
The death of privacy in open-plan offices - equilibrium
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23502251
======
andyking
As a case in point, I opened up this BBC News page in an Elinks text-mode
browser, so that I can read the content without the person at the other side
of the office knowing I'm reading BBC News instead of doing whatever it is I'm
supposed to be doing.

I'm far, far more efficient in my work when I have a bit of privacy, and I can
relax and get on with things without thinking my screen is constantly being
overlooked by colleagues. The constant feeling of being watched doesn't lead
to more efficient work, just pointless stress.

A lot of people have 'strategically-placed' objects on their desks, between
their monitors and other staff. Bags, boxes, and so on. No one _wants_ to be
in this type of office.

~~~
speeder
I remember when I worked into a large open plan office, people were obviously
very "alt-tab jumpy" or were good in wasting time (ie: leave code on screen,
and then do their best to not work while looking that they were working).

But soon one junior guy got tired of this, and decided to not even hide it, he
just browsed comedic blogs and youtube at will...

Soon other people followed...

Soon the entire office was improductive with lots of people getting their
attention drawn to other people youtube videos.

Then the firings started... and then the quittings started in retaliation to
the firings. Yay, problem solved, because now there are so few employees that
the empty computers are enough to block the vision of each other.

I wonder how they are doing now.

~~~
Silhouette
Your position seems strange to me. I'm all for keeping things light-hearted at
the office and having a bit of downtime and socialisation during the working
day, but if people are doing that all the time and not doing the job they are
paid for, why shouldn't they be fired? Their attendance at the office and
collection of pay is basically fraud. If others quit voluntarily in
retaliation at firing people who don't do their job, then it's not a huge
stretch to guess that the additional quitters weren't the most diligent staff
in the organisation either. Maybe the employer is better off without them.

~~~
speeder
I am not saying that people should not be fired, some of the fired people did
deserved it, since their productivity dropped a lot.

The thing is, their productivity dropped because the open plan office allowed
other people to easily distract them. And before that, they were perfectly
productive.

Also the quitters, were mostly high-level people (that started as junior
coders and ended being managers) that were unhappy with how the most senior
managers handled all the stuff.

If the office was not a wide open plan, people would not waste time alt-
tabbing a lot (they would read whatever news they want, and then return to
work) or distracting other people (ie: tired people that feared opening a news
site would open a news site instead of drawing productive people into
conversations), or by getting distracted by the junior programmer that decided
to watch youtube and screw the alt-tab behavior.

Yes, it is a quite extreme example, a sort of outlier, not all open offices
will have a massive loss of employees (either due to firings or quittings) but
it is a good example of how the paranoia of being watched, and then the
complete lack of it, can totally wreck the workplace.

------
edw519
The "deadly trio" of open office plans for programmers:

1\. We are very often judged by superficial appearance by others because they
have no idea what we do or how we do it. This can include our own managers and
influential others.

2\. We can appear to be doing absolutely nothing (or worse if on the internet)
when we are actually _thinking_. In this mode, we are often contributing much
more value when it appears we are slacking off.

3\. Conversely, we can appear to be very busy typing into an IDE when we are
just spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. We don't know what to do but
feel compelled to act instead of think because people are watching.

~~~
hga
Indeed; I once lost what might have otherwise been a good job at a startup
because the other non-founder programmer, who got his job through nepotism,
was a constant fury of coding and debugging.

Compared to him I appeared to be a slacker, I spent a lot more time thinking,
much less time coding, and very little time debugging. And produced a lot more
working code per unit of time. But this was in 1984 using PCs with no server,
there was no way to objectively measure what I was accomplishing vs. him.

------
willyt
The reason why open plan offices are here to stay is because they are much
more space efficient than traditional offices and therefore cheaper.
Traditional offices use up lots of space for corridors, door swings and
duplicated circulation routes to desks etc. Also, only the offices on the
perimeter of the building have a view to the outside so it limits the depth of
the plan, unless you run the kind of business which has miserable employees.
They also require more complicated a/c, fire alarms, lighting.

~~~
keithpeter
I take your point but schools and colleges seem to manage the 'large number of
medium sized rooms each with some daylight, corridor, escape route' problem.
Classrooms can be converted into 10 to 12 person offices relatively easily.
There has been quite a lot of new building in schools and colleges in the UK,
so I'll try to find costings.

Mind you, the new college buildings at least in UK also have open plan offices
for teaching and admin staff. Many of my colleagues do prep work in unoccupied
classrooms or work at home or do prep at odd times when the staff room is
quiet. This, of course, short circuits the interaction argument for open plan
offices.

