
How I learned to stop worrying and love the cubicle - forrestbrazeal
http://forrestbrazeal.com/2015/07/13/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-cubicle/
======
city41
I've worked at companies that had completely open spaces, individual offices
for everyone, and cubicles. By far my favorite is cubicles.

I _hate_ open offices and will actively avoid them. They are noisy,
distracting, stressful, and not conducive to productivity. They are conducive
to collaboration though.

Offices are stifling. They put too many barriers between talking to people,
and I found everyone tended to rely on chat and email a lot more. Offices are
fantastic when you really want to put your head down and focus.

Cubicles are a nice balance between the two extremes. Collaboration is
possible and still happens, but privacy and space is still available too.

Susan Cain in her book "Quiet" advocates for a space that is basically an open
office in the center, with private nooks around the edge, so people can
consciously decide when they want to collaborate versus concentrate. I've
never been in an environment like that, but it sounds nice.

~~~
stronglikedan
I like my office, and I don't feel that it adds any additional barriers over a
cubicle, unless I _want_ it to.

I like initiating communication with chat or email, with the option of an
impromptu face-to-face meeting if necessary, or the option of being able to
defer that meeting when I need to focus.

I keep my door open when I don't mind a visitor (like a cubicle), but I can
close my door to indicate to people that I am in focus-mode and should not be
disturbed. I didn't have that choice with a cubicle, because anyone could walk
up at any time and cause me to shift that focus.

The office also makes for a good place for uninterrupted collaboration when
the meeting requires it, which is something else you don't get with a cubicle.

~~~
Grishnakh
>I didn't have that choice with a cubicle, because anyone could walk up at any
time and cause me to shift that focus.

This isn't true of all cubicles. I used to work at a very large microprocessor
manufacturer and before they "compressed" the cubicles, the cubicles were 9x9.
Someone had to physically come _into_ your cubicle to get your attention (or
pop their head over the wall, but only 6-foot+ people could do that). To deal
with disturbances, we actually had "DO NOT DISTURB" signs assigned to us which
we could hang across the cubicle entrance to keep people from bothering us.
These signs were frequently used, and to very good effect.

Personally, I wish I could go back to that environment. It was the best of
both worlds when I had this nice-sized cube with privacy, but was also seated
next to a coworker I frequently needed to collaborate with. It was great being
able to pop my head over the wall when I needed to, but without worrying about
being distracted or disturbed by other people for less-important stuff, and
especially not by random passers-by the way I am in open environments.

~~~
webosdude
This reminds me of Intel where I worked for sometime :)

------
forrestbrazeal
I also think the type of cube makes a difference. I currently work in a cube
with high walls (at least 12 inches higher than my head when seated) and
somehow the psychological effect of that is much better than a low cube where
you're staring in someone else's face all the time.

~~~
eckza
Absolutely, I'd lose my entire mind if I could see over my cube walls.

~~~
jtymes
Yeah, we have "high" cubicle walls, but the last 12" is glass which defeats
the purpose. I face a walkway and people's heads are in my view as they pass,
which can be incredibly distracting.

We get a lot of natural light this way which can be great, except when the sun
rises right into your eyes with no way to block it.

~~~
Grishnakh
Printer paper and tape would solve your problem quickly.

~~~
mathgeek
Yeah, but it's difficult to tape paper on everyone's face as they walk by.

~~~
new_hackers
If you started doing that I bet they'd start choosing another route. Problem
solved!

~~~
mathgeek
I like your attitude! If I ever go back to an office job, you can be my
cubicle mate.

------
kfk
The thing is: who leaves at 5pm? It's 8:15pm and I am still here (OK, I work
in an office, but still). I think working from home you can get free time
simply being more productive. I know I would do that. At work, you have to be
there, even just to wait that your boss is finished with task A, so that he
can finalize task B with you. Then you have the commute, mine is 90 minutes
per day.

Bottom line: I don't have time, I get home very tired, the work I do could be
done in less time or better distributed through the day.

~~~
kdamken
Did you get in at noon? Why would you work somewhere that requires those kinds
of hours? With a 90 minute commute on top of that? Not trying to be
condescending, it's just that those kinds of things would be a huge motivator
for me to find another job.

I found a place 15 minutes from my house, and everyone in the office is gone
by 5, sometimes earlier on Fridays. I hope you find a better job soon.

~~~
shostack
Not everyone has a great work situation.

The general HN sentiment is one of finite work hours, great work conditions
and great pay or people quit. In an ideal world, I love that notion. Many
people here are fortunate enough to have the leverage granted by the current
job market to insist on those things (or quit and walk into another better
paying job the next day).

Unfortunately, for those that are not engineers, or don't live somewhere with
incredibly high job demand, many people take what they can get and suffer. The
alternative is often losing your mortgage, not being able to pay for college,
etc.

There may also be other factors keeping them at that employer (particularly if
they are in a rural area and there literally aren't any other options closer).

So as much as I agree with you in spirit, the pragmatic part of me is
wondering what will happen to people with this attitude when the economy
shifts, and suddenly the job market isn't so hot anymore.

