
As Office Space Shrinks, So Does Privacy for Workers - geebee
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/nyregion/as-office-space-shrinks-so-does-privacy-for-workers.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
======
GuiA
_" Yodle’s chief executive, Court Cunningham, so values being close to other
employees that he does not want a private office."_

I've had a few bosses/CEOs who said they loved open space and forced it on
everyone. What always ended up happening is that said CEO/boss would then
informally requisition the shared conference/meeting room as their own
personal office (when they spend 90% of the day in there, it's hard to see it
as "the conference room" rather than "X's unofficial office"), and people
would be stuck taking Skype calls/meetings in the open space, contributing to
ridiculous noise levels (oh and my favorite part was the CEO who'd then step
out of his meeting room to tell us we were making too much noise).

 _She became a convert. “It’s fun,” she said. “That’s the reason I wouldn’t
want an office. It’s fun — if you like the people you work with.”_

Terrible way to end the article, dismissing all of the concerns that were
raised. But it's probably a submarine article planted by the architecture firm
anyway.

I have a private office now, and I'd put it in the top 3 of the best things
about my job. I have a hard time imagining going back to open space without
losing most of my sanity and productivity.

~~~
abalone
Wouldn't an architecture firm be advocating for _more_ space?

Cornell did a study awhile back that found that employees with their own
private offices collaborate less often with their colleagues. A lot less. In
fact their very perception of what constituted "frequent" interaction
plummeted from several times a day to a few times a week. And it happened in
scheduled meetings whereas it was more ad hoc in an open plan office.

They also noted something very interesting: we tend to prioritize our own
personal productivity over team productivity, probably because most of us are
compensated and promoted based on personal accomplishments.

You can see why management struggles with balancing these two objectives in
space design. I think most of the comments here are very cynical but not very
well reasoned. They tend to have not very well thought through conspiracy
theories, like architecture firms wanting smaller spaces (what?) or pinning it
all on cost cutting. Cost cutting? Businesses pay engineers HUGE salaries; if
there was clear evidence that a given office plan was significantly less
productive it would logically be a huge _waste_ of money to put their highly
paid employees in it.

The reality is there is a balance of individual and team productivity that
organizations need to achieve. We have learned a lot about the drawbacks to
purely private office layouts (like lower team collaboration and depressingly
poor social interaction). We are learning about the drawbacks to purely one
big open plan layouts (like noise as it scales beyond a handful). There is no
one easy solution.

Source: _Organizational Dilemmas and Workplace Solutions ‐ Work Effectiveness,
Communication, and Office_ \- Cornell University International Workplace
Studies Program
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140615182702/http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/office_ex2_1238259706.pdf)

~~~
hammerandtongs
There are actually a large number of these studies of which the one you linked
is...one.

Your logic as to why management makes these choices suggests you think
organizations operate on logic vs institutional habits, trends and intra
organization conflict. Citation needed ;).

Your survey of sentiment of the comments here (or the thousands made in
similar posts) doesn't seem particular rich or nuanced, perhaps you are
working deliberately with a supposition that your current situation is "just
fine"?

~~~
abalone
Open plan is a relatively recent trend[1], ergo it cannot reflect an
"institutional habit". Again with the poor reasoning.

One thing the Cornell study highlights is how engineers have a class bias in
favor of maximum individual productivity. That is how they are rewarded. It
would follow that there would be many "thousands" of comments in favor of
private offices. Where these seem to fall flat is in explaining why management
nonetheless build open plan offices that optimize for team collaboration, e.g.
ascribing it to "greed" or "habit" or "architecture firm conspiracy" \-- that
is where the logic errors arise.

[1] It is also a very old trend historically, but in the tech sector it is a
recent trend following cubes and offices.

~~~
zzalpha
Recent? Cubicle farms have been around for 30 years, now. We're simply at the
truly extreme end of a very long term trend.

As for why, the answers there are fairly simple: cost and snake oil. 30 years
ago open plans and cubicles were pitched as a way to increase "collaboration",
with no corroborating evidence that showed a commensurate increase in overall
productivity. It was, to put it plainly, salesmanship and BS.

I'd strongly recommend a pass through Peopleware for a more thorough treatment
on the topic.

~~~
abalone
Open plan is a distinctly different approach than cubicles.

~~~
zzalpha
True. It seems cubicles were an attempt to undo some of the damage of open
plan architecture, which goes back even further than I thought:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-
cubi...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-cubicles-an/)

Damn you, Frank Lloyd Wright!

