
An office with "library rules" - rkudeshi
https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3357-an-office-with-library-rules
======
vitalique
I'm shocked at how many people here find loud environments to be totally OK,
some even preferring those to quiet ones.

If you are working in absolute silence and start to feel uncomfortably, you
can always introduce some custom noise, be it a rain sound or ocean shore or
noise of any color you like. Feeling chatty? Take Bob to a cooler and chat
what you want, he's a chatter, too. On the other hand, it is very problematic
(and really rarely effective) to just stand up in the middle of the noisy room
and ask everyone, however kindly you manage to do that, to shut up at least
for ten minutes, because you absolutely cannot concentrate in this goddamn
noise that's been driving you nuts since said Bob came in at 9:05.

The point being, I want to be in control of my sound environment. Preferably
without the need of earplugs or bulky headphones or other extreme measures
like showing up at 7 a.m. or staying late just to get some shit done when the
office is finally empty. I cannot concentrate, cannot even think clearly if
there is almost any kind of noise - chatter, music, phone talks nearby,
traffic noise from the street when the window is open or almost anything else,
including my own voice. I know a lot of folks that, like me, would rather
spend a night in the forest than an hour in the open space office.

From some comments I presume that it is probably impossible to convey to some
lucky people with their extreme tolerance towards loud sounds how
excruciatingly painful constant, unavoidable noise may be, but let me try
anyways: it is a real damn torture resulting in days of not zero but of
negative productivity. It's been my worst enemy at every place that I've
worked at (close second are constant distractions, but I think these two are
cousins), to the extent that my only special requirement for any job or
workplace now is: please, let me sit in a quiet place.

~~~
michaelochurch
You're not alone in this. Open-plan is a fucking disaster. I've thought about
getting together all the anxiety/panic sufferers out there for a class action
against all the companies with open-plan offices (greater than 10 employees;
below 10, you use the space you can get) that make it hard or socially
unacceptable to escape. The problem is that I'd be black-balling myself by
doing it, but it's a good idea and I hope someone does. I know a couple people
whose (long-term) panic problems were _caused_ by open-plan offices.

For me, it's open-back visibility. Noise I can shut out. Being visible gives
me the creeps. If I am going to be in a place for the amount of time equal to
a trans-Atlantic plane ride, then give me a goddamn decent space rather than
treating my flight-or-fight response as your own personal toy. Asshole.

~~~
Nursie
Open plan is fine, even for large offices, so long as everyone knows that
quiet is the rule. I've worked in huge rooms with 70+ engineers and it was
next to silent. Those that wanted noise put headphones on.

I'm not sure what's up with the anxiety - are you constantly trying to hide
that you're on the web all the time and getting nervous as a result?

~~~
michaelochurch
_I'm not sure what's up with the anxiety - are you constantly trying to hide
that you're on the web all the time and getting nervous as a result?_

I am somewhat of a misanthrope. I don't trust most people. I don't expect them
to trust me. They shouldn't trust me if they don't know me, especially if the
stakes are high. Much of the answer to the ubiquitous question, "Why Does Work
Suck?" is that the stakes are just too high to trust anyone. The activity of
work isn't so bad. The social bullshit and paranoia are intolerable.

I wouldn't let 20+ strangers in my house, 5 days per week. I resent that I
have to let so many people-- even though there's nothing wrong with them as
people, it's more that I don't know them and I have no choice-- into my
career. It's not a problem with the people as people. The people _themselves_
are fine. (They're in the same miserable, cramped boat that I am in.) I just
resent being visible and the constant second-by-second impression management
makes it hard to get anything done. I spend 90% of my emotional energy on
appearing productive and that leaves little for actually being productive, and
it sucks.

~~~
ebassi
> I am somewhat of a misanthrope.

you use that word. I don't think it means what you think it means - or that it
has the implications that you think it has; I am a misanthrope, but that does
not influence my reaction to the floor plan of the office I work in. actually,
I'd most likely go insane in a cubicle farm. there are ways around to signal
that you don't want to be disturbed in an open space.

given that you write:

> I don't trust most people. I don't expect them to trust me.

followed by:

> The social bullshit and paranoia are intolerable.

