
Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices - merraksh
https://www.dezeen.com/2017/08/10/apple-park-campus-employees-rebel-over-open-plan-offices-architecture-news/
======
CydeWeys
At work, I currently sit in an enclosed room that fits eight SWEs, all of whom
are on my team. We have sliding glass doors on the room that we only use when
we're having our stand-ups so as to not disturb the people outside the room.
Incoming noise never seems to be a problem. All of the conversations I
overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me. I also have my
back facing a wall. I consider this a near ideal working environment, even
better than everyone having private offices, as that seriously hampers
spontaneous discussion.

In another month we'll be moving out from our room into the general open
office seating area, which I'm not looking forward to. It's not even the noise
that bothers me, it's the raw animal insecurity of having things going on
behind your back. I get horribly distracted in a big open area when people are
moving around behind me, and I thus can't concentrate effectively. I also feel
self-conscious about what others can see on my screen, and can never relax. I
feel a low-level anxiety from it throughout the entire work day.

~~~
andrewflnr
> raw animal insecurity of having things going on behind your back

Finally, someone else who gets it. When I've mentioned this, people tend to
assume it's just about what's on your screen, but that's really not the heart
of it.

~~~
dleslie
I once was placed with my back to the entrance doors of the office, which
frequently had people coming and going. HR and IT were both in arms when I
rotated my desk around.

~~~
CydeWeys
That desk situation sounds like my worst nightmare.

------
tomohawk
Such a failure to learn. The US school system went through this with "open
classrooms". Schools were built to support the idea of no walls between
classrooms. For years, teachers trying to maintain sanity erected temporary
dividers. These days, most of those schools have been rehabbed to include
actual walls, or they've been demo'd. Such a waste.

~~~
madengr
Ugh, I went to a horrible elementary school like that, in the 70's, in rural
VA. When my parents complained, she was told "these kids were destined for
factory work, so the noise was not an issue". That shithole of a school is
still there. I wonder if they added interior walls?

[http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us](http://bhe.frederick.k12.va.us)

They pulled me out of 2nd grade and put me in private school where we had an
orderly array of desks facing a black board. Had to start over again in 1st
grade, since they were much ahead. The teacher kept our class in order; it was
peaceful and quiet. I really excelled in that environment.

------
acty1
Once you work remotely (and you have your own office, in your own house) you
feel bad, terribly sorry for anyone that stays in an open office "cultured"
tech company making 200k+ per year.

The quality of life and lack of freedom you exchange for the "next 100k" above
and beyond a 100k base Salary is never worth it.

Time and health is your most precious resource and asset. And many are deluded
into thinking it's ok to trade that for (what they mistakingly) thing is a lot
of money (hint: it's not when taking taxes, commute and accomodation into
account)

~~~
peferron
Don't assume that your own preferences apply to everyone.

I worked remotely for a few years, with my own dedicated room/office in my
home, and am much happier now that I moved back to our company office even
though it has an open-floor plan. I enjoy face-to-face contact with my
coworkers, and the light level of noise really doesn't distract me from my
work—if anything, the surrounding activity motivates me.

We don't all thrive in the same environments. The best you can do is find out
what environment is best for you and then work for companies (or start your
own) that provide this environment.

Edit: since you're also mentioning health and commuting, I bike 30-45 mins
each way with most of it on a shoreline trail. It's a net positive for my
health since I know I wouldn't exercise as much otherwise. If I had to commute
1 hour or more by car, then I would likely agree with you—I completely despise
long car commutes and would rather work from home at this point.

~~~
piva00
The same for me, worked for almost 2 years remotely and thoroughly missed
having co-workers, face-to-face communication and discussions. You lose a
whole level of expressiveness being remote, doesn't matter what tools you try
to use to mitigate that (video-conference doesn't cover having a whiteboard to
draw and people interacting, virtual whiteboards are clunky to use with a
trackpad/mouse, etc.).

The perfect situation for me would be to have an office where I can go to when
I feel like or it's necessary and working from home whenever I can.

