
CEOs Want Their Offices Back - frgtpsswrdlame
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ceos-want-their-offices-back-1495445400
======
khazhoux
We have an open floor plan, and it works like this:

* Desk area is for getting work done. Everyone agrees on this.

* We have "phone rooms" for small discussions. But we limit those usually to 1:1s or discussing office politics.

* Try to limit all discussions at the desk area to 5 people or less.

* If someone sighs loudly as they put on their headphones when you're having a discussion right behind them, then that is their signal to you to keep talking loudly, as their noise-canceling headphones will eliminate any trace of your conversation.

* You can usually carry a conversation at your desk at any volume, because other engineers will let you know if you're being too loud. Engineers tend to be extroverted and won't hesitate to let you know if you're bothering them.

* When someone first sits at their desk, it's polite to immediately engage them in a 30-minute conversation about their weekend or what they did last night. It eases their transition into work.

* A person working without headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question.

* A person working WITH headphones on, signifies that it's ok to tap them on the shoulder to ask them a question.

* If someone usually works off in quiet parts of the building, one should always remind them "you're never at your desk" with an accusatory tone.

~~~
darioush
"Engineers tend to be extroverted"

Where did you get your statistics on that one?

~~~
cortesoft
The Big Book of Sarcastic Stats

~~~
alexandrekop
Boom!

------
coffeeski
Why do CEO's think they're alone in the need for quiet spaces where they can
focus? Sure some people can work in the noisy space where interruptions
abound. The only thing in my office that works well with interruptions is my
CPU. I'd rather have a Cube farm, but better yet, a small tiny phone booth as
an office.

~~~
varelse
Just like the cargo cult Agile pandemic peaked a few years ago, I suspect
we're reaching peak open floor plans right now. The overall negative effects
of an open floor plan for a significant fraction of engineers (though not all)
is self-evident and backed up by reams of data stretching back nearly 40
years:

[http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-
book/web/work...](http://iansommerville.com/software-engineering-
book/web/workspace/)

TLDR: 100 square feet of personal space is optimal. The highest I've ever had
in tech was 81. I miss those days and I end up working from home a lot because
of the current open floor plan. But square feet cost $$$ and switching to an
open floor plan is an immediate cost cutter. Never mind what it's doing to
overall productivity and future earnings, the analysts love $h!+ like this.

Fortunately, executives are not all idiots, so once the more insightful of
them realize how much more they get done in private spaces, one or more of
them will push back on this. And if employers start treating cubes and offices
as a perk, I suspect they'll see lots of converts.

~~~
hotsauceror
Cargo Cult is exactly right. Our organization is selling us this right now.
"We're creating a more collaborative atmosphere! Facebook does it, this must
be what IT people want." (Any discussion of paying IT staff like FB, though,
is "well, we're not an IT company, and besides we're mission driven!") Because
they don't think we're mature enough to accept that they want to squeeze more
bodies unto a smaller space, for purely financial reasons.

Leadership got called out at a recent company meeting by someone who commented
that noise-cancelling headphone were critical. One of the C-suite evangelists
was like "haha, yeah you're right next to my office aren't you." In other
words, "I'm so oblivious, I think it's amusing that my loud conversations are
negatively impacting my subordinates' ability to concentrate in this
'collaborative' environment'".

My team does not need a collaborative atmosphere. We're not marketers. We're
quiet, introverted, methodical folks who need a quiet atmosphere where they
can concentrate on writing ops code that won't bring down a production server
in the middle of the day. We don't want to have to listen to overheard gossip,
ostensibly private phone calls, etc. while we're trying to figure triage a
complex issue. But more than anything, it's offensive that they won't just
come out and admit that this is being done for financial reasons. We're all
adults in a capitalist economy; we know the score.

~~~
kumar785
I don't think it is a cargo cult. My guess is that the focus is to make these
engineers replaceable. And "quiet, introverted, methodical folks" are
difficult to replace. Dumbed down open office workers and brogrammers are
easily replaceable with another recent graduate some place cheaper.

~~~
ashark
Definitely part of it. Businesses are afraid developers will come to regard
themselves, and to be regarded, as real professionals, like doctors, lawyers,
some categories of engineer (god forbid they stop cowering around the MBAs or
start questioning the ethics of... well, anything, really!)

Systemically keeping their tastes and station "lower" than that is probably
part of what's going on, especially with the bigger companies. Developer pay
may (sometimes) approach or match upper-middle, professional-class level, but
(self-)respect for developers can't be permitted to reach those heights.
Better their conditions are kept closer to, say, mid-20th-century secretary
pools.

------
rayiner
> The lofty building Jordan Hamad moved his tech-advisory firm into four years
> ago had the trappings of a startup idyll: open floor plan, _polished
> concrete floors_ , custom-built communal tables.

Decisions like this make me seriously question the whole idea that our economy
is populated by rational actors. _Obviously_ polished concrete floors are a
terrible idea in an office. Even if you believe that open plan works, there is
no rational basis for having floors that will reflect rather than dampen
noise.

