
The Open-Office Trap - ColinCochrane
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-open-office-trap
======
Immortalin
This has been discussed before here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7024488)
And here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7832209)

------
mwfunk
Open office plans seem really polarizing on HN, but it surprises me how often
people defend them here (or even evangelize them). For software development,
it seems like something that has no upside at all (aside from saving money on
office space), and tons of downsides.

For the people who do prefer them (and also spend most of their time writing
code), I would be curious to know the following:

(1) How many years have you spent, total, working as a developer in an office
environment every day?

(2) What percentage of those years were in open office layouts vs. sharing an
office vs. having a private office?

(3) How many times a day, on average, do you interrupt other people with
questions, vs. other people interrupting you?

I bring this up because I just really truly don't get the occasional open
office boosterism here. My current theory is that most of it comes from people
who are still in the honeymoon phase of their career (like, the first few
years after college when everything about the workplace still has some novelty
to it).

I say this because it seems like many/most of the people I talk to in person
who like the open office idea have either literally never had a private
office, or are relatively fresh out of college and get a job at Google (or a
startup, or wherever), and they're still so excited about everything that even
the things that are hassles (like open office plans?) seem like they're
brimming with novelty.

Alternately, a lot of the people I talk to who like open offices tend to be
those that are constantly pinging the people around them for help, but people
rarely or never ping them for help. The only people I've known at my current
company who want open offices (or even officemates) are these kinds of people.
They don't even realize that they have an 'interruption deficit' (for lack of
a better term) within their team, they just like the idea of everyone being
more readily available to them and they don't pay the price for it since they
rarely get interrupted themselves.

~~~
michaelochurch
_For software development, it seems like something that has no upside at all
(aside from saving money on office space), and tons of downsides._

Commercial real estate is about $3/SF (per month) in San Francisco (Class A)
and $4/SF in Manhattan. Open plan offices save about 75-100 SF per employee
(more, if you're looking to be sadistic and impractical, but at this point,
the productivity loss is obvious.) So the employer is saving, at absolute
most, $5000 per employee per year. It's not worth it.

 _I bring this up because I just really truly don 't get the occasional open
office boosterism here. My current theory is that most of it comes from people
who are still in the honeymoon phase of their career (like, the first few
years after college when everything about the workplace still has some novelty
to it)._

That's basically what it is. The open-plan layout is reminiscent of college
and the all-nighters in the computer lab. But work is not college. A bad grade
on an assignment is much more fixable than getting fired. The stakes are
higher, and that's why a certain brand of professionalism (or, more bluntly,
divorcing oneself from behaviors that are acceptable for 18- to 21-year-olds)
is necessary.

 _I say this because it seems like many /most of the people I talk to in
person who like the open office idea have either literally never had a private
office, or are relatively fresh out of college and get a job at Google (or a
startup, or wherever), and they're still so excited about everything that even
the things that are hassles (like open office plans?) seem like they're
brimming with novelty._

Well, private offices make nerf-gun battles harder. And you hear less juicy
gossip. And you don't have an audience for self-important rants about Lena
Dunham. It might get so "boring" (in the sense of a lack of distractions) that
you might be tempted to actually _work_ to pass the time.

~~~
nextstep
>Commercial real estate is about $3/SF (per month) in San Francisco (Class A)
and $4/SF in Manhattan.

I think you're off by quite a bit with your price-per-square-foot estimates:
[http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/10/01/manhattan-leasing-
str...](http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/10/01/manhattan-leasing-strong-
in-q3-midtown-market-stratifies/)

That is from last year and the average price in Manhattan was about $60/sf.

~~~
bri3d
Urban office leasing is almost universally quoted by yearly rates (for
whatever reason), but your parent poster quoted by the month instead.

$60/sf/yr works out to $5/sf/month, not far from your parent poster's
assertion.

------
sprkyco
I had one experience in an "open office" for approximately six months. It was
terrible, constant shuffling of people to acquire the plethora of free food
available. Nerf Gun wars and the constant click clack of ping pong
approximately 30 ft. away. This article has offered me some vindication in my
distaste for the "open office".