------
wyclif
If you are an engineer, developer, or programmer the only way to fight the
power on this is to refuse to accept offers from companies who treat their
employees like cattle. It's amazing that I still hear founders getting very
upset about the fact that they can't hire, while enacting "open office" or
"bullpen" policies like the one at Yodle.

~~~
001sky
Short of trolling the recruitment process, this is hard to do in reality.

~~~
dogecoinbase
I interview 3-4 times/month in the bay area, as a way of keeping myself in
tune with the interview process for when I do want a new gig, seeing what new
tech trends are popping up in interviews (and what specific gotcha questions
are popular), and so on. Generally I don't intend to take the job. It could
certainly be interpreted as trolling the process, but I've taken the
opportunity to note things I didn't love about the company when I decline
offers (I see it as the mirror of wanting a company to be specific about
weaknesses if they choose not to hire me), including open or noisy office
space, the appearance of high pressure to work unnecessarily lengthy hours,
poor clarity in equity granting, and lack of diversity.

~~~
Nicholas_C
>I interview 3-4 times/month in the bay area, as a way of keeping myself in
tune with the interview process for when I do want a new gig

Sounds like you're wasting a lot of people's time and resources.

~~~
shawn-furyan
Companies could obviate the need for this sort of reconnaissance by being more
open about pay expectations and honest about experience requirements. They
aren't because they perceive a benefit to holding an information advantage
over applicants. If this information advantage wasn't widely sought by firms,
then there would be no advantage to interviewing several times a month. So
really, any given firm could avoid their time being wasted by the gp. But
presumably they would rather have their time wasted than to give up their
information advantage, so it doesn't really make sense to lay all the
responsibility for wasting people's time at the feet of the gp. Most
candidates just accept the information disadvantage. The gp doesn't, but
that's merely a rational response to the incentives put forth by the job
market.

~~~
geebee
This is an aside, but I think there's a strong case to be made for publishing
salaries, with names. I know it's an intimidating step, but this information
is easily found on line for public service workers. The sky hasn't fallen, and
there are a number of real benefits.

One possible angle - perhaps openly publishing payroll info (name, title, pay)
should be a requirement for all companies that receive an H1B or other work
visa.

Keep in mind, there is precedent. Information about how much a house sold for
is public. Imagine if, when you were selling your house, you only had a bit of
information gleaned from conversations with neighbors here and there, whereas
the buyer had a massive database at his or her disposal with exact prices for
every house sold in your neighborhood in the last 50 years. You'd be at a
massive disadvantage. That's the situation employees are in.

~~~
hga
As of 2001 is was a requirement to post the salary of H1-B employees. That how
while at Lucent I found out the one who was if anything better at the
particular job we were doing was earning $48K to my $80K :-(.

~~~
geebee
That alone is pretty important information, though I'd go one step farther and
require all employee payroll data to be published.

~~~
vacri
Yeah, that doesn't work. I used to be really open with what I earned, because
I didn't care if people knew. Turns out that sometimes people can get a bit
resentful if you do similar jobs and you earn a little more than them. And
sometimes people that do similar jobs and earn a little or a lot more than you
seem to take this as a social signal and you get a new little social wall
between you as you're not on their level.

I had a friend who worked in a job doing social research, and one of the jobs
was talking to people about childhood sexual abuse that they had, a job that
was only done by the more experienced staff. This is random cold-calling to
strangers, and it was handled very delicately, reminding the person at regular
intervals that they can stop the survey any time and that all questions were
optional. He said the odd thing was that if someone started the survey, they
generally completed the 20-minute interview, and it was only in the
demographics section at the end that people bridled a little - at the 'salary
range' question.