I also like pairing or mob-programming a lot and still haven't found a proper
solution to do those remotely.

~~~
fapjacks
Using Zoom is totally fine for pair/mob programming, but if you want a
collaborative IDE, Cloud9 offers this functionality, and everybody on the task
can hop onto Zoom (or really anything) in order to facilitate the audio/video.
People behave as though there is no way to do this because of their
_preference_ for doing it live (the "proper solution"). But this is
_absolutely_ possible and I would say actually better facilitated using these
tools than everybody gathered 'round a single machine. Anybody can jump in at
any moment and make a comment and a change and have it immediately propagated
to everyone else's screen. No need for "Let me sit in the chair" or taking
five minutes to nitpick over the minutiae of programming to convey an idea.

------
Spooky23
I have a really bad feeling about Apple and this building.

Companies tend to have bad things happen when they build or move HQ anyway,
and the fetishization of Apple Park is a level beyond.

Even their product marketing is distracted by talking about how awesome the
building is. How much time has been wasted in the company on the topic?

~~~
desireco42
My thought exactly, nature of many organizations changed when they moved to
new fancy offices. Being in crammed offices, sharing and collaborating with
your colleagues makes things special.

------
noir_lord
I'm moving my office at work from a nice office next to the production office
(noisy, people banging in and out all day) to a much bigger windowless space
on the other site across the road _just because of the noise_.

Boss keeps asking if I'm OK with no windows and I keep saying "Have you ever
seen me with the blinds open?", It's amazing how even good managers don't get
that for some of us a cave with fast internet is the _best_ environment.

~~~
wpietri
Yes, noise is a total productivity killer for me. I can't think, and thinking
is most of my job! And what people designing offices never seem to understand
is that noise is situational, relational.

Some of my best working experiences have been in open-plan space with shared
tables. And some of my worst have too. The difference is whether the people
around me share the same definitions of "signal" and "noise".

If the only people in earshot are my team, we quickly work out a shared sense
of what's good to talk about in the team space.

But if the people in earshot are on different teams, it's a fucking nightmare.
We have very different understandings of what "signal" is. E.g., to a
recruiter or someone in sales, "signal" is loud, emotionally intense
conversations. But to me that's the worst kind of noise. And there's little
social context for negotiating shared use.

------
codyb
Good.

Apple is one of my favorite companies. I just absolutely love what they're
doing and have done in terms of personal privacy.

I'm really disheartened that they've moved to an open office layout. It's a
surefire way to lose huge amounts of productivity from their engineers.

Open office layouts are a travesty. They make literally no fucking sense. As
engineers we're expected to maintain abstractions in our minds which can span
hundreds if not thousands of lines of code.

So why would you put us in the middle of a fucking zoo?

I can hear sports TV while I try to work. I can hear my friends/coworkers
shoot the shit about the new South Park or Game of Thrones episode while I
work. I can hear people talk about their weekend plans while I work. I can
hear my coworkers planning projects I'm not involved in as I work.

And here I am, expectected, as a full stack engineer, to abstract complex data
flows while all of this is going on.

To produce, while all of this is going on.

And do not forget that even if every single person was a deaf mute, their mere
presence can knock me out of the zone.

I remember college. I remember working on projects and losing track of time.
Because back then I had a room where I could work without distraction. Boy,
how wonderful, to be so absorbed as to forget how much time has passed.

I literally have never felt that in an open office layout. It sucks. I love
what I do. Why take that pleasure away from us?

It burns me out.

~~~
maxxxxx
I work in cubicles but the noise is also driving me crazy. There is always
some conversation going on somewhere. In the office I am having more and more
trouble holding on to a complex thought and in the evening I am totally
exhausted. On the other hand working from home feels like paradise. It's quiet
and I can look out the window when I need a break.

Because of the office environment I am now looking for a new job, either
remote or an office. Open space has turned work from being interesting to
plain misery and exhaustion for me.

~~~
vslira
I know this may sound like a poor substitute to private corporate space, but I
can't praise enough the combination of noise reducing earplugs and active
noise cancelling over earphones.

This combo plus somafm and a pomodoro timer app can instantly boost my
productivity

~~~
protomyth
> active noise cancelling over earphones

Some folks cannot wear those without discomfort or dizziness. I tried them out
an fell into that category (I have some ear issues) which is damn annoying
because my brother loves them for airplane rides.