~~~
k-mcgrady
Seems like the problem wasn't the open office plan but grown-ups playing with
nerf guns and ping pong when they're being paid to work.

~~~
sehr
But do you honestly work every second of every workhour? This isn't Germany,
breaks and downtime are inevitable

~~~
k-mcgrady
No, I don't. But I don't through a nerf ball around the office either. Sure,
some people may need a break of think better when doing an activity but you
have to be a moron to think throwing something around an office is ok. Go for
a walk. Find another bored employee to talk to. Browse the web. Grow up.

~~~
sehr
Sorry, I'll get off your lawn now.

------
mrb
Well, Facebook is building the world's largest open bullpen office, with 2800
workers in 1 room(!) I wonder what they think of this research that shows open
office plans being detrimental.

[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/27/article-2331658-1A...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/27/article-2331658-1A061409000005DC-174_964x374.jpg)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2584738/Now-T...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2584738/Now-
THATS-open-plan-office-New-pictures-reveal-Facebooks-hacker-campus-
house-10-000-workers-ONE-room.html)

~~~
nerfhammer
They know about the research but usually say it's more important that
"openness" is a "core value"

e.g.,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5768771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5768771)

~~~
MCRed
Maybe I'm being cynical but I don't believe it when people say open plans
result in more "collaboration" or "openness". It just sounds like a
rationalization

By far the most collaborative environments for me have been individual offices
or two to an office.

In an open floorplan I find myself constantly being distracted and trying to
wall people off, which makes my emotional state less open to discussion...
because I'm trying to focus on work.

With an office with one or two people in it, you don't have to worry as much,
can be more open because you know you will get time to focus.

The company I work for is moving from individual offices to an open floor
plan. They didn't even bother to talk to programmers about it, and admitted
they looked at individual office locations but didn't think it mattered when
we protested.

They've also gone from a 6 person dev team to now 3. While there are many
problems that caused me and the other two people to leave, them choosing an
open office without consulting use and then blowing off our objections is
characteristic of the disrespect they show generally.

I think that companies with open office plans don't really respect engineers.
And I include google and Facebook in this assessment.

------
MCRed
Here's my argument against open office: I work in the dark.

I am sensitive to the flickering of fluorescent lights that most people cannot
see. Most offices have standard fluorescent lights, often with cheap bulbs or
ballasts that have not been changed since the building was built.

People also have different temperatures that they are comfortable at.

So, you really need at minimum four offices: Dark & Cold Dark & Warm Light &
Cold Light & Warm

This ignores all the other problems with open offices and cubicle farms.
Programmers really need to spread out. You need a whiteboard, preferably a
large one for every two programmers. They need a desk big enough to support
two or three monitors (if you're only giving them one, you're being penny wise
and pound foolish, most likely.) Many programmers like to have books open for
reference on the table. Or documents, etc.

Collaboaration is higher in my experience when people have their own offices
or a few people per office. Focus is much higher.

Why kill productivity by %30 (a low estimate for the negative impact on my
personal productivity) in order to save a fraction of an engineers salary?

I think it's just bad management.

But the nice thing is, these people advertise that they have open floorpans,
like they don't even realize it's a mistake, and that makes it easy to just
say "next" when looking at jobs.

------
javaistheworst
Most people in our large open plan office now wear large noise cancelling
headphones in an attempt to drown out the gossip by the coffee machine, the
colleague behind making a phone call with details far too personal to be
sharing/scaring with us, the drone of many printers and photocopiers, inane
ringtones, someone laughing far too loudly, and the person who eats with their
mouth open and smacks their lips. But otherwise, yeah, go open offices.

~~~
mhurron
> the colleague behind making a phone call with details far too personal

I work in cubicle, and once I put the standing shelf desk in at home I'll be
working from home more because of this same thing.

------
pm90
I work for a company whose entire office is on an open plan. Yes, even the CEO
sits in a cubicle, as do all the senior management and stuff. And this is not
a startup, mind you, its a mid size company.

Although it was kinda scary at first, I've adapted to it, and can see the
practical benefits. Not having special offices, there is a sense of
egalitarianism amongst the workers and none of the usual rat-race for better
offices. As pointed out in another comment, most employees tend to use
headphones when they need privacy. Since all the cubicles are the same,
maintenance is a breeze.