Some people don't care about who makes what salary. A lot of people use it to
varying degrees as a social status signaller. I've tried being open about
mine, and these days, I'd prefer not to share, though I still do with close
friends who I know aren't wanky about salary.

~~~
AlexandrB
> Yeah, that doesn't work. I used to be really open with what I earned,
> because I didn't care if people knew. Turns out that sometimes people can
> get a bit resentful if you do similar jobs and you earn a little more than
> them. And sometimes people that do similar jobs and earn a little or a lot
> more than you seem to take this as a social signal and you get a new little
> social wall between you as you're not on their level.

This is really a consequence of a culture that confuses material compensation
with personal worth and success. I wonder if this is different outside of the
western/North American job market.

------
drzaiusapelord
Sometimes I wonder at the limits of productivity here. Your average Office
worker can do things that took multiple people to do in the pre-business IT
age. We're so productive that we have no more low-hanging fruit to grab. Now
we've entered the age of cargo-cult HR thinking like these office plans which
are trying to squeeze out some tiny bit of productivity at the cost of extra
misery for workers.

It saddens me a bit to think that instead of being rewarded for being
productive and competitive, we're just squeezed more and more. Remember when
futurists in the past were predicting the 3 or 4 day workweek because of
productivity gains and automation? People are working just as long and
whatever dividends are being paid out from the efficiencies of modern work,
just seem to be going nowhere or into the pockets of ownership.

Personally, I'm hoping this stuff gets so bad that the white collar types
start a revolt of sorts. We're seeing the blue collar types being 1099'd to
death or worked hard at below living wages. Maybe its time we got squeezed so
hard that we start taking a more political stance. Basing our modern work
environment on what is essentially 1890's factory work policies (9-5,
weekends, lunch breaks) seems crazy. I'm not even sure why I'm even in the
office most days. Its all so inefficient and backwards, that all this open
office shuffling just seems to be a way to guarantee that we won't ask for the
4 day workweek or the 35 hour week, via losing productivity by having
coworkers yell in our ears all day.

I'm not saying this is intentional, its just management incompetence. They
also have no idea what to do with this glut of cheap labor. Shoving us into
smaller cubes or open spaces just seems like the next logical move when they
hold all the cards.

------
tessierashpool
I work remote. I don't understand why you all tolerate this kind of nonsense.

Excluding some short-term engagements and occasional visits to client offices,
I haven't worked in an office on a daily basis since 2008. Every time I go
into a client's physical office, it's like walking into somebody's den and
finding an 8-track tape recorder, a black-and-white TV set, a rotary phone,
and a Betamax.

When I go into an office, I don't think "why do people even do this?" I think,
"why _did_ people even do this?" It's so archaic that even when I see it
happening right in front of my eyes, I have to remind myself that it still
isn't over.

Finding a remote job is a lot harder than finding a job at a Bay Area startup,
because companies which hire remote hire from all over. But it's absolutely
worth it. And finding remote _clients_ is relatively easy.

Don't subject yourself to this kind of foolishness. There's nothing
professional or reasonable about it. It's just a vestigial custom, a primitive
ritual which hasn't fully died out yet.

~~~
cylinder
A lot of people aren't like us, they are extroverts and they love going in and
seeing everyone, and they hate being at home. Even I as an introvert got
depressed being at home everyday and not having somewhere to go. The best is a
mix with flexibility.

Remote will never apply to everyone and every line of work.

~~~
driverdan
Most cities have coworking spaces. Even if you only work there once a week
they're a great for replacing the social aspect of work.

------
bcbrown
When interviewing, I will absolutely rule a company out if the office space
isn't appropriate. I like open offices, but I need my own desk, and my back to
a wall. Any companies with bullpen-style shared long tables is immediately
out.

~~~
e40
_but I need my own desk, and my back to a wall_

I'm curious why you want your back to the wall. All the people I know that do
this are chronic goof offs. They always scramble to cover whatever they're
looking at when I come in to talk with them.

I am genuinely curious and not trolling you.

EDIT: downvotes? Really? This is a very legit question and is producing legit
conversation.

~~~
fragsworth
I can't speak for the original commenter, but it seems reasonable to me,
because if your monitor is facing away from a wall, there is a constant burden
of wondering who might be behind you and what they might think of what is on
your screen. And this is when you're doing actual work.

When you're _not_ doing work, it makes goofing off on the Internet less of a
mental relief, and things are overall more stressful.

~~~
spiritplumber
Same here. It's important to not feel like someone may hit you in the back of
the head with no warning. Admittedly, it's not something that happens in most
workplaces... most not all.

