunately it wasn't a success
on the market - too modern for the times, and it was discontinued in the 60's.
The furniture is still going strong though.

If I ever get rich, I'd love to buy the rights off them and try again.

[1] usm.com

~~~
noir_lord
I built my desk out of standard scaffolding and structural ply for the same
reasons, if I ever want to change it I can do it with an allen key and an
angle grinder.

No regrets (other than the amount of time the waxing took on the top panel).

------
nerdponx
This page desperately needs line breaks between paragraphs.

~~~
smudgymcscmudge
This should help.

[https://gist.github.com/anonymous/116607085a89c176be1fe23e55...](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/116607085a89c176be1fe23e55cd8fd1#file-
office-md)

~~~
iffycan
Bless you

------
innocentoldguy
Even with elegant design and personalization, I cannot stand working in open
offices, where everyone is crammed next to each other trying to concentrate on
code. Companies seem to tout this style of office as a great thing--you know,
for collaboration--but it is just a return to the dismal style of factory
production lines manned with rows and rows of peons.

My perfect office is either in my home or a closed, private room where I can
concentrate. If I need to collaborate, I'll leave said private room. I also
like having a treadmill/standing desk and exactly one of these lightbulbs:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00317155/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00317155/)

------
Unbeliever69
I worked at a defense contractor in Utah that, at the time, had close to 4k
employees. Needless to say, this business consisted of massive warrens of
cubicles. I was employee #3 in a new Ux/Human Factors group and the first
thing that we did was collaborate with Facilities group to design an open
workspace where a joint team of Ux and programmers would work to build
customer-facing software products. I had spent much of my grad school working
on designing team-based workspaces on behalf Herman Miller and Steelcase
during the 1990s, so this was a great way to incubate some of those ideas.

We designed several of these workspaces with both personal and shared work
areas, including tables for lunch activities (mainly speed chess) and
meetings. There were a lot of marker boards and everyone had double the desk
space than they had in their cubicles. Both projects were huge successes and
still in use to this day.

Here are a few of my observations:

1) Facilities was NOT on board but we had the managerial support to push the
project through. 2) The first six months was like being in a fish tank. People
constantly stopped by to observe us and ask questions. 3) Similar open-offices
started popping up throughout the organization. 4) Some of them failed. 5)
Ours did not.

I think that some of reasons that we could be effective in an open-office as a
group of cats and dogs (designers and engineers/programmers) were as follows:

1) We only recruited talent that was willing and able to perform in this
environment 2) We respected the desire of team members that didn't want to
work in this environment, but we kept them close 3) There was nearby private
space that could be checked out as needed 4) We got to design the space 5) We
were not crammed together and there was implied privacy. For example, nobody
every faced another person. We had portable markers boards that could be used
as impromptu dividers, and if someone had headphones on, that was a pretty
good sign that they were not to be bothered. 6) Nobody dictated how we were to
use the space at a group or individual level 7) There was trust 8) We were
able to design, develop and iterate faster due to being in close proximity.
The intimacy of the workspace worked well with our daily scrums and short
design/development cycles. In the previous model, teams were often not
colocated and it wasn't uncommon to jump on shuttles and bicycles to get to
meetings.

tl;dr

The space was designed by its voluntary occupants and it improved the
effectiveness of the team and the end-products as a result.

~~~
Jemmeh
_> there was implied privacy._

This is so important. Staring at my least favorite coworker all day was one of
the things I hated most about my last job. You wouldn't think it was a big
deal, but she was basically reporting each time I went to the restroom or to
get water or food, making "tsk" sounds every time I scratched my arm or moved,
and sometimes giving a straight on stare of anger for long minutes.

-shivers- Least favorite work environment ever.

------
pklausler
An effective office for a programmer is one where it's possible to concentrate
for prolonged stretches. That's really all that matters.

------
xyzzy4
Having your back to the wall and no overhead lights.

~~~
Noughmad
I get that you don't want things behind your back, but what's wrong with
overhead lights? I mean every office/room/space has a light on the ceiling.

~~~
xyzzy4
It makes me feel like the sun is shining on my face, and I want to seek
shelter.

~~~
lovich
The sun makes you look for shelter?

~~~
db48x
Yes. Somewhere cool and dark and quiet.

Although I must say that indirect sunlight, filtered again through dark green
leaves right outside the window at the other end of the room, is pretty
pleasant. All the heat is kept outside where it belongs, there's no glare,
etc.

------
maxxxxx
What amazes me in my company that although everybody agrees that the current
setup is bad whenever they do something new they fall back to gray cubicles or
open space. It seems this is just unstoppable despite everybody agreeing that
it s not good.

~~~
nerdponx
Cubicles are infinitely better than open space. At least in a cubicle I get my
own desk, relative privacy, and freedom to decorate the space as I please.

~~~
iagreeentirely
Cubicles also provide a natural boundary so that when someone comes to talk
loudly at the person seated next to me, they don't stand directly beside me to
do so.

Open office plans are the worst.

------
fritzo
> When workers were empowered to design their own space, they had fun and
> worked hard and accurately...

Generalize this from physical space to development environment: It's nice when
ui doesn't change by a few pixels each morning. It's nice when namespaces
aren't continuously churning. API stability makes work fun.