I guess it depends on your temperament. If you really just like to be left
alone when working, it won't help. For me, having so many people around kinda
prevents me from going drowsy, which used to happen a lot at my previous job.

~~~
bengarvey
If you have cubicles, I don't think that's an open office.

~~~
Sophistifunk
What about those half-height cubicles? That's what I've dealt with in almost
every enterprise/gov position I've been in over the years in .au

~~~
bengarvey
If you can see people while you are sitting, I'd consider that an open office.

------
PythonicAlpha
Not so new ... but it seems that some news has to be repeated on and on, that
people learn.

In 1987 the book "Peopleware" already described the open office trap. But
since, the idea keeps coming back in CEOs minds. I experienced it in a big
corporation I was in. Decades after Peopleware, Open-Office was declared as
"big new invention from the US" \-- but it still was the same old fallacy.

The idea kept coming up always in new flavors and new "inventions" \-- it
seems that the idea is just to attractive for managers to be buried.

The problem is, that you have to invest in people to get best results -- and
conventional economical thinking often times goes the opposite direction, how
to cut costs.

------
jimktrains2
Everyone seems to hate open offices, but since it's all I've ever known,
what's the alternative? Everyone get a 4-walled office?

~~~
sliverstorm
You'd never think you'd hear this, but IMO full height cubicles are a step up
from the open office plan without running the bill of true offices.

~~~
kale
I was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a
half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next cube
while seated. This was done to "increase collaboration", however myself and my
team are placed by a group of people from HR, so it's constantly our
recruiters on the phone pre-screening candidates. We never need to interact
with them. And I know they are annoyed with us as well when we're talking
technical jargon. We both get on each other's nerves and constantly distract
each other.

Even if you subscribe to the "open = more collaborative" idea, it only works
when you're near people that you interact with daily.

I miss my full-height cubicle, in an area with only people from my department.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> I was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a
> half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next
> cube while seated.

Wow, that's absurd.

Our company transitioned from 6 foot cube walls to 4.5ish foot cube walls,
such that you can see over the cube walls if you're standing up, but not when
sitting down. It works very nicely for being able to see across most of the
floor, to easily find someone you're meeting with (and who is thus also
standing looking around), or to collaborate with your team over cube walls.
But if you're sitting down, you have walls all around you, both to muffle
noise and to provide a comfortable feeling of privacy.

There are also a large number of drop-in conference rooms ("collaboration
rooms"), and some one-person phone-booth rooms for fully private phonecalls.

------
interesting_att
Most people in this thread are focusing on developer effectivenss as the sole
criteria for office layout. But developer effectiveness != startup's health.

There are three things many people in the discussion are forgetting:

1) Open office vs closed office is not a strict binary- I have noticed that
employees in open office layouts are also the most lenient on WFH. I do not
see as much leniency/openness towards WFH in closed workplaces. So we have to
compare Open Office with lots of WFH vs Closed Office with less WFH.

2) Open offices lead to higher employee retention- Open offices might lead to
more interruptions, which might decrease developer effectiveness. However, I
have also noticed that open offices lead to a greater social cohesion (since
people are more likely to talk and form social bonds), which in turn leads to
higher employee retention. It is hard to leave a company where all your
friends are. Which would you prefer as a CEO: A company where developers are
20% more effective but 50% more likely to leave, or developers who are more
likely to leave? In my experience, CEOs would prefer the latter, as it's
difficult to onboard new engineers.

3) Open offices engender more diverse ideas- Companies are also filled with
product managers, designers, sales teams, marketing heads, customer and
community support, finance, QA, and other teams. An open office will more
likely lead to different teams talking to each other, which in turn creates a
whole new batch of ideas. Startups rely on new ideas. New ideas often come
from diverse group of people interacting.

~~~
robwilliams
Do you have a source for any of this? I don't work in an open office but
people are very lenient with WFH. Especially the second point; without a
source those numbers sound too good to be true.

------
jondishotsky
In San Francisco the pendulum has definitely swung back closer to center (the
scale being all open to combination of open and private to private office
intensive) with most startups occupying a hybrid solution with a myriad of
breakout rooms and smaller meeting spaces / soft seating.

