
The Open-Office Trap - bqe
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/01/the-open-office-trap.html
======
VLM
If open plan offices actually worked, all academic facilities would install
dozens of TVs each showing a different cable TV channel and volume turned up
to distracting level in each study tank. Oh wait, places where people have to
actually think are pin-drop silent? Really? You mean most calculus homework
isn't done at frat keggers?

The root of the problem is a management primate dominance fad; the mere grunt
laborers beneath me don't think; I'm of a superior social class who can think;
therefore who cares if the losers can't think. If they were the cool kids like
us, they'd have offices with doors where they can think, like me. Besides I
don't want my underlings thinking, then one of them might end up
outmaneuvering me and taking over. Gotta keep them down.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Quite a bit of calculus homework is done at the frat house, the coffee shop,
or other such places. Many people work best in situations other than total
isolation and quiet.

I'm not sure about the dominance thing either - most open office plans I've
seen have no offices for anyone. At my last job the incoming CTO inherited the
desk of a freelancer who left the week before.

~~~
a-priori
Background noise and activity isn't all alike. In a coffee shop it's
irrelevant: strangers moving about and talking about things that don't concern
you. That's easier to tune out than things than the noise and activity in an
open plan office where it's people you know moving about and talking about
things that may be relevant to you.

Also, people are different -- some are better able to tune out background
noise -- and the same person is different on different days and while doing
different tasks.

~~~
scott_s
Yes, very much so. This is why in grad school, I did a lot of work at a
bustling coffee shop rather than in our open-plan office space. I had a much
easier time concentrating at the coffee shop; there was more activity, but
none of it was relevant to me.

------
PythonicAlpha
I have seen, that despite the fact, that open offices are criticized for I
think at least 20 years (somebody mentioned the book Peopleware that is a real
classic) the idea is keeping coming up in big companies. First time it was
presented to me, it was as big "new invention" that has proven to better
communications .... that was already at least 10 years after Peopleware ...
(so much about new "invention"). Then, some years later, it was brought to us
as big break-threw for "teams of ten" better for scrum and the like ... how
wonderful, old wine in even older bottles! Of course they sweard that would
get enough extra spaces for retreat, so that people could go there to have
silence .... then it was only talked about one spare room, may be for two big
team offices (meaning, for 20 people ... so much about retreat
possibilities!). Later also this was canceled, since facility management was
unable to prepare enough extra space ... What was left: Everybody got
notebooks instead of regular PCs and many where happy with this "generous
gift".

And so the story goes: The same foolish idea keeps on popping up and popping
up, I guess because every now and then a business magazine for managers writes
how wonderful the idea is ....

And so the tailor keeps on sewing The Emperor's New Cloth!

~~~
fuckpig
Isn't this true of all the really insane ideas since the French Revolution?

------
jmspring
Most open offices I have worked in have been quite noisy. Most people end up
wearing headphones of some type. I'm not sure how that contributes to
information flow and collaboration.

I have worked in some open offices that are designed quite well with noise
baffling and spaces broken up such that there wasn't an additive effect of
every noise in the larger office being heard.

I prefer some mix.

------
mrweasel
This isn't really new, we known about issues regarding open office plan since
the 1980s. I think it's mentioned in Peopleware at least.

So why is it that companies keep building open office spaces? Are people
really so focused on short term savings that they do not care that it will
cost more in the long run?

~~~
bane
What's really weird is that lots of the new, VC funded startups that should be
really progressive about coddling employee needs are building these kinds of
offices.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Dominance.

If the higher-ups have their own offices, whereas the plebes are amassed in
the sweatshop, it gives the former a sense of dominance. It increases
testosterone production, which makes them feel better, stronger, more
energetic.

It's very hard to change something in a place if it makes the decision-makers
feel really good.