~~~
atemerev
Markets are efficient, not rational.

~~~
valuearb
I think it's clear they are more rational than efficient, and perfect at
neither.

~~~
Finnucane
Markets != people, last I checked. If you're talking about the efficiency or
rationality of a market, you're talking about some statistical measure of the
market. If you're talking about one guy making a bad choice of flooring
material, that's just one idiot.

------
novia
_He has since moved to a 5-by-8-foot pod in the company’s innovation center.
He retreats to it when he needs to focus or switch mental gears between
meetings. [...] “It’s not about status or privilege,” he says of the pod, a
prototype with still-exposed two-by-fours. “This is a space where you do
certain kinds of work.”_

Yeah, sure. Ok.

~~~
wlesieutre
Good thing none of his lower status employees ever need to do certain kinds of
work!

------
jpalomaki
Theory: open space fosters communication, because you can easily engage in
discussion with others.

Reality: everybody is sitting with their headphones on. The only way to get
their attention is via Slack or by throwing objects at them.

~~~
atemerev
In the academia, where good communication and idea sharing are essential,
there are no open offices.

Said communication happens where it ought to be: in rec room or cafeteria.

~~~
rexpop
I thought Academics jealousy hoarded ideas, carefully ensuring that they
weren't stolen by competing researchers — especially in the same department.

~~~
QuantumRoar
No. Usually you talk to your colleagues and you help each other -- especially
in the same department.

------
technofiend
When I was at Shell we were in the Houston medical center (near it, really) so
Shell built a hospital and jammed their people into it in case they ever
needed to sell the building. The company didn't bother buying real desks: we
used full sized party tables and two people sat in a space designed to be a
private hospital room. It was so tight I had to get up and leave to let my
office mate in or out. I'd still rather sit there over a dog bone or trader
desk setup you find today.

As one of the old farts who started when even the lowliest peon had an office
the fact CEOs are discovering forcing people to do their work in a large,
loud, noisy space doesn't work isn't terribly surprising. Nor does the fact
that 30+ years later almost everyone above a certain level still gets an
office even in the cube farm environments. At Shell you could instantly tell
the rank of a person by the size of their office. Fast forward to today and
you must be an ED to rank an office where I work now. It's a status symbol.

------
tradesmanhelix
For over a year, our dev team has been begging management to fix our open-
office. It's loud, distracting, and negatively impacts our productivity. The
team wants 1/2 height cloth cubicles that would provide a limited measure of
privacy and personal space while also helping to dampen the noise. Their
response: Buy on-desk semi-transparent plastic partitions that just provide
another noise-amplifying hard surface...

Thankfully, I was recently hired onto a 100% remote development team and put
in my 2 weeks. I'm done with open office floor plans and hope to never again
work at a company that uses them for developers.

~~~
rhizome
_Their response: Buy on-desk semi-transparent plastic partitions that just
provide another noise-amplifying hard surface..._

LOL. "Isn't there some gadget at OfficeMax we can use instead?"

The most bizarre part of these stories is that cheap, used cubicles are as
common as tennis shoes.

------
dbcurtis
At the risk of repeating myself, I will recommend that people read Cal
Newport's blog, and his book: Deep Work.

Here is a good blog post on office design that supports deep work:
[http://strongproject.com/blog/how-cal-newports-deep-work-
con...](http://strongproject.com/blog/how-cal-newports-deep-work-concept-will-
influence-office-design/)

If I ever get a chance to design an office, it will be something like the
above. Small risk of that, however.

At the risk of sounding like I want to dehumanize work (quite the opposite,
actually), I'd like to point out that anybody thinking of adding, say, a new
milling machine to a machine shop, would look at how much space you need for
it and around it to work productively and have quick access to the necessary
accessories. Yet, we don't put any analysis at all into what it takes to
maximize the productivity of people. And too often, we go for one-size-fits-
all solutions. I can imagine a high-functioning dev-ops team really benefiting
from the instantaneous communication of having all 8 people on the team
sitting within a short chair roll of each other in a common space. For the
people who need long blocks of unbroken concentration, that kind of space is
not as functional. "Interrupt driven" work and "deep though" work are two
different kinds of work, and it should be no surprise that a single space is
not optimal for both.

------
jesseryoung
It seems like when "Open Office" articles come out there seem to be quite a
few people talking ill of them. I recently switched jobs and with it switched
from an open concept (large room with whiteboards separating teams) to an
office (shared with one other coworker.) Maybe I was conditioned to like it (I
certainly didn't like it at first) but I really did prefer the open concept
when working on a team of 8 or 9 people. I never missed a conversation my team
was having and if I ever needed anything all I needed to do was turn around. I
guess I get the noise issues, but even in an office with my door open I can
still hear conversations in the hallways so I still wear my noise canceling
headphones.