I do assume that you're referring to your own paranoia, here...

> [snip the rest of the workplace description]

... which leads me to think your problem is not the office planning, or your
social issues (with or without medications): I think it's your current job. my
entirely serious suggestion is to either change it, or ask to work remotely,
if you still think that you'd enjoy it more (and if they don't allow remote
work, I'd seriously consider changing jobs anyway).

~~~
michaelochurch
I was exaggerating the anger and grumpiness.

That said, open-plan signals to me that the company doesn't actually value
_productivity_ so much as image and _availability_. This is something that I
have learned with age not to take personally, but I still dislike it.

~~~
Nursie
That's just what it signals to you. To others it signals a healthy
environment. If you have a problem with it I seriously suggest you take it up
with your management, but I very much doubt that their thought process was
anywhere close to the one you describe. If it was they'd be shooting
themselves in the foot deliberately.

------
jwwest
Americans don't value silence the way other cultures do (I'm an American btw).
I'm not sure if it has to do with the ratio of introverts to extroverts, or if
it's simply that we're an individualistic culture, but often I strain to hear
in a restaurant these days. Anecdotally, I've noticed that the higher end
restaurants tend to be quieter. Not sure if this is because of clientele or
the higher quality construction of such places blocking more sound.

While I was in Japan, I noticed that it was quite possible (and many did) to
take a nap in McDonald's. Conversations indoors tended to be very reserved.

As a country, I think we're getting louder. I've brought a Decibel Meter with
me before and seen it hit north of 70dB. This constant level of noise
everywhere we go can't be good for our hearing.

~~~
derekp7
It doesn't take much sound dampening to significantly lower the sound in a
public place, due to the positive feedback loop. Take a restaurant with tile
floors and cheap ceilings -- not only does that make it louder, but people
have to then talk louder to be heard. And that in turn makes the volume even
louder yet. And table cloths really make a big difference also.

Another thing that can affect volume is the density of tables in a restaurant
-- same feedback loop in place. If you can't hear the conversation at the
table next to you, then you can speak in a lower voice also.

~~~
fusiongyro
Some of that is intentional. I've heard lore about people eating faster and
getting out sooner if the restaurant is louder.

Also heard lore about casinos using extremely bright and dizzying carpet
designs to get you to avert your eyes from the floor, and onto the gambling
equipment.

~~~
up_and_up
"the carpets are deliberately designed to obscure and camouflage gambling
chips that have fallen onto the floor. The casinos sweep up a huge number of
these every night. So the carpets are just another source of revenue."

[http://gizmodo.com/5628834/the-ugly-carpets-of-vegas-are-
hid...](http://gizmodo.com/5628834/the-ugly-carpets-of-vegas-are-hideously-
clever-social-engineering-at-work)