~~~
agilebyte
Yeah, _can 't_ imagine how you are supposed to have a 1-on-1 private convo
with a student in an open environment like that either. Perhaps there always
needs to be a bunch of break out rooms for use too.

~~~
rubinelli
Open floor spaces normally have a few meeting rooms. A very common anti-
pattern is senior staff "temporarily" occupying these rooms and turning them
into private offices, so the rest of the team is not only deprived of privacy,
but also of adequate meeting space. But hey, stand-up meetings are awesome,
right?

~~~
robin_reala
We just kick them out when it’s time to have a meeting :)

------
BillyMaize
As I read this article I sit in an open office environment where us engineers
trying our best to focus on what we are doing. We use to have our own offices
but those are now empty because the interior designer told our CEO that
packing everyone into a big open space was, of course, cheaper but also
happens to be a great environment for knowledge workers to "work together to
solve problems". The engineer that acts as support for common problems and
constantly gets phone calls and loud talking floor workers sits right in the
middle of us. Being on the edge of the open area and having a wall to my back
wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for said wall having big huge windows so
people can see what I'm doing and I can't hear them walking up behind me.

Ever since the move over to this open space I have honestly thought about
quitting my job. One guy already has left after they moved him from his office
with a nice view out the window to sitting facing a corner. I always feel like
I'm being watched and that I can't even check my email really quick without
being thought of as a slacker. A part of me wants to build a case from
research to show my boss how bad this kind of environment really is but I know
that nothing will change (even though the last CEO is long gone).

~~~
yuhong
>but I know that nothing will change (even though the last CEO is long gone).

Why, BTW?

------
eloisant
I believe walls made of glass also have a legal purpose. If 2 coworkers (say a
male boss and a female subordinate) can go completely isolated in a room, the
female risks actual harassment while the male risks a false accusation on
harassment.

The wall made of glass removes this liability. It can still have a phonic
isolation.

~~~
atirip
You are trolling or joking, right? Or where do you live?

~~~
speeder
You are very naive to believe this won't happen in most of the western world.

Currently with feminism all the rage, and sue happy people all the rage, there
are lots of good reasons to avoid getting sued.

For example, I know a couple of taxi drivers that refuse to drive women,
specially a single woman, because of repeated problems with false rape
accusations. (likewise, there are lots of real rape cases with taxi drivers
involved).

EDIT: I remembered when my dad worked at a church helping people, and kicked
out of his office any women that asked him to lock the door, no matter the
reason. Then he explained to me he has a personal rule of never locking
himself alone with a woman in a room, unless it is my mom.

~~~
michaelochurch
_Currently with feminism all the rage, and sue happy people all the rage,
there are lots of good reasons to avoid getting sued._

Don't blame "feminism" for that. False rape/harassment accusations occur and
it's very wrong that they do, but they're not a product of feminism.

False rape/harassment accusations are the antithesis of feminism. First of
all, that game is old as empire: women using social power and implicit
credibility to _get other men_ to use violence or bring social harm on men who
displease them. It happened in the antebellum South, which is not exactly
known for being a stronghold of feminism. It has probably existed in every
society.

Women have a certain social power-- the ability to make men fight over them,
to defend their honor, et cetera-- that is decidedly unfeminist in origin.
Whether they choose to use it comes down to the individual. If anything, a
feminist should be less likely to use that, instead preferring to solve her
own problems instead of calling in a man to rough someone up.