"Rational actors" my ass. We are all a bunch of chimpanzees.

~~~
mindcrime
_" Rational actors" my ass. We are all a bunch of chimpanzees._

I think it's a little bit more nuanced than that. My guess is that people are
_mostly_ rational in many ways, but far less than totally rational in many
ways. Some economists and social-science types refer to the term "bounded
rationality".[1] I think that's about right.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality)

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I agree. I was not aiming for absolutely rigorous language.

------
pasbesoin
On a personal level, the "Trap" in the title immediately spoke to me.

The increased stress and decreased effectiveness can turn into a downward
spiral.

You owe it to yourself to get out, before the damage accumulates and
accelerates.

Find somewhere better. Make and leave to your competition the "open office".
Turn a better workspace into a competitive advantage. "Open space" proponents
deserve to suffer the consequences of said promotion.

And if an "open space" proponent seeks to joint your organization, mount a
critical opposition. If they are taken on nonetheless or are already present,
and they demonstrate significant influence on this topic, it may well be time
to start looking to moving on. [1]

This all may sound terribly prescriptive and perhaps an over-reaction. But,
again personally, I observed first-hand a large development shop within a
corporation moved from offices to a horrible version of open space.
Effectiveness and job satisfaction suffered significantly while stress levels
rose in similar degree.

Attitudes went from "I'm lucky to work here" to "I'm looking for an exit." (In
daydreams, certainly; actual action varied, but several top-flight people were
gone within a year or two, and many long-term, heavily invested employees
seemed to convey an increasing sense of feeling trapped).

\----

[1] I hold this attitude also towards erstwhile proponents. Some people push
whatever is the current trend in management. I'm decreasingly willing to
forgive them for the damage they cause along the way, especially when it is
done without any critical thinking and real care and attention on their part.

------
wil421
I work in an open office and I tend to agree that:

Noise causes distractions which lead to a decrease in efficiency.

Also, having absolutely no privacy makes me feel vulnerable especially having
directors and managers as the closest people within ear shot.

------
lasermike026
If open offices are so great why don't managers use them? They don't because
open offices suck. Get rid of them yesterday.

------
shijie
Being in my late 20s and having only worked in open-office environments, the
thought of having my own office seems archaic and counter-intuitive to
productivity and communication. If I have my headphones in, I'm busy. If I
don't, I can answer questions or talk to my colleagues about something.
Projecting how I would feel in a "closed office" environment, I can honestly
say I'd feel trapped and isolated.

My experience is of course, purely anecdotal and non-scientific, but I can't
help feeling that younger people such as myself lean more toward an open-
office configuration due to how differently we approach and accomplish tasks.
It's neither better or worse, just different.

~~~
dpark
> _If I have my headphones in, I 'm busy. If I don't, I can answer questions
> or talk to my colleagues about something._

This comes up every time people discuss open floor plans. Inevitably someone
says that the solution is headphones. Except that a lot of people don't want
to wear headphones all the time. I find it uncomfortable, and I also find that
music significantly reduces my productivity (unless I'm doing something that
doesn't require any meaningful amount of thought). A number of studies have
shown the same thing. Listening to music while working decreases mental power.

The article also covered this:

    
    
        But the most problematic aspect of the open office may be physical rather 
        than psychological: simple noise. In laboratory settings, noise has been 
        repeatedly tied to reduced cognitive performance. The psychologist Nick 
        Perham, who studies the effect of sound on how we think, has found that 
        office commotion impairs workers’ ability to recall information, and even 
        to do basic arithmetic. Listening to music to block out the office 
        intrusion doesn’t help: even that, Perham found, impairs our mental acuity.
    

> _I can 't help feeling that younger people such as myself_

I don't think you're as much different as you imagine. Young people don't work
in drastically different ways than older people.

~~~
madcaptenor
I've been known to wear headphones even when I don't have music playing. It
looks kind of silly, though.

~~~
dpark
Headphones without music don't do nearly as much to block out external noise,
though it does signal "leave me alone".