~~~
roel_v
Would there be money in machine vision to recognize fixed-layout outliers on
regular patterns (i.e., fallen chips on the carpet) and scouring casino floors
for a night?

~~~
alexkus
Not if you read the second update to that page.

------
roberthahn
I'm amazed that this post has proven to be controversial. Let me relate my
perspective as a profoundly deaf person working in an open-plan office space.

When I bring up the fact that the environment is too noisy, the number one
suggestion people make is "why don't you turn off your hearing aids?" This is
not practical for a number of reasons.

With my hearing aids off, I will not hear you. Which you might argue is kind
of the point, but the moment you want to engage me in conversation, you'll
wish that I somehow "just knew" when to make an exception, and respond, rather
than (unintentionally, I assure you) treat you rudely by ignoring you. I've
been ignored before, and I know other (hearing) people who have been ignored.
I know how it feels and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Then there's the isolation. This may sound familiar to you: there was a link
on HN pointing to David Peter's "Being Deaf"
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4001727>). If you haven't done so, be
sure to check it out. The big takeaway is the feeling of isolation he feels in
the workplace. That isolation is real. I have to fight it too. Turning off my
hearing aids makes this worse, not better.

Turning off the aids is unsafe too. With my aids off, I will not hear a fire
alarm. I speak from experience -- I had someone come to fetch me because I
didn't have my hearing aids in when the alarm went off.

Some of you may have read Mike Mackenzie's "My journey to a cochlear implant"
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4883252>) The big takeaway here is how
much effort is needed by someone who is deaf in order to 'signal process'
their way through a conversation. Even with my aids on, I have to make a
strong effort just to get through conversations.

Hearing isn't a skill I could get better at if I just practice. The signal I
hear is garbled; if I can't ungarble it, then my choices are to get you to
repeat what you said clearly (not loudly), or give up.

So. If I should ever get the opportunity to work with any of you noisy,
chatty, extremely talented people, I hope you won't mind so much if I ask you
to follow ‘library rules’.

------
aaronz8
Is it too much to ask everyone to get used to it? I used to think that "this
is just the way I am" and "I can't change" until I was forced to be adaptable,
so here are some of my personal experiences:

I used to not be able to sleep if there was any light at all. Even regular
curtains were not good enough, they had to be the ones that blocked out all
light from outside. I sometimes would wake up just because someone turned on
the light in the hallway, because it leaked under my door. I also had to turn
my computer off, because the whirring of the fans would keep me wide awake.

And then I entered college.

People here are up 24 hours a day. Even I, during some weeks, am nocturnal due
to homework. I never had a roommate, but I would wake up due to my neighbors
roommates. I HAD to adapt, or else I wouldn't be able to survive. With this
mentality, I was able to adjust myself so that I could sleep wherever,
whenever. (reminds me of the "Everything is my fault" article from yesterday")

I feel like this situation is similar. If you find yourself not to be able to
concentrate in a certain environment, find something you must do and do it in
that environment. Train yourself so that you can concentrate any time and any
where. Give less excuses for yourself to procrastinate, and feel awesome at
the same time for being so productive.

~~~
jamesmiller5
Sure, we all have to adapt when we don't have control over our environment but
the situation in the article is a bit different than your own as the author
and the authors peers all agree to a mutually beneficial behavior in an
environment they fully control.

Presumably, they now have a better working environment when adhering to the
rules collectively rather than each of them individually trying to adapt. The
noise level in the office is akin to a tragedy of the commons and this is
their solution.

------
cjensen
At this moment, I have earplugs in with headphones over them. All because our
tech support guy does not have an "indoor voice." It's very hard to be
creative sometimes with nonsense going on around you.

~~~
Puer
I spend most of my day in the library at my school (it's the only place I can
study between classes.) Even though it's a "library," the administrators don't
enforce any of the noise rules, and it's (ironically) one of the noisiest
places on the campus.

There's one group who comes in every single morning and literally shout to
communicate with each other. I've complained about them multiple times but
nothing has been done. So what I've started doing is bringing two pairs of
headphones: My Sennheiser in-ear buds and my Sony over-ear noise cancelling
headphones. With both of them on and some Miles Davis playing softly in the
background I can effectively block out all other noise.

~~~
keithpeter
I'd follow this one up in a more formal way with the Librarians. There should
be a range of environments to support different learning modes.

In the city I live in, we have three Universities, and all of them have a
'zoned' approach. An outer work area where anything goes, some rooms where
talking is allowed, and an inner quiet zone that is strictly enforced. People
seem to find their equilibrium points.

The three institutions vary in standing and clientèle. The Russell Group
University has the largest silent zone and small peripheral anything goes
zones. The situation is reserved for the 'community' University, with a small
silent zone. The technical university has about equal quiet and noisy anything
goes zones with a sort of 'sensible talking' buffer zone in the middle.

~~~
RegEx
My university library also has different "zones", with plenty of posters to
remind you what zone you're in and what communication methods are appropriate.