The trend over the last decade began with die-hard open office plan fanpeople
(breaking free of dads private office intensive historical), who quickly found
that there was a lot of counterproductive distractions. From there as more
traditional business starting adopting a start-up mentality to their office
space, a balance had to be struck to ensure productivity.

Now the offices of Airbnb, Optimizely, Weebly, all have very strong
distribution of open communal work area with solid guidelines from a cultural
perspective on how to treat people in that environment, while also matching
the open area with ample meeting space distributed evenly throughout their
building.

With a more thoughtful approach than just open vs not open I think a balance
can be readily created while also speaking to the culture of the company and
genre of business it functions in (gaming, Saas, mobile, etc.).

For the record 1- 10 years 2- open (3.5 yrs) vs closed (6.5 yrs) 3- dozens but
you learn the headphone rule which basically means (don't bother me or text /
message me)

~~~
MCRed
I don't see meeting rooms as a balance. It doesn't solve the increased
distraction of an open floorpan. Also, meeting rooms that are communal are not
as useful- consider a whiteboard on a communal meeting room vs. one in a small
office that houses 2-3 developers. That office whiteboard can have project
info on it for weeks, while the communal one can't be left there.

For me, in an open office, having headphones on is not enough. There's visual
distraction as well. People interacting in your field of vision are also a
distraction.

------
state
I can see how open offices are deeply unproductive for mid to large sized
companies. But for a team of < 10, I've generally found it to be pretty nice.
Everyone has to learn to respect each other, but when you're constantly
working closely it's convenient not to have any walls.

Does anyone else have experience with small teams working in open spaces?

~~~
mahyarm
Those are more team rooms which is different from open office and personal
offices. When it's that small your all one team.

------
briandear
Yet another argument work working remote. I have to admit, the Basecamp book
Remote has completely sold me on remote. I've been remote for two years and
never again would I want to work in any office other than my own.

------
davidmerriman
The upside to the open office is that collaboration is effortless.

The downside is that collaboration can become a crutch. It will only hinder
you when you need to do the kind of "nose to the grindstone" work that's often
needed.

To me, the ideal working scenario includes a private working space for each
person and a public space for when collaboration is needed.

~~~
opo
>...To me, the ideal working scenario includes a private working space for
each person and a public space for when collaboration is needed.

I agree. The best working environment I ever had was private offices with soft
seating areas at the rend of each hall. It was easy to collaborate with others
and easy to get a quiet environment. You never felt like you were interrupting
several other people if you went to ask a person a question. If you had to
take a phone call to talk to deal with a private family issue or call a Dr or
lawyer, you could just close your door. If you had to send a private email you
didn't need to worry that others will see something they shouldn't see.
Offices also had much more usable desk space than I have had in open office
settings.

I can see why people like offices (except for Zuckerberg are there any CEOs
who sit in an open floor plan?), where I work now, the only people who like
the open office arrangement are the managers who naturally have private
offices.

------
trhway
open office is very easy to get wrong, and thus it is usually the case. Myriad
of wrong details immediately surface. For example, shades - any issue with it
and people get the direct or once-reflected or significant part (they
installed these modern fashionable semi-shades in our office which block too
little) of sunlight right into your eyes as there are no cubicle walls to
protect you.

Near the passageway the lights are not soft/spread fluorescent, instead it is
individual light bulbs, so forget sitting face toward that direction (which
would be happily back to the sunlight mentioned above) as those bright dots of
lights on your peripheral vision field are just like small suns.

Compare to those lightning problems the issues like highly collaborative
excited guys running like herd of elephants from one workplace to another
across the space is just nothing.

------
chuckcode
Are there any studies that support productivity in an open office environment?
The studies referenced in this article and others seem pretty negative
overall. Certainly seems to be the trend at most companies these days that
I've interacted with. Is it mainly just the cheaper option per square foot?

------
eitally
I think one of the reasons you are seeing open offices as cost savings
measures is because a lot of the companies considering it have absolutely no
clue how to quantify the productivity of the people inhabiting the space. This
is inherently a far worse problem.

------
mkehrt
Having worked in a place with offices and now being in a place with an open
plan, I'll never go back.

There's light, there's space, there's people around, I have a better idea of
what people are working on, I learn by hearing people talk, it's easy to move
to a new desk if I want, the list goes on and on. It's so much better for me
mentally that there's no comparison.

I think this is an area people can disagree reasonably; some people just like
quiet and their own space. It's really a matter of taste.

I also really think I'm less productive this way, but, hey, I care about my
mental health more than my productivity. Of course, employers may want to
balance this differently :-).