~~~
jdc0589
This is why I actually _like_ cubicles. you are physically close to your team,
if your space is organized well you are on a common isle with people you work
with, but you still have at least a little bit of isolation in your personal
workspace.

I DO NOT understand why cubes get so much hate.

~~~
Danihan
As someone with ADD (who immediately drops focus when someone walks by or when
music has lyrics) cubicles are much better than most open office plans.

They just don't look as "cool" or "hip" as a long, open table.

~~~
jesseryoung
I should add that we did not have long open tables. Each person had their own
mobile sit/stand desk and mobile filing cabinet for personal belongings. There
was quite a few people who positioned themselves facing a corner for that
reason.

------
nsxwolf
That's great - what about everybody else? The problems he described apply to
everyone in the office. Why leave them in that mess?

~~~
chmars
'Slave ownership by companies has traditionally taken very curious forms.'

[http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/nassim-nicholas-
taleb...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/nassim-nicholas-taleb-how-to-
own-a-slave.html)

------
nobleach
CEOs also typically believe they are the only resource that isn't replaceable
or outsource-able. But, if they're good at what they do, and the buck truly
stops with them... I'm fine with that level of responsibility vs benefit. This
is mostly because I imagine the CEO doing a bunch of jobs that I do not _want_
to do.

I like popping on my headphones and going to town... but I'll admit,
distractions often overcome even my headphones. That's where working from home
comes in.

------
traviswingo
No paywall: [http://archive.is/tSeuX](http://archive.is/tSeuX)

~~~
jkoll
Thanks!

------
andrewingram
Curiously, in my experience it's been senior management (including CEOs)
who've fought for open plan offices in the first place. Cost benefits aside,
they do wax lyrical about all the reason why open plan is great.

~~~
walshemj
Because they have allowed tail functions like HR and Building Services to set
company policy with no thought to the wider effect on the company. Aka I got
my bonus and I don't care if I have F%$Ked up the company