~~~
keithpeter
But no enforcement in the quiet zones? Then that is a simple failure of
service level agreement and should be pursued through the normal complaint
procedures. If an organisation _says_ they do something, then they should _do_
it!

~~~
RegEx
I'm legitimately confused what you even mean by this comment. When did I say
it wasn't enforced? Did you reply to the wrong comment?

~~~
keithpeter
The confusion is mine, I assumed that _your_ comment was a second reply by
Puer.

------
ragweed
My local library observes "coffee shop rules." People sit with their laptops
and take phone calls from wherever they receive them. Even the librarians are
loud. It's fucking bullshit.

~~~
davidvaughan
I noticed my local library got rid of about fifty percent of its few remaining
books a couple of weeks ago. The extra space means the body of the building is
now devoted to activities relating to schools, I think.

As somebody who once did work experience here: <http://tinyurl.com/d28gxz4>, I
was a bit puzzled to be in an almost bookless library.

I suspect "coffee shop rules" are the future of libraries.

~~~
jff
My local library has a coffee shop in it.

Luckily there are lots of books, I haven't seen them removing any.

~~~
ShawnBird
_Luckily there are lots of books, I haven't seen them removing any._

Why is this lucky? Are the books being used?

~~~
jff
Actually yes! It's a pretty nice place.

~~~
ShawnBird
Oh, never mind. I have seen some libraries that have very low usage rates of
books compared to computers and I would not mourn a scaling down of their
books on hand as long as they kept a strong catalog.

------
stuff4ben
Imagine working for a company that makes a conferencing product that likes to
eat it's own dog food. Imagine lazy coworkers who sit next to each others
cubicles yet dial into said conference call product and proceed to have their
meetings from the comfort of their seats. Annoying doesn't come close to it.

~~~
callmeed
Apologies for being dense, but I don't fully understand your metaphor.

Is 37s also annoying because they do something similar? Or, are they solving
an annoying problem which you're describing?

~~~
MattSayar
I think he's just complaining about his workplace.

------
tsuyoshi
It's a nice sentiment, but I must quibble with one assertion: "Everyone knows
how to behave in a library."

I can say from experience in many libraries that not everyone understands
library rules. There's an old stereotype about black people not shutting up in
a movie theater. There's a lot of truth to it, but it's not just black people,
and it's not just in movie theaters.

And then there are the libraries, growing in number over time, that have
simply abandoned the ideal of silence. Most libraries still ban loud talking,
cell phone use, music, etc. but now some of them tolerate it and some even
encourage it. Some of these noisy libraries designate a quiet area, but it
tends to feel like an anachronistic throwback, designed to mollify the people
who aren't coming to the library just to hang out.

I think in the future the phrase "library rules" will not mean what you might
think, if it still means anything at all.

~~~
jerf
"There's an old stereotype about black people not shutting up in a movie
theater. There's a lot of truth to it, but it's not just black people, and
it's not just in movie theaters."

That seems like a strangely incendiary way of saying there's a lot of people
who don't know when to be quiet....

------
flatline
This is essentially a one-line blog post and is basically just spam. Even as a
developer I've had to spend significant portions of my day on the phone, which
you can't really do in a library-quiet voice. Many offices don't have adequate
amounts of dedicated rooms for this, and it is not very practical to abandon
your desk for a significant portion of the day to do work.

~~~
route3
>This is essentially a one-line blog post and is basically just spam.

I've often thought about what makes 37Signals blog, Signal vs. Noise, so
popular and attractive. What's interesting about their blog is that they never
post about managing projects or how to organize your contacts. You know, the
problems/solutions related to their popular products. This is an important
lesson.

(Visit <http://37signals.com/svn/popular> -> Ctrl-F "project management" -> 0
results)

All too often, startups dedicate time/money to a blog with post after post
about the problem that their software solves or a very closely related
subtopic. What 37Signals does is blog _to their audience_. Who is their
audience? The Fortune 5 Million, or the millions of small, profitable
businesses out there.

When these millions of companies and businesses need project management
software, they're going to look to the guys that have been teaching them all
along how to run a hip, cool business that operates counterintuitive to more
"traditional" business rules (see Rework). The majority of people who punch in
their credit card number for a Basecamp subscription don't know what Ruby on
Rails is. Believe it or not, they know of 37Signals from posts like this.

If you're a business owner, growth hacker (sorry...) or blogger looking for
more page hits you should have a simple text file that contains the fears,
desires, wants, needs and emotions of your audience in both personal and
professional contexts. Write so that your audience knows you understand their
feelings and emotions. They'll keep coming back for more. And if you're done a
fair job of aiming your audience scope, a majority of your blog visitors will
be interested in what you're offering.