It's a primal fear kind of thing, and doesn't have to be rational.

~~~
bcbrown
Yep, pretty much.

------
leroy_masochist
It really boggles my mind how the default approach to corporate real estate in
the startup world seems to be getting a lease in a trendy (ie, expensive)
neighborhood, spending significant money to make the space nicer, paying a lot
in terms of perks (food, laundry, etc)....but at the end of the day,
everyone's in this big open-air, hangar-like environment where you can't have
a private conversation, and there's such a demand for conference room time
that it becomes a source of conflict.

I used to work in an office in a trendy part of NYC at a company that had 3
catered meals per day, a VERY well-stocked liquor cabinet, and a varied,
seemingly endless supply of high-end drinks and snacks (as in the fresh-
squeezed juices that retail for $9.99, candy imported from Japan, etc). They
also had an open office that was not horribly crowded but very open
nonetheless.

I have also worked in a shabby nondescript office in a standard, non-sexy
building and neighborhood where I had my own office with a door that closed.
It wasn't big, but it was private.

The latter was definitely cheaper on a $/employee basis, and not only did I
prefer it in an abstract way, but I was definitely more productive.

------
Kalium
Open offices are cheap. That's why they are so beloved.

They're also very distracting. I'm in an office right now where I have to use
headphones and loud music to not listen to sales and account management all
day... and that's just the audio distractions.

~~~
nickbauman
That's a classic open office plan fail. Sales and account management do not
need to be in the same space as dev.

~~~
joshuapants
No, but you see, it fosters synergy between teams

------
thoughtsimple
Yeah, fun all right. "Why aren't you finished with your project?"

"I can't concentrate at the office. But I'm having fun. Isn't that enough?"

"Sure, sure. Carry on!"

------
JohnBooty
What kills me about this is that for me (and a lot of people) it's not about
square footage.

It's about distractions. I would literally be fine working inside a phone
booth-sized office that provided some visual and auditory privacy.

~~~
neverartful
Good point. I completely agree. While my Bose QC-15 headphones can often go a
long way toward the auditory privacy, the visual part is still there (and
highly distracting).

------
leetrout
At my last gig we built out a new office space- of course all the execs got
offices and none of the support people who talk on the phones all day got an
office.

So everyone was in a giant open room with a concrete floor and hard desks- a
couple rugs, but it didn't cut it.

On top of that the CTO said he didn't like not being able to see the devs so
he put a dropcam on the shelf over our area... so open area for devs plus a
camera recording everything we say and do and only one person with access...

~~~
s73v3r
How did he still have people working for him? I imagine that kind of bullshit
would make most of the team walk out.

~~~
leetrout
Yea, it did me. Most people are just willing to put up with whatever- I really
want to enjoy the work I do and where I work so it was a pretty big deal for
me. Everyone thought I was overreacting. They did take the camera down- not
sure if it went back up...

------
colanderman
_Long tables would have given each person even less space, he said — about 2
feet wide by 1 ½ feet deep._

Seriously? 2 feet is elbow-bumping width. Is this moron planning office space,
or seating for fucking RyanAir?

------
logicallee
One of the times this came up[1] someone made a good point (wish I could save
comments :) ) about the important distinction between sharing an open office
with engineers, versus random people walking by/loud sales cales/managers/etc.
In the first case, people don't mind interruptions - from other engineers. In
the second case, interruptions are terrible. So according to that comment, a
group of expert engineers working in a shared space can really experience some
synergy. sometimes if you can say, "hey do you have a sec" and ask a super-
quick engineering question, it can really help. If a few people start
discussing architecture, everyone can join. etc. Apparently it works. If it's
other engineers.

This makes me wonder.

Reading our present article - what we're really missing is some data. Really,
any data. All of those people who have beaten it into us that "correlation is
not causation" have won a Pyrrhic victory. We're left without even an
indication of what the correlation is.

I have no idea _whatsoever_ whether the data points plotting productivity (y)
and space per worker (x) is a random scatter plot, clearly correlated
positively, negatively, has a peak, has any shape at all, or whatever.

I don't care what data you're showing. For the y axis you can use startup
market cap/valuation per employee for all I care. You can use lines of code -
a terrible metric. Or whatever other proxy for productivity you want.

But whatever you use, anything is better than nothing at all.

What I'm wondering is: in a software or startup context - or any context at
all - what is the _shape_ of the correlation at all between productivity and
space per worker?

This seems to be a central question, but the article only hints at an answer
without presenting any data at all.

Since it's clearly a choice all organizations and startups face - let's see
it!

-

[1] Other discussions on open offices:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)
(top stories)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularit...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=open%20office&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)
(top comments)

------
nickbauman
All the complaints about open office plans for software development are valid.
However, having worked at many places that have both open and closed office
spaces, I've found that the closed office spaces promote knowledge siloing,
creating a lot of power for people who have had more time (to make a mess) in
the code.