Right now, I am in an office with my back to a window that looks out to
insulation[1]. I'm pretty comfortable programming away.

1) they added a building expansion where my outside view was and we haven't
gotten around to replacing the window with a shelf. I think I might add a
moonscape, grain field, or some historical reservation appropriate image.

~~~
sitkack
Get some action figures and make a diorama of happy people throwing a frisbee
in the park.

~~~
protomyth
I'm going more for freaking out the students than any up-up feel of a window.

Truthfully, I rather like not having a window behind me. I see several posters
in this discussion who sound like that is preferable. Maybe we have a paranoid
streak our just don't like people looking over our shoulders. The fact I
handle some confidential information also makes me happier to not have a large
viewing port behind me. Plus, I suppose I've seen one too many horror films
and already had a "only idiots in horror films do that" moment.

------
heisenbit
Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture
of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural
experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture
with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me.

On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How
was that supposed to preserve and foster the engineering culture? Apple is the
company where walls and secrets are not accident but carefully designed. I
could imagine a part of the organization going to open floor but the whole
building?

~~~
justherefortart
For all the loving of open offices, I've never seen an exec that works in an
open area themselves. I heard about one, but never saw it with my own eyes.

This is in 30+ years of working.

~~~
maxxxxx
Me neither. I am still waiting for the company where all the VPs sit along one
table elbow to elbow.

------
bjourne
> "Judging from the private feedback I've gotten from some Apple employees,
> I'm 100 per cent certain there's going to be some degree of attrition based
> on the open floor plans, where good employees are going to choose to leave
> because they don't want to work there," Gruber said.

But where are they going to go? Is there a single company left that hasn't
adopted the open floor plan ideology? If so, are they hiring because I'd like
to send in my resume. :/

~~~
TeMPOraL
This. I so strongly wish companies would start including their office
arrangement in the job description. It would make it easier for me to avoid
open-plan places, and it would let those who like them avoid offices/cubicles
- thus making it more likely employees will feel good and thus work at peak
productivity. It would also let the industry gather some real feedback about
people's preferences. I don't really see a downside of including that info.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
It's a great idea - as there are very few these companies, their ads would
stand out. Honestly, I don't know one single developer who loves open-plan
places and wouldn't like to have a quiet room to work in. Most just wear
headphones and try to eliminate cognitive noise in every way they can.

~~~
classybull
I enjoy them. It strikes me as extremely odd that the main complaint against
open floor plans is that they kill productivity. This is such a complaint that
there's people up and down this post moaning in agony as if it were literal
torture that they're unable to be as productive as possible. Personally, I
don't think that a company is entitled to me working at 100% productivity
constantly, because I value my sanity too much. Yet, here are people begging,
pleading for their employer to make them be able to produce more for their
corporate overlord.

M'eh. I work at the efficiency that is comfortable for me. Occasionally I chat
with my coworkers about stupid shit to keep my mind loose and give it a break.
If I absolutely need to be in the zone for a couple hours, I put on
headphones, find a private room, or work from home. I'm completely ok with
open floor plans.

About the only things that would draw me to a private office job is, first,
the prestige of having your own office, and second, the sense of ownership of
space. I imagine it to be very comforting to go into work and have one little
8'x10' space which is "yours". If we're being honest, I think these two things
are actually what the anti-open office people want. They just use productivity
as a way of masking it and making it appear better to their employers.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Disclaimer: I'll tell you how it is in my case, so it may not reflect the
feelings of other open-plan-haters.

It's not about wanting to "be able to produce more for my corporate overlord".
It's precisely about preserving sanity. I simply can't focus well with people
around me - not just when they're talking (in an open plan, at any given point
in time, there is someone that has something interesting to say). The _very
presence_ of other people next to me is stressful to me, especially if they're
paying attention to me and are within visual range of me. That stress destroys
my focus, which leads to lack of productivity, which leads to more stress - a
"vicious cycle".

When I can ensure that nobody can walk behind my back, I can survive an open-
plan office with just headphones and loud music (to cut off audio
distractions). Still, in some cases, the very presence of other people in the
same room will make me unable to concentrate hard enough to solve some tough
problems - at which point I'll either go to the conference room, do the work
out of office, or just come in late so that I get ~2 - 3 hours alone in the
room in the evening.