~~~
mytec
At a previous job, I was sent to a partner company who was building a web site
we'd take over. This company had a wide open floor plan (except for the
execs). I remember one day our HR VP visiting and exclaiming how wonderful
this is. She said she wanted to implement it where we worked. She asked me
what I thought with this beatific smile, and I said I found the never ending
movement and ad-hoc meetings around me to be distracting. The smile on her
face dropped and she said, "You'll get used to it", as she walked away.

~~~
dredmorbius
"At a previous job ..."

Quite.

------
rajeshp1986
I think this whole collaborative workspace bullshit was oversold and
overbrought. The only thing it does serve is the ego of an insecured
management who doesn't trust its employees that they are working in closed
spaces. That is the reason they want open office spaces and support Agile.

I fail to understand why do you need your team to sit next to each other when
you have modern day collaboration tools like Slack, hipchat etc. The
management folks who argue that open office increases collaboration fail to
understand that engineers don't collaborate whole day long. They collaborate
for an hour or so and then they need to focus and build things. The ideal
ratio would be 80:20. An engineer wants 80% productivity and 20%
collaboration. By this it makes sense to have a closed office spaces and have
collboration areas around the office. Having an open office and few personal
areas scattered around the office promotes 80% collaboration and 20%
productivity. As an organization are you really aiming for that?

------
achou
A very small startup team does benefit from an open plan, such as shared desks
or a shared office. This scales to maybe 6 people. I think this is the
environment that larger companies are trying to capture.

But at scale, this is a ridiculous setup and one that breeds interruptions. In
a small team, what one person knows is often useful to another. In a larger
team there are many more independent parts, and entangling communication is a
waste of attention. Worse, I think it causes people to deliberately adopt a
default-closed mentality to avoid overload.

Companies don't easily outgrow their early cultures; they think what got them
there will continue to serve them -- in fact, they want to go back and
"capture the magic" that were there in the early days. It's a form of
corporate nostalgia that is one symptom of becoming sclerotic.

It's not really about open floor plan vs. cubicles. I recall the first time I
visited HP's vast cube farm at their silicon valley headquarters. It was vast,
drab, mostly quiet, and absolutely soul-deadening. OTOH the Dropbox
headquarters in SF was open floor plan and absolutely cramped, yet buzzing
with youthful energy. Lots of people were using headphones. I could see how it
would be an exciting place for a young person. On the one hand the buzzing
energy is a potential distractor, but it's also an energy booster. It makes
your heart beat a little faster. It makes you feel like you're in a place
where things are happening.

With age, my powers of concentration have waned a bit and I cannot power
through distractions like I did when younger. A cube farm would be very
demotivating. An open floor plan would be highly distracting, but likely
somewhat better. But the best is to avoid large environments like that
entirely, and stick with a smaller group where the interruptions are actually
useful, where a shared office and a shared mission produce energy and focus.

------
iplaw
I've worked at a few places with open workspaces. In the field of law, open
workspaces make zero sense. You're always on the phone or always attempting to
fully concentrate on the task at hand. Open workspaces allow distractions to
fester.

One open workspace was intentionally planned so that the micro-managing CEO
could readily see if the employees -- mostly attorneys, mind you -- were hard
at work or hardly working. Nothing was private, especially not the
condescending beratement from said CEO. I quit and started my own law firm,
requiring work from home for my subsequent hires and leasing shared office
space.

That firm was acquired by a client, and I was again forced to commute to work
since I would be directing a large on-site team of attorneys and paralegals.
It was another open workspace but, thankfully, the C-suite enjoyed perimeter
offices. I don't understanding why they realized that we needed offices to
avoid distractions and to keep confidential conversations in confidence, but
failed to consider the effect of the open space on other employees -- also
mostly attorneys and licensing guys.

I've since had a successful exit and again get to enjoy "working" from home.

------
amykhar
Notice you don't see them giving most other employees private space back. Just
themselves and some 'senior employees'

------
mmaunder
Open plan offices suck for everyone who needs to think. I don't know anyone
who doesn't know this.

------
matchagaucho
Ultimately, each team has its own optimal cadence that oscillates between
face-to-face and secluded concentration.

Open space implies that cadence is "daily", but for workers who create
intellectual property, that cadence is more realistically every 5-10 days.

The need for in-person "check and balance" varies with experience. I work with
remote teams of Sr Engineers that meet in-person 1-2 times per year. Minimal
communication issues.

But if apprentice-level Engineers are being groomed, then the frequency of in-
person meetings needs to be daily/weekly/monthly.

------
goeric
I think people forget, or maybe don't realize, open floor plans were
popularized in the startup world because of their cost savings. It's very
hard/expensive to rent office space with enough rooms for everyone, or build
one out that way. It's way easier to put a bunch of IKEA desks next to each
other.

I'm not saying there's not a better way, but that's the justification. Anybody
trying to convince others that open floor plans are more productive is living
in crazy town.

------
stretchwithme
I can handle one conversation. Or many. But two or three going on is really
annoying.

And I think it's because we natural pay attention to humans and look for
patterns. You can't really do that when there are multiple conversations. And
the brain doesn't bother trying when there are too many voices.

So one conversation is fine. If there's already one conversation and you need
to speak to somebody, use Slack or get a room or set up a meeting or wait.

------
philip1209
Individual contributors want private offices. Companies want "openness and
collaboration".

As I've been at WeWorks lately, I've noticed that they have all glass walls on
the offices. This means that everybody has natural light and a sense of
openness, but with a locking door and quiet. A more general question to people
in such all-glass private offices - is it the best of both worlds? Or, is more
privacy needed than all-glass walls?

~~~
tlrobinson
They make glass that can be turned opaque electronically. That's probably
ideal (albeit more expensive)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_glass)

~~~
yawgmoth
They also make blinds :-)

~~~
metaphorm
or as we like to call it these days "smart curtains".

------
rb808
I've worked in open offices my whole career. To me its normal and I'm used to
it, probably I dont want an office locked away.

I have found the next step down though where I work - hot desks. Basically you
get a locker for your stuff, no reserved desk location and a virtual terminal
to a desktop on a server. This really does suck.