~~~
kfk
Let me answer your question: they will be treated as low level engineers and
they will have to suck it up or will have to go into management and work 10
hrs days. How much gets an average RoR nowadays? How much did he get when the
tech was shiny new? Coding per se won't get the million $ salaries they want,
it's bound to go down. Even today, they look at what the best 5% gets and they
think all coders get that, most coders don't, most coders in West Europe get
very average salaries.

It's ludicrous to see people making the point of their perfect >40 hours job
now, let's see in 5 or 10 years when the market is saturated.

------
skywhopper
I personally am most productive when I'm head-down plowing into some big
problem. And from that POV, I do my best work before sunrise in a private
office, and I've thrived in environments where I have my own office with a
door, and where I've worked remotely.

My current employer is all open-office, but also very remote friendly. I live
hundreds of miles away so I work remote from my home office, but I've spent a
few odd weeks in the office and the environment is actually pretty good for
getting stuff done.

That said, remote-friendliness is something that's hard to adjust a company's
culture to. I've found that heavy use of Slack and the right personalities can
lead to a very productive and the sort of spontaneous sync-ups that are
somewhat easier to happen in a physical office.

Ultimately the real test is whether your company's culture fits with your
company's offices, and whether you fit into that culture.

------
jclulow
It's important not to over-value pithy quotes from Steve Jobs (or other
successful figures). For starters, it's difficult to say if this particular
assertion is even well-founded; less likely still that implementing his
rhetoric will simply translate into similar success.

Work from home actually works for a lot of people. Some of those people are
just as creative, collaborative, driven and successful as the folks that work
in offices.

~~~
DonHopkins
My favorite pithy Steve Jobs quote, from when I was giving him a demo of pie
menus on NeWS, is "That sucks! That sucks! That sucks! Oh, that's neat. That
sucks!"

------
Chathamization
In an earlier job, we moved from a cubicle office to an open office. The open
office was supposedly there to facilitate group work. But we were soon told
that since everyone could hear and see what we were doing, we were no longer
supposed to meet and talk with colleagues at our desks as we had been doing
(too distracting for others).

~~~
carlivar
Companies rarely say what it really is: cost savings. Not only can you cram
more people per square foot, cubicle walls cost money.

~~~
marcosdumay
In fact it's saving X from area A, where increasing the costs of area B by Y,
where X is orders of magnitude smaller than Y, but the manager of B can still
claim a bonus for the savings.

------
amyjess
Cubes get a lot of hate, but I honestly prefer them over an open office. Maybe
even better than a solitary office: in my experience, having my own office
just felt isolating.

I've worked in a cube. I've had my own office. I've shared an office with one
other person in a variety of desk arrangements. I currently share a large
office with three other people (might as well be an open plan).

I'd probably rank the cube second, with sharing an office with one other
person as the best (with desks arranged so both our backs are to the wall).

Open offices are terrible, terrible things. Next time I interview, I'm going
to make sure to ask what their office arrangements are, so I can avoid that
situation.

~~~
yarou
I agree that open offices are, in practice, horrific endeavors.

But I think the concept behind them is valid: to foster collaboration and
eschew meetings.

Given the choice between being stuck in meetings all day and an open office
plan, I'd take the open office any day.

~~~
jamisteven
No, its not. There is a "concept" behind them to justify it in a way that
doesnt just spit out "hey, we dont really value you as an employee more than
we value a thumbs up from our shareholders". Solitude is necessary for
creativity, open floor plans are terrible for cross-collaboration because
nobody can concentrate to begin with.

------
alkonaut
I can completely relate to the first two points: I shifted from my own office
to working remotely (same job, same colleagues, which makes it a nice
experiment) and I find it no easier to do the actual job ,although it's a lot
easier to fit 8h of work into the day without the commute.

I _do_ miss physical meetings. Not "meetings" but discussions about work
problems happening at the coffee machine. You know how you describe a problem
to a coworker at the coffee machine and often figure it out as you talk,
before you even get an answer? That doesn't happen to me at home. I can
explain to a rubber duck but it just stares at me and the insight never comes
(neither from it nor from me).

I also feel "invisible" at times, which I'm sure is partly just perceived, but
that doesn't help.

I think the ideal setup is working from home 3-4 days a week, and commuting
1-2 days. As for the office itself, I think open/cube/office is mostly a
matter of taste. Offices with doors that open to a shared space is great, did
that a long time with good results. If you commute 1 day a week just to get
social, open plan is fine (or even better because more social).

------
proksoup
Open office is a trick to make you beg for the cube farm back.