There's a right way and a wrong way to do open office planning. One of the
basics is, why do you need 40 people to ship your product? Are you sending
rockets to mars? Creating a LHC? Open plans start and end with a half a dozen
people. Beyond that size, they need their own room.

~~~
zzalpha
There's also a right way and a wrong way to disseminate information within a
team that doesn't require a work environment that's detrimental to
productivity (code reviews and pair programming immediately come to mind).

Open plans as a way to avoid "siloing" is the wrong solution to a much bigger
problem.

~~~
nickbauman
The most important thing in software is that humans build software systems.
And that they need to communicate with as high-fidelity and efficiency
possible. Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors.
If I have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend
then next 1/2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could
have just told me in 15 seconds. That's the idea here. But it can work with
closed doors, too; especially as the product matures (or, heh, ossifies).

~~~
zzalpha
_Often that works with small teams that are co-located without doors. If I
have to get up to ask you a question, I might not ask it. I might spend then
next 1 /2 hour trying to read code. Maybe I'll figure it out but you could
have just told me in 15 seconds._

The flipside is that, if you spend a half hour figuring something out instead
of interrupting me, you don't interrupt my flow, which could translate into a
much greater reduction in productivity than if you'd just dealt with it
yourself.

Put another way: open offices make it _too_ easy to interrupt someone else.

In our space we find a balance with electronic communication. Two person
offices reduce distraction. IRC and email serve as a middle ground to
interruption (as folks on the receiving end can control when the interruption
occurs). Interruptions in meatspace only occur when they're actually
necessary.

Edit:

And I forgot the other big benefit: two person offices mean you can co-locate
people who work in the same product area, and when broader discussions need to
happen, the offices can double as meeting spaces without everyone else being
interrupted by the conversation.

So offices actually _assist_ in facilitating communication as the threat of
distracting others is substantially reduced.

~~~
nickbauman
"Could" translate. Not "Does" translate. Turn this around again. What's more
valuable: your productivity or the overall team productivity? Open offices
don't have to be a place where it's "too easy to interrupt", but I agree they
often are.

~~~
zzalpha
I'll put my money on "does".

If you don't interrupt me, you lose 30 minutes of your time solving your
problem (and, by the way, learn to learn along the way).

If you do interrupt me, you save yourself, say, 25 minutes, while I probably
lose 60 minutes of effective flow time ("gee, I'm distracted now, might as
well go to the bathroom and get another coffee while I'm at it... oh hey, look
some emails, let's take a look at those...").

And that's ignoring the distraction you create for all the folks around me as
you come and ask your question.

So in terms of overall _team_ productivity (which is a function of the
individual productivity levels of the team members), I will happily take the
bet that open offices are far worse than closed ones in the the scenario
you've proposed.

------
dyoder
God forbid you let people work from home.

~~~
thoughtsimple
Can't do that, we looked at the VPN logs and no one ever logged in.

~~~
odonnellryan
That doesn't mean no one would ever log in.

------
Zigurd
Companies that use open plan offices do it for the appearance of productivity
over actual productivity.

Actual productivity in modern software enterprises is visible in task
management tools like JIRA and in the repos, and communication, especially in
an environment where spoken English might not be everyone's strength, is best
seen in a Hangout or other chat/collaboration tool.

Failing to accommodate workers' preferences for working conditions is just
plain bad practice, no matter what such preferences might be or how they might
vary depending on the nature of a project. You can always see the health of a
team and of a project no matter how project resources are located and
connected.

If the boss is actually minding the store, he'll be doing it by taking a look
at how his projects are proceeding, using objective metrics, not "by walking
around" or at meetings.

The boss may need a lieutenant to grok JIRA for him. But failing to be able to
manage a project because you can't look over everyone's shoulder is a
management failure, not a failure of the work environment.

------
peterwwillis
I work crammed into a long table at a Starbucks, and I much prefer it to the
company office. Call me crazy, but I don't think office space and privacy is
the most important thing to office workers.

The problem is they're stuck in an office.

~~~
dismal2
you have a sense of privacy in public, a lot more than in a space with a set
group of people that you have to constantly interact with. in a cafe nobody
cares how "busy" you look, you're just getting stuff done, in an office it
quickly becomes about appearances, or leaving only after your boss left even
if you're no longer productive, etc. basically in a public space people can
"judge" what you're doing but it doesn't matter while in a private space
people "judge" you and it matters.