------
bane
I've written here quite a bit about my basic hatred for open offices. My
personal opinion is that open offices are masked in lots of terms about
"information flow" and "collaboration" when the reality is that it's about
companies being cheap.

I also went to a high school built originally on a completely open plan. At
some point they realized teachers shouting over each other didn't work, or the
teacher next door giving a lecture while the next set of desks over were
taking an exam or whatever, and they put up paper-thin walls to divide the
spaces, but still left the doors open. So at least you didn't have to _see_
the classroom next door even if you had to hear them. Absolute, obvious
idiocy.

For some reason people have forgotten how to do basic reasoning about work
environments and just subscribe to whatever cargo-cult office-space fad of the
time without regard to the nature of the work environment. I've even seen
spaces with rows of inside sales guys on phones cold calling two desks over
from very frustrated developers. Or the worst are the "fish bowl" conference
rooms in the middle of the open floor so you can't even have a proper meeting
without feeling like you're on stage.

I can echo every single point in the article and the net effect of open
offices is that the environments are either library-like tombs where nobody
talks to one another for fear of disturbing the peace or they're full of
people with headphones on, hiding behind monitors trying to scratch out an
ounce of privacy and isolation. It's obvious to anybody who actually works in
an open office that they don't succeed in their basic stated task of helping
communication.

At one place I worked, people did lots of overseas travel and there were 3
large open-office areas. The number of people out sick at any one time was
astronomical. At one point I went 6 solid months of perpetual minor illnesses
before I finally decided to just look for a new job. It took me almost two
years to really feel recovered physically from the constant assault on my
immune system. My fitness levels also took a nose-dive during that time,
either from being constantly ill or from stress loads so high that I'd simply
come home and lock myself in my home office and not come out till I went to
bed.

I think single (or 2 or 3 person) offices _do_ inhibit communication.

The absolute best office configurations I've ever seen are the ones with team
rooms that surround a central conference room. Each room sits 6-12 people, has
a conference room and the ability to set their own office rules. Sales guys
get piled into one bullpen and can make all the calls they want, customer
support in another, scrum team 1 in a different one etc. Team leads _must_
work in the team rooms to keep things from degenerating to antics. Teams can
collaborate with each other in the central conference room as needed.

These aren't terribly expensive to build out and seem to provide the best
possible productivity and combination of semi-privacy, local information
sharing and cross-team information sharing. In the long-run the operating
costs for facilities end up as a small fraction of salaries anyway. You should
do everything possible to maximize your investment in salaries, even if your
office space costs are a few percent higher...it'll pay off.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I 've even seen spaces with rows of inside sales guys on phones cold
> calling two desks over from very frustrated developers._

We have that. If there wasn't a short dividing wall between us, I could kick
one of our sales directors in the shin. There's four more in that particular
section.

Sometimes it's noisy and annoying, but at least I can put on headphones, turn
on music and/or white noise, and ignore them - they don't even have that
luxury most of the time, if they're on a call with a client. Devs being noisy?
They have to deal with it. Their neighbor on another loud call? They have to
deal with it.

It can suck for everyone, but at least we have more options for dealing with
it.

~~~
Frqy3
I am also stuck adjacent to the sales group with not even the minimal cubicle
walls separating desks. Their standard work process seems to be make a sales
call, then chat and joke around for half an hour.

I recently converted my standard headphones into industrial noise-isolating
headphones. [http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/01/fix-a-broken-pair-of-
he...](http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/01/fix-a-broken-pair-of-headphones-
with-20-earmuffs/)

It might signal that I'm not a 'team player', but my productivity is way up.

------
trusche
I find it interesting that in all these articles and studies about open plan
offices, the distraction from noise levels is always so prominent, but the
other side of that issue rarely gets mentioned. In my experience of open
offices, everyone is so aware of potentially disrupting their colleagues by
striking up a conversation that _nobody does it_. So instead of fostering an
atmosphere of collaboration, the open office can actually actively prevent it.
Is that as common as I think it is?