~~~
DonHopkins
I thought OpenOffice was a trick to make you beg for Microsoft Word back.

It says it right their on their web site: "Help Spread the Word"!

[http://www.openoffice.org/download/](http://www.openoffice.org/download/)

------
deagle50
I work from home now but I'll take a cube over an "open" office every time.

~~~
deagle50
Forgot to add, my only exception is when working on a team project it helps to
be in the same room. Otherwise the open office is a surveillance scheme where
everyone is watching everyone else.

------
famousactress
_“There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be
developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy.” -Steve Jobs_

The amount of evidence that exists contrary to this statement is staggering.
Don't know who this Steve guy is, but he seems like a real dip-shit.

------
awinder

      2. Career advancement
      The gripe: Working in a cubicle enslaves you to micromanaging bosses.
      My view: Working with other people keeps you engaged and visible.
    

Is it anyone's experience that micromanagement is different depending on
remote vs. on-site? Maybe micromanagers are less inclined to take remote
positions because it could theoretically make it harder to micromanage, but at
least in my experience, you can find that attitude wherever you go.

------
pbreit
I thought this was going to be about cubes vs open plans. Instead it's about
office vs remote. I think we all understand that presence is valuable.

------
shmerl
It's better than open office. Adapting to noisy environment can be
challenging. I have circumaural headphones for cases when I need more
concentration.

~~~
pc86
For anyone unfamiliar, circumaural headphones are "full size" in that they
encompass the ear and are the easiest to block out noise by the physicality
alone.

Next down in supra-aural that presses into the ear (rather than around it),
and then you get to earbuds and in-ear headphones.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones#Types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headphones#Types)

------
Falkon1313
A lot of responses often focus on solitude for creativity vs. distraction and
interruptions. Something that I don't see mentioned often is the need for
distraction.

I'm pretty good at tuning out distractions when I'm focused, sometimes too
good (you may need to wave your hand between me and the monitor to get my
attention). Unfortunately, sometimes I overfocus and get mental tunnel vision
/ can't see the forest for the trees. I need to step away from the screen,
pace around, maybe grab a clipboard and sketch a diagram, or clear my mind
some other way.

In my own office, I can do that and the computer's right there when the mental
switch flips, the gate opens, and the ideas start to flow again. In an open
office, I have to leave the building and may be 10 minutes away from my desk
(and subject to several interruptions on the way back). And of course, you
always have the feeling of being watched and judged whenever you step away or
do something at your desk that doesn't appear to be diligently working. So
open offices (or cubicles) can be worse even when you _do_ need distraction.

------
ArkyBeagle
The emphasis on "face time" is just laziness. Laziness is, however,
inevitable. I say that; I've done more good with a five minute hallway
discussion ( in terms of heading off an "oh heck no" idea ) than any other
technique.

but the entire "we need to socialize in order to be successful" thing is sorta
mind-numbing. The word that comes after "social" is "engineering."

~~~
bobby_9x
Communication without face-to-face time is still difficult in many ways. A
couple of years ago I worked remotely as a software developer.

The boss would only give me tasks through email/JIRA and we would have standup
meetings daily.

Almost every time I was assigned a task, I would be given an extremely vague
description. Now normally, this is what we need to deal with as developers,
but I could barely get an idea of what we were trying to accomplish with the
task. I usually just finished the task with what little information I had and
it would have to be re-rewritten almost every time because the boss wanted
something different.

This was all through email. Some people just don't know how to effectively
communicate in writing.

They let me go after about a year because they could hire '4 people in India
for the cost of my salary'. I had to chuckle.

~~~
douche
I have found that people who are incoherent in text tend not to be any more
coherent when they are flapping their gums, either.

------
bmj
His arguments about length of work day and saying "okay, work's done" don't
ring true in my opinion. There are plenty of folks in my office who both stay
at the office late _and_ do work from home after hours. I think that
particular behavior says more about the person than where they work.

Personally, I split time between the office and home, and find that works
pretty well.

------
jpenguin
How GitHub Works: Be Asynchronous. Meetings are toxic. Hours are bullshit.

[http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works-
asynchronous/](http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works-asynchronous/)

I sometimes like face-to-face discussions too, but only with people who are
smarter than me.

------
eikenberry
I don't think this is so much about the cubicle as it is about someone who has
made themselves comfortable in an enterprise setting. A place where you have
to come into the office 9-5 or you're taking PTO, a place where have to put in
plenty of face-time so the boss knows you're working hard, and a place where
once you leave you have no problem forgetting about the work.

------
peter303
Interesting book "Cubed" tells history of offices. Starts with Harry Potter
type scriveners before any machine aids, through industrialization where you
are just a cog in a vast office pool of business machine operators, through
the open offices of today.