------
bhewes
This is why companies move to the suburbs. Prestige of a Manhattan address
over the comforts of the burbs.

------
thecrumb
I wouldn't really mind an 'open' space if I was sitting with people who wanted
a similar environment. I want... low lighting and min noise. I don't think
everyone wants that but the office should be hacked up to accommodate
environments that allow people to focus. I know people who thrive in the
noise, but I do not.

Last job I was in a short cube right next to the breakroom so ALL DAY people
walked by, talked and stared at my screen. It drove me nuts.

~~~
geebee
Yeah, this is what Sun Micro did a long time back. At many of the drop in
centers, Sun divided the office space into loud office and quiet office. The
office manager clearly was empowered to kick people out of the quiet office if
they were making noise, so it worked.

The downside is that it does help to be able to have a private conversion,
spontaneously. A UI expert pops by your office, asks a few questions, the
conversation shifts over to work, you end up showing a few screens, talking
about it. You can do this in an office without worrying about disrupting the
people around you (my experience is that devs tend to be far more sensitive
about this).

So ironically, I actually think that open offices reduce the amount of
communication between certain types of workers, because people who value quiet
are shy about making noise (because they know how much it derails their own
work). As a result, the casual conversations that lead to valuable work
related conversations never happen.

------
bsg75
Any manager of a technical group who says open plans result in a better
product or service are either (1) lying because "open" is cheaper (more bodies
per square foot / meter), or (2) completely ignorant of the concept of
concentration and focus, and therefore not competent management.

My expectation is that the former is the most often case.

------
Multiplayer
I just closed our 4000sq ft office after 2.5 years and went fully remote. That
office was my "dream" office for my small company. Here's what I learned: 1\.
4000 sq ft is way too small for an open office. There's no where for anyone to
work quietly, without distraction. 2\. Engineers and people that need to work
without distraction (like me) just can't get enough done. 3\. Working remotely
in a quiet space is 10x more productive for me, and as far as I can tell, my
co-workers. 4\. The office space is for my ego, not for my shareholders. 5\.
Some people are not setup for remote working and I don't think there are
enough viable co-working situations yet. Just an opinion. These people need an
office to work at.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I could I would short office space. It's
way overpriced and counterproductive.

------
jkot
It is not about privacy, but about concentration and productivity.

------
rl3
Both approaches have merit. Any solutions would do well to achieve the best of
both while still remaining feasible.

In the past, I've thought about physically-convertible setups, but this is
probably far too exotic to be practical. Likewise, affording each employee two
desks, one of each type, doesn't rank very high on the feasibility scale
either.

What about emulating helicopter cabin communication?

Give each employee audiophile-grade closed headphones and\or in-ear monitors.
Then, issue a high quality microphone along with it. Finally, use this setup
with say, Slack (once they add voice support).

Open office. Each desk angled back-to-wall or similar to afford visual
privacy, and the only problem you're left with is conversational privacy.

For that, anything from conference rooms to sufficiently loud artificial
ambient office noise could work.

------
golgappi
I work for an IT consultancy that has about 40 people and an open office. I
have never had any issues. Probably because almost everyone is a
developer/administrator and people mostly prefer communicating through IRC.
The office space is completely silent, and the desks are in groups, far apart
from each other. It is wonderful, looks good and doesn't make me feel
depressed sitting in a cubicle with partitions shorter than my height giving a
fake sense of privacy.

All I am saying is there is a wrong way and a right way of maintaining open
offices. Bashing all open offices for being cheap and unproductive is naive.

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Karunamon
I'm curious as to why the responses to this topic don't mention electronic
communication more often. Tapping someone on the shoulder when they're in flow
leads not only to immediate destruction of mental state, but usually someone
nearly falling out of their chair.

Headphones being the universal symbol for "otherwise occupied, please DND",
why don't people use these electronic communication systems we spent the last
two decades developing?

You get an IM along the lines of "Got a sec?" and you can gracefully swap that
mental state out to disk and address the question.

Really, it's a no brainer.

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rjurney
Considering how cheap office space is compared to labor, the trend of
compacting workers into ever tinier cubes (with or without walls) is insane.

I wrote about good data science/engineer environments in Agile Data Science
(O'Reilly, 2012). You can read it here:
[https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-
sc...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/agile-data-
science/9781449326890/ch01.html)

Pasted inline:

Agile Environments: Engineering Productivity