Feminism and bad female behavior shouldn't be linked together. Bad behavior is
as old as dirt on all sides of any class, gender, or race divide, and it's
irrelevant to the real debate. At any rate, feminism is about equality, and
abuse of archaic, gendered social powers goes directly against that purpose.

~~~
speeder
I won't explain it again now...

You are partly correct, but feminism brought lots of social changes that
affect this.

Also, lots of feminists defend female supremacy and they are very clear on
that (most infamously, Valerie Solanas).

I mentioned feminism in particular, because after its rise, rape is a crime
that shifted from being almost never prosecuted to be kinda over prosecuted,
with cases that involve strangers the "innocent until proven guilty" being
thrown away from the window. (while sadly, rape by known people, that is still
the majority of the rapes, is still mostly not prosecuted properly).

Unfortunately I don't have time now to grab the exact statistics and research,
but there is some evidence that courts tend to be biased toward women, with
many avoiding punishing false rape accusations (even when the accused life is
destroyed).

Mass panic and mass hysteria always happened in history, feminism changed the
subject of the panic and hysteria, not the frequency.

------
keithpeter
Quote from OA

 _" If you want a private conversation at work, you're better off having it in
a public place - the stairwell or coffee shop - than in the goldfish bowl in
the office."_

There is a coffee shop in the centre of Birmingham where I now avoid sitting
downstairs in the cellar. Too many groups of managers sitting round talking in
some detail about what are obviously personnel matters. They have paperwork on
the tables as well for heavens sake...

------
greenyoda
That link gives me a 404 error.

This URL seems to be a copy of the same article - it has a reference to the
original BBC link at the bottom:

[http://www.newsofthenation.com/2013/07/31/the-death-of-
priva...](http://www.newsofthenation.com/2013/07/31/the-death-of-privacy-in-
open-plan-offices)

Edit: The original URL seems to be working again.

Here's a seemingly related article at the BBC:

"The pleasures and perils of the open-plan office"

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21878739](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21878739)

------
thejosh
I also find it super distracting when developing.. However when doing frontend
website stuff (HTML/JS/etc) I don't.

Anything that requires concentration usually broken quite easily in open plans
for me.

~~~
agilebyte
When I do design I actually do not want people to see my monitor. Too often
someone just interrupts because they _have to_ say "ooh, great logo" or
something like that.

When I develop, nobody cares about the wall of characters that mean nothing to
them.

------
yummyfajitas
I work in an open-plan office and none of the stuff in this article rings
true. The office is open-plan for everyone, from the lowliest intern to the
CEO. Desks are not categorized by rank - the new CTO occupies the desk
formerly held by a 3 day/week freelancer. A few people are stuck in marginally
smaller desks due to a space crunch, but apart from that all the desks have
the same model #.

As for the risk of my boss sneaking up on me while I'm looking at baby
elephants on /r/aww, I'm sure it's happened since I make no attempt to hide
it. It's a complete non-event.

The lack of outward signs of power is actually confusing. A person who sits in
the vicinity of accounting recently came over and started asking for progress
reports from a developer. It took about a week before that developer's manager
informed him that the "accountant" was actually the CEO.

Don't get me wrong - I can make criticisms of open office plans, mainly about
the distractions and the ease with which one can be interrupted. But the
pseudo-marxist critique of power dynamics embedded in this article doesn't
ring true for me.

~~~
michaelochurch
There are still power dynamics in an open-plan-for-everyone arrangement.

The CEO may sit in open view, but:

1\. He can leave any time he wants for a cafe, a conference room, or even take
a drive and go home for the day. Open plan isn't horrible for people who can
escape it any time they wish. It's the peons who are expected to be there 8
hours per day-- the ones that people will say shit about if they spend an hour
or two (no matter how productive) away from the desk-- who are going to get
sick.

2\. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. If he wants to spend the whole day
playing video games, he can. He has nothing to fear from other people seeing
his daily activities. If he has stinky farts, the rest of the office will
start eating beans and cheese to match the stink of his flatus.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_He can leave any time he wants for a cafe, a conference room, or even take a
drive and go home for the day...If he wants to spend the whole day playing
video games, he can._

Why do you think a developer can't do these things?

I don't disagree that there are power dynamics and office politics. They are
just orthogonal to the seating arrangement.

I've occasionally wondered if it might be better if there were outward signs
of power. At the very least, it would give us apolitical developers a visual
clue that ignoring or talking down to person X might be something to avoid.

------
notacoward
The people who push for cube farms never like to see this mentioned, but one
of the major motivations is taxes. In some jurisdictions, property tax (paid
directly or passed on as rent) is based in part on _built_ space - including
offices with real walls/doors but not cubes. Therefore, the cube farm is taxed
less or not at all, lowering overhead costs. It has nothing to do with
productivity, communication, or any such.

------
touristtam
weird, from the link greenyoda provided (thanks by the way).

publication date: "July 31, 2013"

and at the footer: "This piece is based on an edited transcript of Lucy
Kellaway’s History of Office Life, produced by Russell Finch, of Somethin’
Else, for Radio 4. Episode nine, Whatever Happened to the Paperless Office?,
is broadcast at 13:45 BST on 1 August"

So is the radio show to be listen to tomorrow at quarter to two BST? O_O