~~~
fbuilesv
_What's interesting about their blog is that they never post about managing
projects or how to organize your contacts. You know, the problems/solutions
related to their popular products._

Although I agree with most of the other things you said, this particular
paragraph is not true. Over the last couple of months (starting with
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3194-backstage-an-inside-
look...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3194-backstage-an-inside-look-at-how-
we-use-basecamp) I think) they've published several Basecamp projects showing
how they use it. It's not only a write-up either, you can go into the actual
BC project and see it's entire history.

------
abalashov
I personally would find this oppressive and unpleasant. That's not to say that
my concentration is better served by working at a rock concert, but "library
rules" are robotic, not particularly humanity-affirming.

The offices in which I've gotten the most work done had a low to midlevel din
of casual conversations and banter, like a place that lets humans be the
social animals they are, while still encouraging some kind of collective
respect for the idea of getting work done. It's a hard balance to adhere to
consistently, but I'd rather struggle with the vacillation than work in a
library.

In fact, this is the very reason I gave up working at home after two years:
it's too quiet. You can hear a pin drop. A library to me has the ambiance of a
funeral home, and encourages similarly dark thoughts. Needless to say, I got a
lot more done in an office with an officemate, where we were both banging away
at our keyboards and casually chit-chatting all day.

~~~
swah
With one coworker I believe its perfect, because any of the two can end the
conversation.

When its 6, though, you get caught up in conversation from the other folks,
just when you're trying to get into flow.

~~~
NegativeK
There's a happy median.

Don't throw darts at employees who don't engage in dart throwing. Don't be
excessively loud. Don't drum on other people's desks.

On the flipside: don't get angry when people aren't enforcing library rules
around you. Use headphones as a signal that you don't wish to be disturbed
(and to block out noise, obviously.)

Et cetera.

~~~
swah
Well, I'm easily disturbed... If people start discussing something and
laughing, I always end up too curious not to take my headphones off and
participate...

------
mapgrep
It's perverse to put people in a collaborative open plan office and make them
be quiet. Quiet, focused employees do not need to be there; they can work from
home or a closed office. And they should absolutely be empowered to do so.

This smells like a "hurry in and shut up" situation. While it's better to have
_quiet_ crammed mandatory office hours than loud ones, it's even better to
keep people who need solitude out of the bullpen entirely.

------
jdavis703
Sometimes I've wished for this, but I think it would ultimately stifle
collaboration. Instead it would be nice if more open floor plan offices had
study carrels -- places you could go when you need quite to focus.

~~~
stock_toaster
I think they are called 'offices'.

If the door is open, come on in. If the door is shut, and something is on
fire, knock. If the door is shut, and something is not on fire, seek
alternative means (email, ask someone else, etc).

Honestly, if people can work remotely, why can't they work from the office in
a room with an actual door? I am not sold on open floor plans, but if that is
what you end up with, I would at least prefer a quiet one.

~~~
mgkimsal
Almost every place I've been... developers with doors is just a no-no. Call me
cynical, but I think it's really a status symbol for management (at least, in
most of the places I've seen inside of).

If people _really can_ do productive coding work with 4 people within 10 feet
of them all having separate phone conversations, great, let them stay in the
open bullpen-style areas. For others who need some modicum of quiet and non-
visual stimulation, give an office with a door that closes things out.

But if you did that, there'd be very little visual status between a CFO and a
developer.

Those who insist on developers being in open bullpen areas would do well to
try to do their own work out in the same area for a month. They'd see just how
hard it is, and how much unproductive stuff actually goes on in many
situations.