Generalists require more uninterrupted concentration and quiet than do
specialists. That is because the context of their work is broader, therefore
their immersion is deeper. Their environment must suit this need.

Invest in 2-3x the space of a typical cube farm, or you are wasting your
people. In this setup, some people don’t need desks, which drives costs down.

Rows of cubicles like cells of a hive. Overbooked conference rooms camped and
decamped. Microsoft Outlook a modern punchcard. Monolithic insanity. A sea of
cubes.

Deadlines interrupted by oscillating cacophonies of rumors shouted, spread
like waves uninterrupted by naked desks. Headphone budgets. Not working, close
together. Decibel induced telecommuting. The open plan.

Competing monstrosities seeking productivity but not finding it.

—Poem by Author

Before very long, people get very confused that the process is the content.
That’s ultimately the downfall of IBM. IBM has the best process people in the
world. They just forgot about the content.

—Steve Jobs

We can do better. We should do better. It costs more, but it is inexpensive.

In Agile Data Science, we recognize team members as creative workers, not
office workers. We therefore structure our environment more like studio than
office. At the same time, we recognize that employing advanced mathematics on
data to build products requires quiet contemplation and intense focus. So we
incorporate elements of the library as well.

Many enterprises limit their productivity enhancement of employees to the
acquisition of skills. However, about 86% of productivity problems reside in
the work environment of organizations. The work environment has effect on the
performance of employees. The type of work environment in which employees
operate determines the way in which such enterprises prosper.

—Akinyele Samuel Taiwo

It is much higher cost to employ people than it is to maintain and operate a
building, hence spending money on improving the work environment is the most
cost effective way of improving productivity because of small percentage
increase in productivity of 0.1% to 2% can have dramatic effects on the
profitability of the company. —

—Derek Clements-Croome and Li Baizhan The Sane

Workspace Creative workers need three kinds of spaces to collaborate and build
together. From open to closed, they are: collaboration space, personal space
and private space.

Collaboration Space

Collaboration space is where ideas are hatched. Situated along main
thoroughfares and between departments, collaborative spaces are bright, open,
comfortable and inviting. They have no walls. They are flexible and
reconfigurable. They are ever changing, always rearranged. Bean bags, pillows
and comfortable chairs. Collaboration space is where you feel the energy of
your company: laughter, big conversations, excited voices talking over one
another. Invest in and showcase these areas. Real, not plastic, plants keep
sound from carrying and they make air :)

Private Space

Private space is where deadlines get met. Enclosed and soundproof, private
spaces are libraries. There is no talking. Private space minimizes
distractions. Dim light, white noise. There are bean bags, couches and chairs,
but ergonomics demand proper workstations too. Separated sit/stand desks with
docking stations behind (bead) curtains with 30” LCDs.

Personal Space

Personal space is where people call home. In between collaboration and private
space in its degree of openness, personal space should be personalized by each
individual to suit his or her needs. Shared office or open desks, half or
whole cube. Personal space should come with a menu and a budget. Themes and
plant-life should be encouraged. For some people, this is where you spend most
of your time. For others… given adequate collaborative and private space, a
notebook and mobile device, some people don’t need personal space at all.

Above all, the goal of the Agile Environment is to create immersion in data
through the physical environment: printouts, posters, books, whiteboard, etc.

~~~
rodgerd
> Considering how cheap office space is compared to labor,

Unfortunately the finance department is great at showing the opposite.

~~~
hga
They're in different asset categories. E.g. if times get tough you can lay off
people, but office space is generally leased for fairly long terms, and if you
can't sublet for one reason or another....

And if the company is old enough they too often come out of different budgets.

~~~
npsimons
The cost difference is so big, even the factor of leases shouldn't make a
difference. We're talking an order of magnitude usually (from what I've read
on the topic). And once you factor in severance packages, etc, it's a no-
brainer. It's possible to argue the merits of open versus closed, small teams
versus big teams, etc, but any organization using cost of space against
productivity is doing something very wrong.

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chrismealy
My favorite environment is having four to eight people (one team) in one very
large room with a door. And a couch.

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machrider
So, private office proponents: what bay area companies actually provide this
to their engineers? I haven't seen a single one in my experience.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I've been part of several startups. They often start with private offices,
until the space fills up. Then you start sharing, camping in the lab etc.

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fnordfnordfnord
Private ~~study~~ work carrels anyone?