------
nibs
The penjulum of "things startups are wrong about" and/or "you succeed despite
this rather than because of it" open plan offices will shift back the other
way in the next decade to "deep work" and "closed door productivity". Joel
Spolsky & co are just two decades ahead.

------
geff82
Oh really? How many hundred years will it take until they find out that
"regular" workers also have declined performance in large offices? I find them
a disgrace. I don't need a single office for me - but 3-6 People is enough.

------
abalone
I really want to know how Apple's laying out the new campus. I've read
something about different types of "pods".[1] Is the idea you can float among
different types of spaces (quiet vs collaborative)? Who gets a door? Does
anyone know more details?

[1] [https://www.wired.com/2017/05/apple-park-new-silicon-
valley-...](https://www.wired.com/2017/05/apple-park-new-silicon-valley-
campus/)

------
yalogin
Sometimes I wonder if this open office thing is pushed on people because of
the high real estate cost in San Francisco. Anything can be spinned into a
great thing.

~~~
acdha
I think that's globally true: it's been known since the 1970s that open-plan
offices aren't good for productivity but they're undeniably cheaper and, in
many cases, also has the unstated advantage of making it clear where people
rank on the status hierarchy in organizations where only management above a
certain rank are allowed offices.

------
carsongross
I was dead wrong about the open office layout: I was an advocate, but I now
see that over time, for any company larger than a garage startup, it ends
becoming a way to cut costs and pack more employees per square foot. It isn't
worse than cube-farms, but it isn't much better.

I wonder if per-team offices of 2-5 people around a central hub would actually
hit the right balance between interaction and think time.

~~~
jdc0589
I think its worse than cube farms, way worse. In a cube you have some modicum
of isolation, even if its just a physical barrier to keep from seeing 100% of
the movement/traffic around your workspace.

In an open environment, literally everything is a distraction. The only time
I've been content-ish in an open environment is when I happened to be facing a
corner.

------
basicallydan
Mate I'm not even a CEO and I want my office back

------
maruhan2
Solution is simple. "Make sure you reply to company wide messenger. Make all
open area conversation via messengers. Make any conversations that benefit
vocal speaking in a separate room. Give everyone an option to book private
rooms for occasions where you need long phone conversation"

------
acallan
Incidentally, Steelcase CEO Jim Hackett quoted in this article was just named
CEO of Ford.

~~~
valuearb
I think it's the previous CEO of Steelcase.

But also note that the Steelcase CEO's quotes are shaped to help sell their
office pod systems. He's really not going to share his personal preferences,
he's going to push their product.

------
JustSomeNobody
We all do, buddy!

Well, actually, I WFH, but I sympathize with open floor plan workers.

------
neom
As a CEO I mostly don't work from the same space as the rest of the team as my
work tends to be multi-person meetings and phone calls. We mostly share our
meals together, however.

------
ageofwant
Is there a HN facility where I could just block these pay-walled articles? I
have nothing against someone trying to make a buck, but there is insignificant
chance that I will 'subscribe' or login to read a wsj article. I just want to
save me some time and wsj some bandwidth.

OK maybe I just need to learn to look at the link.

~~~
coffeeski
Buy a subscription? Theres a link to the free version

------
frgtpsswrdlame
[https://outline.com/b4muXW](https://outline.com/b4muXW)

~~~
avemg
How is this not just stealing their work?

~~~
snakeanus
How is it "stealing"?

~~~
paulgb
I'm not here to defend it, but as a paying digital subscriber to WSJ (and
other papers), this link is useful! WSJ signed me out (they often do), and to
sign in again I have to re-enable JavaScript which means their site gets
slower and the text bounces all over as things load. I'm happy to pay for
quality content but news sites have to stop degrading the digital experience
if they want me to keep forking over $30/month.

Edit: for science, I enabled JavaScript and loaded the WSJ page with a cold
cache. The text jumped 3 times over the 22 seconds it took to fully load the
page.

~~~
ageofwant
All I want from these pay-walls is a instapaper-like experience, and that you
cannot get that for $30? With $30 I can buy 130 kid's polio vaccines.

~~~
paulgb
Right? It doesn't seem like too much to ask for.

------
lightedman
I do want my office back. My office is the land around us, and NIMBY idiots
along with people that don't understand individual-level mining (which is very
low impact) keeps me out of that office.

------
snakeanus
Why on earth would I need to "log in" in order to read an article?

~~~
rhino369
so they can make money from you reading an article.

------
stevage
Polished concrete.

Does anyone actually like it? It's super noisy. It's become pretty popular in
cafes around here, and they're almost unbearable at busy times.