~~~
jdbernard
I can agree that it is a matter of taste and different people will want
different things. The problem is that 99% of us have no say. For me personally
open plan is hell. I am mentally drained by the constant distraction by lunch.
I have a really hard time sitting down to focus deeply on a problem because my
subconscious has been conditioned to expect interruption. It's worse than
trying to work in the same room as my kids playing.

I can disagree reasonably, but what good does that actually do me? Do I talk
to my manager about it? He agrees but has no control over the layout. The
upper-level management? They don't agree and don't care. Find a new job that's
not open-plan? I already did, and then my team got all moved into one big
conference room.

This isn't good for my mental health _or_ productivity. But its what most
companies do so I'm stuck.

------
aareet
I like the open office layout most of the time because I find that learning
and team bonding occurs very quickly in these setups.

An ideal environment for me would be an open office most of the time but with
four walled offices available for me to occupy on a weekly reservation basis
where I can get some coding work done when I need to focus. Something
soundproofed maybe, to allow me to play music without needing headphones.

We had such a setup in one of the engineering buildings in university and I
found that I really thrived when I was able to "plug-out" when I needed to
focus and "plug-in" when I needed to work with other people - all while not
having to wear headphones!

------
modoc
The open/closed office thing seems like chocolate vs. vanilla. Some people
love one and hate the other. Some are okay with both. I've worked in both, at
several companies.

I generally prefer open office plans. Clearly other people don't. Everyone is
different. There is no RIGHT answer, just RIGHT for you, or for your team...

~~~
ryanobjc
The article makes a very clear case against this notion that it's a personal
opinion. The problem is while you might like it, you also don't have a
continuing objective measure of your own costs of working in an open office
plan. For example, are you measuring your epinephrine levels?

As one of the developers who has a interruption surplus (get interrupted more
than I interrupt others), I really dislike open offices, they actively prevent
me from getting work done.

~~~
modoc
Not my epinephrine levels no, but RescueTime does let you know when you're
working more productively than others I guess.

The horror stories here seem to be giant rooms full of inconsiderate loud frat
boys.

My current office is 8-10 people, open plan, great inter-team communication,
and a pleasant atmosphere....