Some time ago I managed to persuade my employer to give me 2 days/week of
working from home; this alone did _wonders_ to my sanity. 3 days between
people is just about enough direct human interaction for me. 5 days tends to
take a toll on my psyche.

And again, it's not about productivity for the sake of pleasing the boss. It's
just that I feel _really bad_ when I feel I'm continuously underperforming
(compared to my performance in proper conditions, i.e. not having other people
around).

~~~
plorkyeran
This is exactly how it is for me. Even when I actively thought my job was
stupid bullshit and that no amount of work from me or anyone else would ever
make the thing we were working on profitable or useful to anyone, feeling like
I could be getting more done if it wasn't for all these distractions was a
huge source of stress for me. The fact that there was no material difference
to me or anyone else was ultimately sort of irrelevant.

------
tetraodonpuffer
I cannot believe how short sighted companies can be when it comes to these
things, but I don't think it's malice per se, it's usually a variation of the
person who makes the decision does not have to live with it and so doesn't
have any incentive outside of spending as little as possible.

It's like how in many cases the desktops/monitors for developers come out of
the IT budget, so the IT department tries to buy the crappiest things possible
(24" single 1080p monitors, because they can't find anymore the 22" 900p they
had before, 500 gig hard drives, etc.) because it does not impact them if
developers are happy or not or are hampered by having to work with substandard
tools.

In several past companies when we moved offices or had an office redesign, it
was always up to the facilities department to deal with this, and developers
were involved only at the very end when it was time to pick the seating and by
that time all the design was locked, contractors hired and so on and so there
was no way to change anything of significance anymore.

If I ever had a company I would make it a rule that any decision has to be
made by the department / people affected by it. Other departments can offer
support as needed, but I would never have IT control which hardware the
developers get, or facilities decide for open office/cube height/chairs, or
the CTO decide for the code review tool, etc. etc.

------
thinbeige
I am no fan of open-plan office or just going to an office but there is a huge
difference between a cramped open-plan office and one where you have so much
space around your and your peer's desk that you need a hoverboard to get to
the next couple of coworkers. Also carpets, semi-wall, calling booths can make
a difference.

So what I want to say is that every open-plan offices is different and yes,
most are terrible. But I guess that if somebody made them right it must be
Apple?!

------
nfriedly
If you really want a private office, there are a couple of spaces available
right next to mine for $225/month each -
[http://www.klopferbuilding.com/](http://www.klopferbuilding.com/) ;)

Obviously you'd need to live nearby (Northwest of Dayton, OH), but houses here
go for ~ $120k - [https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-
Hill](https://www.redfin.com/city/16281/OH/Pleasant-Hill)

You could literally retire here and work on whatever you what with a few
year's worth of bay area salary. (Which is, more or less, what I intend to
do.)

~~~
sogen
Hi, what's the crime rate there? Does it snow a lot?

~~~
nfriedly
The crime rate is so low that the town closed the police department a few
years ago. (Now we contract with the sheriff.) I think I've locked my house
twice in four years.

We do usually get a couple of good snows each winter.

~~~
sogen
Thanks!, last question, how's the tech employment in there?

Which TBH doesn't really matter since i like to work remotely.

~~~
nfriedly
Yea, there isn't much _in Pleasant Hill_. There's an Air Force base, a couple
of hospitals, a couple of software/web agencies, and a few other things around
Dayton, though.

I work remotely for IBM, and also have a side business that's mostly wound
down now.

~~~
sogen
Thx, sorry to hear about the business.

------
JustSomeNobody
Open plan “offices” need to go away. I’m a professional and the products I
develop make my company lots of money. Telling me if I need quiet I should put
on headphones is insulting and is treating me like a child.

~~~
amelius
Yes, open workspaces make me feel like I'm back in college.

~~~
jdbernard
It's worse. In college I could work in the lab with partners when we needed to
collaborate but then work from "home" when I really needed focus. And I got to
choose when I went to each.