------
ArtDev
My house, my desk, my expensive chair.

Everything else is inferior.

~~~
jdcarter
That's precisely what I was thinking as I read the article. I go into the
office for meetings--usually three mornings a week--but all real thought-work
happens at home. My home office is quiet, has natural light which I can
control to my liking, my chair fits me perfectly, and I can enjoy the company
of my cat. Most importantly, I feel _at peace_ when I'm at home. No amount of
office decoration can substitute for that.

------
greedo
Doors

------
WWLink
A decent size room with ~5 people, a little extra room, natural light with a
nice view, and some nice accent lighting for when natural light isn't enough.

Where I work now: Open office with some natural light (skylights) but no
windows, florescent and/or LED lighting. At least the desks are ok.

------
mynameishere
Private offices with separate collaborative areas. The actual architecture and
interior design could be performed tolerably well by a monkey.

------
rwmj
There's a really good BBC TV series about this topic, which also covers the
MIT Radio Lab that Tim mentions:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvEqfg2sIH0)

"How Buildings Learn" (1997)

------
Entangled
A locked room with adjustable light and a 27" iMac with internet connection.

Nothing else, not even food.

------
known
Dicussed in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

------
swayvil
The perfect office should be long enough to contain your body. It should be
upholstered in something soft. It should have a strong lid to keep out vermin.

------
m3kw9
Sometimes I come directly and read the comments to deduct a summary instead

------
chrismealy
The author is very sympathetic to the plight of the worker, but what about
bosses? Where will their job satisfaction come from if they can't control what
workers put on their desks?

~~~
innocentoldguy
"Job satisfaction?" Don't you just mean "Job?"

------
joeax
Sorry, but nothing beats working from home in your own home office. It's an
environment you have complete control over.

~~~
camtarn
It's very dependent on the person. I quit my office job last year and worked
contracting from home for six months. It was utterly awful. My study is small,
dark (north-facing, and the previous owners painted the walls mid-blue, which
makes it even darker) and cluttered. I felt very isolated and ended up very
depressed.

Last month, my contracting colleague and I moved into an office in a converted
house. It's small (just four desks) but the ceilings are high, the walls are
light, the lighting is nice and bright, and there's a south-facing window with
a view all the way across the city to Arthur's Seat. I have a good office
chair and a big desk to spread out over, and a cleaner comes in to hoover the
floors. And I get to see humans every day, which - I was surprised to find -
is a key ingredient in keeping me sane. I'm a lot happier, and a lot more
productive, even though I don't have as much control over this office as over
my own home.

This is just me, and I understand that people feel they need to push hard for
private offices or working from home, because the default nowadays seems to be
a big open plan office. However, every time I see somebody extolling their
vision of the Best Way To Work, I think it's worth emphasizing that different
people work differently, and what drives some people mad might be a necessary
component for someone else's perfect office.

Of course, as the article points out, having the choice is the real thing that
matters.

~~~
magic_beans
I quit my job and started freelancing last year. I redecorated my home office,
and felt really satisfied with the perfect office space I'd created. A month
later, I was feeling trapped, anxious, and deeply, deeply lonely -- and I'm an
introvert! I'm working in a real office now, and I feel so much better. I
guess it takes a certain nature to work from home, and I don't have that.

~~~
lj3
> A month later, I was feeling trapped, anxious, and deeply, deeply lonely --
> and I'm an introvert!

I'm going on 3 years working from home and I don't miss an office one bit. I
don't feel trapped, anxious or lonely. I have house mates, so I get some daily
socialization there. I also get out of the house at least 3 times a week
specifically for social activities.

I could see where you might feel those things if you worked all day, every day
and never got out of the house. That's one of the challenges when you first
start working from home: You now have to manage your own time.

Then again, maybe I'm just an outlier. My idea of an ideal office is a
standing desk in a garage with concrete walls and a concrete floor filled with
weights, tennis rackets, hockey sticks, lacrosse sticks, punching bags, etc to
play with while I work.

------
beachstartup
after transitioning to 100% remote, i've come to the conclusion that the
perfect office is the one you build for yourself.

corollary: commercial real estate is a ripoff.

~~~
dionidium
I work remote from my team, but come into the office in this location every
single day, for many reasons:

1\. I like separating work from home

2\. I like being around the people

3\. There are snacks!

4\. The desk setup is better here than at home. I live in a very small
apartment, so a dedicated space isn't feasible.

5\. There are printers and paper shredders and copiers and all sorts of other
supplies here. I don't want to buy all that stuff for home.

6\. The view from this building is heck of a lot cooler than the view from my
rear apartment

I could probably think of more. This all adds up to a pretty nice experience.

~~~
stephenr
I understand that it isn't always a choice, but in my experience (~8 years
100% remote, with a few exceptions for client site visits/local team
collaboration) people who work remote often do so from some where that affords
more space and a nicer view, at home.

Also of course is the Timezone benefit. Before I was taking clients directly,
I worked with a remote team, with staff from basically every continent except
Antarctica.

It wasn't unusual for me to be working such odd (by local standards) hours in
Melbourne/Thailand that I had 90% crossover with Western Europe or North
America.