~~~
keithpeter
_"Those who insist on developers being in open bullpen areas would do well to
try to do their own work out in the same area for a month. "_

Alas, the managers in one College I worked in were doing manager schedule
stuff, so when they did the 'work out on the front desk' thing one day a week,
they did fine...

~~~
mgkimsal
one day per week isn't enough (as we both know). long term projects require
long term concentration. From what I've seen, most good 'management' stuff is
communication and collaborative, but somehow that earns a 100% door, but the
people who need the quiet concentration are forced to sit next to people who
eat at their desk and talk on the phone.

I'm not even meaning just developers here - I've known accountants/financial
people who complained about ability to concentrate when sharing a cubicle with
others.

Offices simply need to have a decent number of private office spaces that
people can move in to when they need 'alone' time, open collaboration areas,
and larger closed off meeting areas for small group meetings. People beyond
software devs would benefit from this too, but it doesn't seem to be a high
priority for office planners and managers. :/

------
trentmb
I prefer a loud workplace to a quiet one.

A single noise grabs your attention in a quiet workplace.

In a loud one, it all just becomes background noise and is easy to ignore.

~~~
jasonfried
Silence is not the same as quiet. Our office isn't silent. It's softly quiet.

~~~
stevewillows
How did you go about starting a culture of library rules though? Did it
naturally start like that or was there a defining moment where it was
addressed?

------
up_and_up
Is it just me or are the 37S blog posts getting shorter and shorter? Can we
expect to be reading haikus from them in 6 months?

~~~
fbuilesv
Out of curiosity, does this bother you? I'm sometimes glad when authors take
the time to be concise and put their ideas out there in the shortest way
possible while still being interesting.

~~~
up_and_up
No, I am just noting the change. Actually, it seems like when they changed to
the 'new' blog template, which is less condensed on the page, their posts
decreased in length.

------
greggman
Meh! To each their own. I turned down a job at Nintendo's branch office in
Tokyo because it was too quiet.

Quiet = boring to me. On the other hand most of my experience comes from games
and the teams that were the most fun were the ones where we were all in the
same room and could look over each others shoulders and collaborate on design.

We weren't loud but we also weren't quiet.

------
Offler
The problem may be down to their poor conversations.

We have both wide ranging general knowledge and focused technical
conversations in my office involving groups of people and I would be sad to
lose that.

Talk about something that can deliver value or engage people and then the
conversations are worthwhile.

" Sarah Houghton 10 Dec 12

The ironic thing is that as a librarian, I can tell you that for the last
decade (at least) most libraries don’t enforce “library silence.” We encourage
people to talk, to collaborate, to discuss. As long as you’re not annoying the
hell out of the people around you, we encourage a low level of conversation
and noise. "

~~~
manuelflara
At my old company, before we moved into a bigger, modern space where all
developers fit in the same huge room, we were all split into 3 or 4 different
spaces. At first I was in this room with another 8-10 developers. We would
have conversations through the day. Sometimes technical but offtopic,
sometimes about our infrastructure (someone helping someone else fix a bug)
and sometimes just plain offtopic/fun. For some reason I moved to a different
room with different developers around me. Soon, I learned that that whole
"talk normally while people beside you are working" thing wasn't the norm
there, so I stopped, and it was quite a "library rules" place to work, to
describe it using the article's words. Now, I was sad to lose all those
conversations, but I became a heck of a lot more productive.

------
nicholassmith
How about this, a library with grownup, sensible rules. I've worked in library
rules offices before and it often seems to discourage random chats and
conversational runoffs that can help push code forward.

