
Ask HN: Why do we still use open floor plans? - saasinator
I read within a job description, &quot;...open floor plans inspire a constant exchange of ideas, advice, and banter.&quot;. Is it just me, or do all of those things make you cringe when you&#x27;re thinking about actually getting work done?
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nibs
I have noticed a strong trend away from doing actual work, towards cooperation
and collaboration as a means of increasing the upside of the small amount of
work that is actually done, to ensure it is worthwhile and relevant work being
done. People in knowledge work create tremendous, near infinite at times,
value - in a very small percentage of their work time. The majority of the
work is meta-work that enables those tiny periods of massive contribution, and
the balance is just hanging out.

~~~
itomato
That is a wonderful thing for the folks who have such a light workload.

In my experience, even operations and development teams are under this canopy.
Only execs and legal have doors, and the only sanctuaries are conference
spaces, which have time limits imposed.

On one hand, it is nice to "see daylight" as a member of an operations team.
Not sequestered in a windowless NOC, but as things go 'serverless', so does
our sanctum.

Headphones only do so much, whether on or off.

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douche
It's been 30 years since _Peopleware_ was published. If we haven't figured out
that giving people that have to solve hard problems peace and quiet and
adequate room to lay out their materials yet, I don't think we ever will.

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WorldMaker
Among many reasons, open floor plans are cheap. Offices require drywall and
doors and (re-)construction permits. Cubicle walls are surprisingly expensive
for how cheap they look. If you are looking to cut every cost you possible
can, open floor plans certainly cut costs.

~~~
Someone1234
If anyone was curious, $150 for a single straight cubicle wall, up to $1,500
for an "Office Space" style fully surrounded cubicle (inc. desk), and $5,100
for four cubicles (inc. desks and shared walls).

These are all generic grey looking ones, nothing fancy like tempered glass.

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colanderman
Isn't that peanuts compared to other employee overhead costs?

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CyberFonic
It is, but the management sees staff as a fungible resource. So why treat them
well when you have a glut of people wanting to work for you? - so they like to
believe.

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wmf
In decades past, it was predicted that people would work far less than 40
hours per week due to increases in productivity. Maybe that has happened, but
we just pretend it hasn't: people now spend hours a day discussing beer with
their coworkers in their open offices instead of working.

~~~
saasinator
Feels more like, "We couldn't afford to build offices or didn't feel like
spending money on that, so we'll give you a big cheap floor with lots of
distractions, but hey creativity and all that."

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danek
The book "Peopleware" discusses this. [https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-
Productive-Projects-Tom-De...](https://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-
Projects-Tom-DeMarco-ebook/dp/B00DY5A8X2/) Basically, open floor plans are
cheap and you can maximize metrics like $/person-sqft.

Other factors:

* "everyone else does it"

* Open floor plans seem like a good idea when you first hear them; the downsides are not immediately obvious. Verbal reasoning, no matter how flawed, almost always wins.

* The decision makers tend to be blissfully unaware of the dynamics of knowledge work because their work is typically interrupt-driven. Thus, they don't see any problem putting 50 programmers in a cramped and echoey gymnasium.

* Even if the decision maker is fully aware, their boss might not agree to a higher-cost office plan. Actual dollars will almost always beat non-metrics like "compounded employee productivity" or "time and money not wasted due to mistakes caused by people operating in a distracting environment".

\--Yes, in theory you could design an experiment, but that would delay the
decision and probably require spending money. And the outcome would probably
be misinterpreted: the open floor people will be louder and will appear to be
working harder. (But are they actually more productive or are they just
scrambling to fix all the bugs they created?)

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k__
Switched to remote work because of this.

~~~
selmat
Same here.

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eecks
I work in an open plan office and sometimes I find it annoying. If I come in
early, I get about an hour's peace. When people start coming in I hear
conversations about kids then sport.. then when people who sit closer to me
come in, I obviously have a quick morning chat with them.

The whole thing can be very distracting.

On the plus side, it's never lonely even when I am not talking to anyone. It's
easy to see if people are available. It's easier to go chat to people about
work.

~~~
EliRivers
"It's easier to go chat to people about work."

That's a plus for the person who wants to chat. It's a massive negative (far
outweighing the positive for the person who gets to chat right now instead of
in an hour's time) for the person who was several stacks deep in mental
context in chasing down some Heisenbug, or really involved in bashing out just
the right code with a head full of flowing understanding. Especially when it's
a chat that lasts thirty seconds.

~~~
jpindar
Sure...if you want to get things done. From what I can tell, most people
prefer to goof off as much as possible.

~~~
Aeolun
I'm going to assume that I'm working in a company that actually rewards
productive work.

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AnimalMuppet
It's a trade-off. Closed offices make deep thinking easier; open floor plans
make communication easier. Ideally, you want both, but how do you get it?

~~~
samblr
True. Although I prefer cubicles any day but communication is hard - 've seen
some have this way of treating as if u've invaded private space. I guess for
open office - a good noise cancelling headphone which one of my colleague used
to use is a need

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tracker1
Not even necessarily noise cancelling, if you're playing music, generally the
background gets drowned enough.

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CyberFonic
Because the management doesn't!

Notice how the further up the hierarchy you go the larger and better appointed
offices the managers have? They then hold their meetings in conference rooms,
or better still, swanky restaurants and clubs.

And all that is based on the revenue generated by the cube farm slaves.

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pfarnsworth
I love open floor plans. I've been working >10 years in cubicles, ~5 years in
offices and >5 years in open floor plans. My favorite has been open floor
plans. It's far more social and people are a lot more accessible. The other
benefit of open floor plans is that people can go elsewhere if they feel like
they don't want to be disturbed, so it's almost the best of both worlds.

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cauterized
In what companies can you go elsewhere if you don't feel like being disturbed?
My experience is always that the entire office is a single noisy room and
conference rooms are overbooked.

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back_beyond
You go to a coffee shop down the street or sit on the roof and cry.

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ruler88
I used to find open floor plans the most annoying thing in the world. People
would pop up behind/around me unannounced. However, since we started using
slack, such annoyance has declined dramatically. I wonder what will happen to
office planning with better communication tools around.

~~~
jpindar
The tools exist, and have for a long time. But unless you're the boss, there's
little you can do to get people to use them.

~~~
Aeolun
Even IF you are the boss it's difficult to force people to use communication
tools. We've tried a bunch of different things for our company and the only
one that actually stuck was Slack (for some reason).

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macscam
this is really typical. good luck finding a startup with cubicles or private
offices. It might be cheaper or maybe it's a design attempt to look effortless
and elegant.

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selmat
open floor plans can cause something like that:
[http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-
interrupt-...](http://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt-a-
programmer/)

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RIanDeLaCruz
The use of open floor plans could also be a choice towards company culture.

I work in an office with an open floor plan, and, most of the time, no one is
even talking.

The amount of work you could do in an open floor plan office might also depend
on the company culture.

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mrgreenfur
Because they are cheap.

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mohsinr
Headphones were invented to rescue you in open floor office ...

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brianwawok
Unless you happen to think best in silence....

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Avalaxy
Because some people (like me) don't want to be locked up in a boring cubicle
like chickens in a battery cage.