------
pixelcort
I'm curious about private offices and regions. While it was possible to find
companies in the Bay Area that offered private offices, I have yet to find any
here in Tokyo. I've assumed it's because real estate in Tokyo is more
expensive, but what about other cities around the world?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I work in Beijing and we have 4 desk cubicles in an open space (so you get
cubicle walls and around each quad. What is nice is that they put the open
office area around the exterior, so I got a window! In contrast, we have
offices for the level 65+ crowd, and they are quite unappealing to me because
of they are interior, no natural light windows. Now I just have to avoid
getting promoted.

~~~
pixelcort
When you say level 65, do you mean the 64th floor or seniority?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The latter, Microsoft speak.

------
bwsewell
I agree that the open office layout definitely hinders your ability to focus.
My current company has an open office but about 9 empty offices that people
can go into and focus if they need them. That has worked out well... people
utilize those often... I certainly do.

------
pbreit
As much ingenuity as there is in Silicon Valley I am amazed at how uninspiring
office layouts are, particularly the near dominance of the "open office".

Surely there are some companies trying out now "contrarian" layouts such as
cubes, offices, bull-pens, etc?

------
ykumar6
If you are getting disturbed in an open-office space, buy a set of good
quality headphones. Also, we use Slack internally. Set your status to busy and
no one is going to bother you.

------
runarb
One thing I am wondering is how much of the perceived benefits of an open
office are losses as the employees start to push back.

A couple of years ago I had the interesting opportunity to visit a new
startups offices frequently. They employs was about 50% developers and 50%
sales, where a lot of the sales was done on the phone. During a 1 year period
their environment changed dramatically:

* They first started with only laptops and a clean desk policy (at the end of the work day one had to remove everything and take ones laptop home). They also wanted a paperless office.

* Soon one developer started using an active noise cancellation headphone. Some laugh at first, but during the next 3 months everyone got hold of a pair for them self.

* Many then moved away from the active noise cancellation headphones to full earmuffs originally meant for indoors firearms shooting.

* More and more of the developers demanded desktop computers, because thus cannot be easily moved so they would get a de facto fixed seat.

* To remove visual noise, some started wearing sunglasses and turned the brightness of their monitors to maximum, so they could only see their two monitors when they looked around.

* A couple of mount out one got hold of a bookshelf to store some computer parts. He sat in a corner and quickly made a third wall with his new bookshelf. Soon everyone else also demanded their own bookshelf to.

* People then started to erect walls using ad hook materials like plants, empty soda bootless, spear desks and rack servers that had become redundant when stuff got moved to the cloud.

* Some of the sale people started to hang out in small groups in their cars. There they could smoke cigarettes, talk loud on the phones and surround them self with printouts. They looked a lot happier doing so :)

* One developer quit citing all the noise as the only reason he left. Another refuses to come in to the office, and instead suggested that the company should rent an office for him at a startup incubator nearby (I believe they eventually made some kind of compromise where he would work 3 days from home and 2 days at the office).

* Eventually the company was bought by a larger entity, but things deteriorated further, so almost everyone eventually left. The owners had signed a particularly bad earn-out agreement that severely punished them if there were any decrease in revenue, so when everyone left they only got about 20% of what they would have gotten if the company had stayed afloat.

All in all I believe the end result could have been very different if they had
had a better office layout. They sure at least did not save anything :)

------
DigitalSea
I have primarily worked in open plan offices and even though a few studies
have indicated that they are worse than closed office spaces, honestly
sometimes some environments thrive with open planned spaces, others do not.

I am currently in my mid twenties and most people in my age bracket have not
really experienced a non open plan office space, it is all they have ever
known. I have worked at a couple of corporate companies that were not open
plan and I noticed a few things.

People in non open plan offices tend to be more antisocial, this is more of an
observation than a proven fact. I worked for a media company and instead of
getting up and talking to a colleague in the office, people would just use
Skype even if the person was a 10 second walk away. Teams tend to stick to
themselves, people only associate with their own teams because non open plan
offices do not encourage collaboration or a social aspect.

Having said that, I do find at times open plan offices can be distracting. One
place I worked at had plush toys you could grab and put on your desk. If
someone had a plush toy sitting on their desk, you knew not to disturb them.
They didn't always work though, people who felt as though they had an
emergency that required your attention would still annoy you.

Not only that, but the same place also had a quiet space you could go work in,
considering everyone had laptops, this was possible. We had beanbags, a dim
lit part of the room with gentle lighting so the screens weren't harsh on your
eyes and all completely separate and somewhat soundproof from the hustle and
bustle of the open office area.

Don't get me started on what happens when someone new starts and people try
and find space, I call it the "open office shuffle" you are made to move along
to make space for a new colleague, I am not saying that non open offices don't
have the same problem, but it is more distracting in an open office
environment.

I think regardless of what kind of office setup you have, there are always
going to be issues. Most people have only ever known one or the other. If you
are used to your space, I can see how an open office could be a problem for
you at first, but if you have only ever really experienced open offices, then
you are probably aware and desensitised to all of the intricacies and issues
with them.

My favourite aspect of an open space as a developer is I feel like I am more
social with my work colleagues. I get to speak with people I probably wouldn't
speak with usually in a closed office environment. I can openly ask questions
and have discussions in person without using Skype or Google Hangouts and when
it comes to lunch, usually everyone eats together and pulls people away from
their computers forcing them to go and eat, instead of at their desk.

One solution to quell the issue of open office dilemmas could be to have
proper solutions in place; breakout rooms for people on a deadline who need to
concentrate, company supplied noise cancelling headphones, rule of no eating
at your desk (so people are not distracted by your lip smacking, chewing and
smell of food), no phone calls at your desk (if you want to make a call, go to
a quiet part of the building or outside) and finally if you are sick, stay
home and work if you can, otherwise rest.

~~~
georgemcbay
"instead of getting up and talking to a colleague in the office, people would
just use Skype even if the person was a 10 second walk away"

We all have different personalities and everyone is different, so I'm not
suggesting I'm right and you're wrong, but for me I don't see that as a
negative.