Loud offices = not a great work environment, learn to understand when silence
is needed, give people the space they need to work.

------
hnriot
Sounds like an awful place to work. While i'm all for productivity, I have
never seen it correlated with office volume, either positively or negatively.
For as long as phones sit on desks, this policy sounds ridiculous.

~~~
meej
one of the best things about my office is that there are no phones on desks.

------
TeMPOraL
I wonder, how do people do pair programming in quiet offices? Those two
things, both regarded by many as desirable and positive, seem to be at odds
with each other.

~~~
joshuacc
Perhaps using small rooms rather than in an open area?

------
exodust
Not a sensible idea due to the fact that a library is about reading books, an
office is about doing work. Office work requires communication - on phone, in
person. The nature of high-pressure business environments means lots of
passionate conversations, debates, having a laugh to ease tension... I cannot
think of anything worse than blocking the natural office environment with
artificial rules designed for a completely different purpose.

------
happywolf
As can be seen there are people who like noise and those who like quietness.
Actually this problem can be resolved as long as a company has enough sound-
proofing rooms: for type 1, just lock yourself in a big room with those who
like noise, if there isn't enough people, there are a lot of noisy
local/Internet radio stations to play with. For type 2, the solution is the
same, stay in the room for quietness.

------
Philadelphia
Ugh. I'm working in an office now that's library-like. It's totally
oppressive. I'm afraid to open my mouth, because anything I say will be heard
by absolutely everyone else. As a result, no one asks any questions, no one
discusses problems, and I can go a whole day without any human interaction.
It's really torturous.

~~~
smspence
I would LOVE to work in an office like that. Mine is so noisy, it drives me
insane and I cannot concentrate on my work.

------
vvpan
I would like to disagree. I have found that an office that is too quite is an
office where people probably don't communicate much, and is not a healthy
environment. And it's the office where people sit by each other's desks all
the time is where work gets done. Of course there are extremes to everything,
though.

~~~
j-kidd
> And it's the office where people sit by each other's desks all the time is
> where work gets done.

Then I wonder how projects like Linux kernel, KDE, Python, etc manage to get
any work done.

In software development, I think the most important communication needed is to
do everything in the open. This means things like a ticketing system so that
everyone knows what everyone else is working on, a continuous integration
system that permits deployment only if all tests pass, a wiki system to share
various insights, etc.

Currently, I work in an open plan. Information hoarding is the norm here,
despite chatters going on all days long. Open communication is a concept that
has nothing to do with open plan.

~~~
kyllo
I agree, you can have openness without a lot of talking, and you can have a
lot of talking without openness. The two might be correlated, but not as
strongly as one might thing. Information sharing and openness are what you
want to promote, and it's the culture, not the seating plan, that either
promotes or stifles it.

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rileyt
I listen to headphones almost the entire day, but when I want to have a
conversation with someone, I sure as hell don't want to have to go to some
meeting room to have it. It just seems like asking your employees not to
communicate...

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perlpimp
get a pair of noise canceling headphones and get to work. I like quiet space
to work in as well and I see need for work places where people can communicate
in the most comfortable way. I suppose there should be quiet working rooms for
people that do really need the silence. I use AudioTechnical ATH-ANC23 and
they are fantastic: portable, enegry efficient and work well without battery
power to get to a quieter space within noisy working environment.

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torqueador
We tried aromatherapy and soothing water sounds - they helped immensely. Our
productivity went up. Particularly effective were gingerbread aroma and brook
sounds.

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chrisdone
I like how the part of the page that's original content is shorter than the
rest which is gaudy advertisement and brand promotion.

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gadders
Has anyone ever had any success with a "Don't interrupt me if I have a red hat
on/raise a flag/etc as I need to concentrate"?

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infoseckid
An office with "jail rules"

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Nordvind
I'd like to have a look at such office. That's strange that such an idea is
not popular, I have yet to see a person that doesn't enjoy working in library.

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cmccabe
How about an office with "cubicles." Problem solved.