------
sitkack
We have open plan, I revolted by never returning to my desk. I work from
random location, old unoccupied desks, home, the cafeteria, but never my desk.
You just burned that real estate.

~~~
drdeadringer
At my current job, out of circumstance of the stuff I'm doing, I started going
straight to the lab without stopping by my desk. On average, there will be 1-3
people in the lab including myself. At my desk? It's an open-office styled
lab-converted loading area where one "wall" is a floor-to-ceiling roller door;
loud rattling on windy days is only one perk.

The lab is much nicer. Smaller, fewer people, generally quiet, a door,
controlled environment [lights, temperature].

~~~
sitkack
Make the space you need by what ever means necessary.

------
tempodox
I guess, once you're big enough, you can afford to have people quit and let
the rest work inefficiently, just for the vanity of a “design” chief.

------
gdulli
Why bother working for a company that has _that_ much money and still won't
invest it back in giving employees proper working conditions?

------
mirekrusin
In EU all those glass doors would have to have matt texture/stickers around
eye level so you don't enter them by accident - I'm surprised in US there's no
such requirement?

~~~
TeMPOraL
As someone who managed to crash into a glass wall by accident (someone was
_really_ good at cleaning them), I second the suggestion - such stickers are a
good idea.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I went to a mall in Manila, walked into a glass door that had just been
cleaned really well. I felt like a bird for awhile.

------
throwaway140917
Apple people: Don't quit, just refuse to work in unpleasant conditions. If
they fire you, sue.

See my relevent comment yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15253333)

(But do talk to an attorney before taking internet advice.)

------
StronglyTyped
Where are they gonna go, though? The whole Valley has succumbed to this fad.

~~~
tinus_hn
Yeah, all those idiot successful companies succumbing to this fad. It's
probably some kind of conspiracy!

~~~
bitlax
Maybe now Apple will be a successful company!

------
andrewflnr
> Similarly, Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more
> likely to innovate if they had access to a range of spaces supporting
> different working styles – including private, semi-private and open-plan
> environments.

This is my favorite part, because it confirms an intuition I've held for a
long time: both open areas and private offices have their uses, so provide
both. The only downside I can see is that it's expensive to implement, which
is, I'll grant, non-trivial.

~~~
dpkonofa
And this is the part that I don't understand. According to most articles about
this, they do offer private, shared offices. They're shared in that anyone can
badge into them and use it privately but they're not assigned to any
individual. That seems like a great compromise and yet it's rarely mentioned
in articles like this.

~~~
cxseven
What about something in between where teams can work together?

~~~
dpkonofa
Isn't that what's being referred to by the shared working offices? I thought
the whole point of the article was that these spaces are what people are
complaining about. They're on a team that needs to collaborate but they want
it to be swapped around from the default. They want private spaces for
everyone and a shared area for team work. Apple wants them to work in teams
for most of their time and to have private spaces for the rarer occasions
where they really need to be alone and focus on individualized tasks. I think
they're making the debatable assumption that the most valuable work is done
collaboratively and that the menial work is done individually.

As for the engineering team that got moved to their own building, I don't see
how or why a private area for everyone would make their jobs better. If
everyone's coding and not talking to anyone else, then what's there to
distract? If people need to talk, they go to the collaborative space. If they
don't want to hear people talk, they can go in one of the private spaces. Some
people will simply spend more time in the private space or will work from
home.

------
feketegy
Steve Jobs saw a productivity increase when he was at Pixar according to Ed
Catmull's book (Creativity Inc.)

The problem is that what Mr. Catmull described as open space for creative
people to let them mingle and bounce off creative ideas. That's the whole
premise of an open office space.