Receiving a skype (or other IM-type of service) query is far less intrusive to
my work than talking to someone in person at my desk. Better yet, ask me in an
email if you don't need the answer right away since email signals that you
don't expect an immediate response and maybe I'm deep in thought and answering
your question to a useful degree will pull me out of the 5 levels of
abstraction my brain is currently working under, losing me half an hour of
real work to get back to that point later.

On the flip side of your points I've found that open offices encourage people
to ask me questions that they could easily google and find the answer in about
as much time as it takes me to answer them, which means they are burning my
time (and more importantly, my focus/flow) wastefully. Not to mention they are
distracting everyone else around us as well. Multiply this by half a dozen
times or more per day and it really starts to be a productivity sink.

------
vacri
The regular classroom, not the 'open classroom', is the analogue of the open
office - a group of people with a common task, unseparated by walls. A private
tutor would be the educational equivalent of a private office.

Additionally, 'open-office' to me means OpenOffice, and while I can accept
that it doesn't to everyone, _be consistent_. It's one of the rules of good
journalism. The hyphen in the heading is not used in the article. Likewise, we
have 'nineteen-fifties' versus '1997'. The ironic bit about spelling out
'nineteen-fifties' in a non-conventional, inconsistent manner... is the phrase
in the article immediately following it... </oldmanrant>

~~~
VLM
With all due respect, the open office educational analogy is the cafeteria
study hall, with everyone walking around and gossiping and goofing off and
basically getting nothing productive done other than putting on a show.

If the open office full of distractions is the ideal working environment, then
when I get an emergency call from work, I assume I'll fix the emergency faster
if I take my laptop to the neighborhood daycare center and sit down right in
the highest chaos room. Oddly enough at home when no pretensions are necessary
because there is nobody to show off to, people who have to actual work, pick a
nice quiet closed door "office".

A lot of open office love comes from utterly incompetent management and its
very politically incorrect to discuss this other than semi-anonymous forums
like this. "I have no idea how to manage these people or how to convince them
to do what I want, but at least I can see them all squashed together like
sardines". If your standard of performance is low enough, mere visibility is
at least better than nothing.

~~~
modoc
Your open office experiences and mine are massively different. I guess that's
why two reasonable people can have different opinions on the subject.

I would go nuts if people were gossiping and being as chaotic as a daycare...
Luckily I've never run into that. Actually the worst gossip-y company I ever
worked at was a closed office/tall cubicle company.

------
the_cat_kittles
just based on the strongly divergent opinions, maybe this falls into the
category of "divisive yet inconsequential", like emacs vs vim or brace
placement?

~~~
pjlegato
That a question is controversial does not in itself imply that there is no
right answer and it's all just a matter of personal preference. The
controversy tells us mainly something about the people holding the divergent
opinions, such as the extent to which they embrace or reject the scientific
method, and the extent to which they are aware of what scientific research
exists.

Science evolved precisely as a way to avoid this social noise and find the
true status of the subject, through the use of empirical observation and
repeatable experiments that test specific hypotheses.

Could there be errors in these studies? Sure, and science has a process for
dealing with that possibility, too: create another experiment that empirically
falsifies one of their conclusions.

The whole point of the article is that the differences are not inconsequential
at all. Numerous academic studies have objectively measured many differences
in many different specific environments, and show that the open office is
worse in almost all ways related to running a successful business.

~~~
mkehrt
To hell with running a successful business. I'm interested in my happiness as
an employee, and an open plan office is a thousand times better for that.

Edit since I'm getting downvotes: All the articles I've seen about the pros
and cons of open plan offices mostly focus on productivity. But, as an
employee, I'm much more interested in my happiness than my productivity, above
a reasonable minimum. These sorts of articles tend to ignore that tradeoff.

This article does discuss happiness somewhat, but the results are less clear
than those for productivity. I think it's pretty clearly something people
disagree on, but this fact tends to get swept under the rug by authors who
focus on the productivity losses.

~~~
pjlegato
Er. According to the article, all of the studies also found that happiness as
an employee suffers on almost all metrics in open plan offices.

Having happy employees is a key aspect of running a successful business.