~~~
andyking
Unlike a lot of music radio stations, which are just a man sitting in a room
playing songs off a computer and chattering between them, Radio 4 has a lot of
well-researched, pre-recorded content that would be impossible to broadcast
live.

------
alexfarran
You might also want to listen to The Search For The Perfect office, another
BBC documentary on the subject
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036wfzv](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036wfzv)

------
bentaber
And the alternative is? This article does a good job of complaining while
proposing no other solution.

~~~
georgemcbay
"And the alternative is?"

Uh, traditional office spaces? Or at the very least, real cubicles?

I guess the under 30 crowd may not be aware, but open offices in the US are a
relatively new phenomenon for tech workers. I'm 40 and when I first started
working as a programmer, suggesting implementing a modern open-plan office
would get you laughed out of the building. Now it is nearly impossible to get
away from them, much to my chagrin.

~~~
Nursie
Hell no!

As a UK worker that's always worked open plan, I find cube farms extremely
oppressive.

~~~
pivo
I had an office with a window and door in my jobs in the US up until the open
office plan boom. I assume that's what the OP was referring to. (And how I
miss those tiny offices, sob)

------
michaelochurch
Open plan offices (in technology; there are plenty of work environments where
they make sense and there's nothing negative to read into it) were originally
designed with malicious intent. Now it's the default, and even touted as a
perk, if you believe that. But the original purpose was pretty depraved.
There's also quite a strong discrimination thread to that story. Those people
who get pregnant are a lot more likely to leave if they have an open-plan
office during that time.

One of the things to keep in mind about white-collar sociology is that all of
the things that seem like irritating inefficiencies-- the pointless busywork,
the loyalty tests, the focus on sacrifice rather than contribution, and the
illness-inducing open-back visibility-- are actually designed to make people
sick. Why? Because there's literally no other way, in most companies, to
figure out who deserves to advance. In the white-collar world, the manager
types who run it will never know who's good at his job and who's not, so the
only way to test people is to load them up with pointless unpleasantness and
see who departs or breaks first.

Not all individual managers actually people to break. In fact, the middle
managers generally don't want it, because it makes messes they have to deal
with. However, the only way to resolve the contest for limited advancement
opportunities is for people to get so fed up or sick that they cannot
continue.

That's also why mainstream corporate work will _never_ be able to accommodate
depression or anxiety disorders. Those illnesses, especially when they occur
in the previously healthy-- burnout and nervous breakdown-- are intrinsic
features of the game. It'd be a different sport without them, and the people
who've been winning one game for the past few decades aren't about to change
the rules.

~~~
johnward
"That's also why mainstream corporate work will never be able to accommodate
depression or anxiety disorders." I've always dealt with this to some extent
since I was about 12 years old. It really became an actual problem after
working for a mega corp. My soul was crushed. I was working crazy shifts and
having needless stress piled on by my manager for things that weren't even a
big deal. When I had to work weekends 1 person had to be manning the phone at
all times (since it was a support role). I ask my boss "what about when I go
to the bathroom". His answer was that you "must take the phone and answer it
at all times". I left that job and landed in startup that ended up getting
purchased by another mega corp. Still having trouble dealing with it.

------
tokipin
lmao @ woodrank