Now, programming can be a creative field, but most of the time when I code I'd
like to be quiet around me. If anybody distracts me that's an instant 15
minutes loss (at least) of whatever I was doing. At least for me.

~~~
exodust
Pixar is "open" only in the sense of having a central atrium and common areas
to encourage chance encounters and interaction. The rest of the building where
work is done is nooks and crannies, studios and offices.

Creative people doing the grunt work of raw design and animation will need and
want isolation from distraction just like programmers do.

------
erdojo
In all my 25+ years in the valley, I've seen office trends come and go. None
have been more hated than the open floor plan. Especially when you don't have
a wall behind you.

It's why I now work from home. Why many work from home. Open offices are not
comfortable, collaborative, friendly, or enjoyable. They make people feel
watched, interrupted, and stressed.

Want me to come back to work in the office? Give me walls.

------
Shivetya
we had a web group to great fan fare had all new work area created for them,
open ceilings, glass walled conference rooms, and open-plan in general. I am
not sure if anyone like it. from lack of perceived "my space" to simple
increase in noise. plus if the computer setups are not well planned out it
just looks wrong.

for me, it reminds me of one especially bad contract where we worked on school
lunch room tables. five of us in a row facing a wall with one phone at the
end. amazing after spending our hourly rate what they thought they could save
without realizing the impact on productivity if not turn over.

people deride cubicles now but they are last safe haven, just like dogs and
other animals, there is a lot to be said from the subconscious feeling you
have from the walls of the cube and single entrance

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _people deride cubicles now_

Yeah, I don't understand where the hate comes from. I suspect it's just about
using cubicles as _symbols_ of corporate environment in general. Because from
a floor-plan standpoint, they're a _fucking great invention_. It's a perfect
compromise between the need to give everyone their personal space, and the
need to fit in lots of people cost-effectively. Today, if a company offered me
a cubicle to work in, I'd consider it as _hugely positive_ about them.

~~~
amalag
Cubicles were considered the worst of both worlds. No proper privacy because
there is not enough sound blocking and the faux walls isolate people and
prevent collaboration.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I wonder why. I think they provide enough privacy for a workplace (as long as
you're allowed to use headphones for extra sound blocking, and as long as the
entry is to your side, not behind you) - the only way to get even more would
be closed-door offices, but that takes much more floor space.

As for "collaboration", at this point I consider talking about it as a
negative thing about a place. I mean, frankly, I know "collaborating" is fun
and games, but at some point somebody has to sit down, focus, and _write the
fucking code_.

~~~
wpietri
Having worked for years in a pair programming environment, I am pretty sure
you can get a lot of code written collaboratively. Indeed, even though I'm an
introvert, pair programming teams with frequent pair rotation (pairing with
2-3 people per day) is my favorite way to work because I think we end up with
better code.

~~~
maxxxxx
Pair programming is fine. It's real collaboration. But just sitting in one big
room while doing their own work is not collaboration.

~~~
wpietri
Sure, I totally agree. I was responding to the introduced false dichotomy:
collaborating vs writing the code.

------
pjc50
I'm always reminded of those stock photos of typing pools or pre-computer
accountants, where you had a vast noisy field of people (usually gender-
segregated) clattering away on typewriters:
[http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-
pool-1...](http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/secretarial-
pool-1930s-high-res-stock-photography/10075686)

Really if there is to be a change in the industry it has to be led at the
biggest, most fashionable employer. Everyone else will then be able to follow
suit without the tedious need to actually think about the problem.

(Maybe there will even be a union threatening a strike over working
conditions?)

~~~
MBCook
Apple is hardly the first to do this, many other large companies already have.

The problem is the people doing typing pools or accountants weren’t doing
creative work, they were doing more rote tasks. They weren’t trying to come up
with complex abstract thoughts or get into a state of flow so the additional
noise wasn’t as big a deal.

------
RijilV
I'm one of the outliers who likes open floor plans, BUT at densities much
lower than what makes economical sense. 1 person per thousand square feet
would be my minimum and I'd really like half again as much space.

Problem is the economics of it. Open floor plans I see on blogs are often side
by side working stations with less than 200sqft per worker. That's not really
open floor plan in my mind, just removing the walls to recoup a couple of
inches to cram more people in.

------
dvdhnt
The article links to a previous article on the local impact of the campus that
is also interesting: [https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-
fost...](https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/13/apple-park-new-campus-foster-
partners-sucks-wired-magazine-review/)

Edit: clarification

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proyb
I think it’s easy to reversed TOP floor for quiet working environment and
noisy environment at lower level.

Looking at Singapore has an office look similar to Apple Park spaceship.
Directors, professors and councillors are working in open space, I don’t see
why not?

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justin1364
Where will they go? Facebook/Google? That won't solve their problem... maybe
Oracle?

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masonicb00m
They just need to get a pair of DND Shades™ for everyone
([http://www.dndshades.com](http://www.dndshades.com)). Problem solved.

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krayis
First world problems

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sogen
Chicken farm

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SethMurphy
If as an engineer your only Job is to write code based on perfectly written
functional specs, then open offices may not be the best. However, In larger
project communication and transparency is an as important part of the job.
While many people are more comfortable alone, you are part of a team and not
just a coder. I find it selfish for people to feel their alone time is more
important than learning how to work as a team. Noise canceling headphones do
wonders when you need to focus.

~~~
codyb
Hm. Maybe I'm nuts but I have literally no idea what desiring a private and
quiet space for concentration does to ruin a persons ability to work as a
teammate.

My coworkers love their noise canceling ear phones. That's great. What I'd
love is to not hear their ratatat as they drum to their music.

And I do not fault them for that, because I love to ratatat to my own music
when I'm listening to it as well.

A place to be myself while I work, what an odd concept.

~~~
alangpierce
Some examples: Wanting a private and quiet space means you won't be there to
provide help for the new person who has spent all day fighting with their dev
environment or trying to understand an area of code that you wrote. And if two
people who sit near you are trying to solve a difficult problem that you've
already solved, then you won't be able to overhear and chime in with your
solution.

Focus is certainly important, and can help you be super-productive if you have
a well-defined task and are already comfortable with the code you're working
and your tools. But I think newer people at a company are in an opposite
situation; they're overwhelmed with complexity and need collaboration and
guidance to be productive, and they can level-up much faster by hearing the
problems people are working on around them.

~~~
codyb
If someone pings me I'll be right there for them. Setting up development
environments absolutely sucks but it's usually a one time thing.

Pair programming is great and I'd never advocate a development environment
where senior engineers weren't available to mentor junior engineers.

But I also think tenacity is a huge part of our job. My first job as a junior
engineer had me working with a fellow in Israel, I'd get two hours with him in
the morning and then he'd cut out due to the timezone difference. My
colleagues were consistently impressed that I'd produce despite this. One time
my code didn't work, I sat there for eight hours until I realized I was
missing a space in my jquery selector. It was simultaneously a moment of
relief and a more existential questioning of "what the hell did I get myself
into?".

At the end of the day, if you're paying a premium salary for a senior software
engineer, while you shoukd encourage mentorships, you should make sure that
individual has the environment they need to produce high quality, maintainable
software.

Putting them in an environment where people are talking about football is not
the way to accomplish that.

~~~
alangpierce
Makes sense. Some thoughts:

* Agreed that (too many) discussions unrelated to work can be frustrating. My experience is that the vast majority of conversations I overhear are work-related and at least a bit relevant to me, but I imagine different office cultures are different, and it also probably depends significantly on how you arrange seating.

* The tradeoff between asking questions and figuring things out by yourself is an interesting one, and I think people start their careers in different places. My personality is more on the shy side, and for a long time I was worried about wasting people's time, so I would spend a very long time on any given problem before asking for help, which hurt my overall productivity. Having an office environment where it feels normal and welcome to ask questions would help people like me quite a bit. But I understand that some people are on the other end of the spectrum and give up too soon and end up asking more questions than they should.

* Another thing that I think differs from person to person and from office to office is how much you expect work to be a source of social connections. At one point I moved from a "social" office to one where people quietly focused on individual work all day (and where it felt very difficult to start a conversation, even a work-related one), and it was much more lonely than I would have liked.

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yosito
Every time I hear someone complain about open offices, I want to say "Shhh!
They'll send us all back to our cubicles and chain us to our desks!".
Seriously, if you have an open office it's not that hard to put headphones in
or pop into a side office for some focus time. But being required to spend 40
hours a week alone in a tiny box is my personal definition of hell.

~~~
edwhitesell
There are some environments where headphones are discouraged, sadly I worked
in one that was semi-open (more of a bullpen).

The reality is some people work fine in open environments, some don't. If you
really want to have happy, productive team members, you need to offer some
different options.

~~~
steego
This.

I don't understand why more companies don't copy university libraries and
create a mix of spaces for different tasks. Sometimes you want small
collaborative rooms, sometimes you want a quiet cubicle.