~~~
nucleardog
Depends on who gets crammed together. A bunch of developers in a room are
possibly going to be pretty considerate about noise.

I was in an 'open plan' office where there were four of us developers at a
large desk with a sales guy at one end, a sales guy sitting at the other end
of our desk, and another sales guy ten feet behind him at a desk.

We were generally pretty quiet, but the sales guys liked to shout across us
all day. That is, when they weren't on loud phone calls.

------
AlisdairSH
Why does it have to be either/or? Is it really that hard for an employer to
offer both?

If each team (of 7-10 people) has a scrum room/war room, plus some number of
cubes (4-5) available on an as-needed basis, wouldn't that meet the needs of
employee happiness, collaboration, etc?

Need to make a call? Go to a cube. Deadline to meet? Go to a cube. Mid-
project, lots of design/analysis occurring? Stay in the open room.

Seems like a no-brainer?

~~~
dpark
Cubes still suck. They have most of the same noise issues as open floor plans.
Assholes on speakerphone conference calls...

Also your plan requires that everyone work primarily on laptops (unless you
expect to lug your desktop and monitors to a cube when you need to
concentrate). And you've basically allocated double the space (cubes for half
the team plus a room big enough for the whole team). Why not just cut the
space up more efficiently and give everyone a private space?

This seems like a bad deal for everyone. Workers still feel like they have no
privacy and are constantly distracted, and the company is paying for a lot of
extra space.

~~~
AlisdairSH
Does anybody work for a software company that doesn't issue laptops as the
primary PC? I haven't had a desktop in 10 years and just assumed that was the
norm.

~~~
dpark
Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo all provide a desktop and two monitors (or one
30" one), or did the last time I worked for or interviewed at these companies.
They might also provide laptops, but they aren't the primary device for dev
work. I seem to recall the same for Amazon, but am not certain.

I actually don't understand this belief that a laptop should be the primary
device given the body of research that shows the usefulness of multiple large
monitors (unless you're just docking the laptop).

~~~
nknighthb
_Of course_ you're "docking" it. Nobody sane hunches over a laptop all day
every day.

The advantage to the laptop is you can have your core machine with you
everywhere -- home, office, or traveling. But when you're in the two places
you spend the most time -- the office or at home -- you plug it into an
external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

------
theandrewbailey
I occasionally thank God that my office is a cubicle-free (but walled)
environment. My workplace is in a former mansion converted into office space,
and I have 2 other programmers in the room with me; likewise with the
designers. We may or may not be all working on the same thing. Sometimes
discussion/clarification on some topic helps everyone, otherwise we keep
quiet, have a door, thermostat, and light switch.

At my first job, I remember setting an ultimatum on waiting for 3
conversations (DBAs, team lead, QA) around me to end so I would have some
silence. The line was crossed, so I asked my manager and thankfully, he let me
work from home for the rest of the day, and I got all assignments done that
day.

------
jdotjdot
Is it possible there's any difference in productivity in open-office
environments between introverts and extroverts? I've always wondered that.

~~~
greenyoda
In her book _Quiet_ [1], Susan Cain claims that introverts are more sensitive
to external stimuli[2]. This would probably make them less able to tune out
distractions and thus more stressed out by noisy workplaces where there are
lots of people talking.

She also explicitly discusses workplace issues as they relate to introverts
and extroverts.[3]

It's an interesting book, especially for tech people, a lot of whom tend to
either be introverts or work with lots of introverts.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking#Physiology_of_temperament)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts_in_a_World_That_Can%27t_Stop_Talking#In_the_workplace)

------
willyt
As a counterpoint, I work on my own now, having worked in open plan offices
for years, and I find it hard to concentrate because I feel lonely. My ideal
office size would be somewhere between 5 and 10 people in a room all working
on the same project. You just need a rule that you must leave the room to make
phone calls that last longer than a couple of minutes, especially if you have
an annoying voice or telephone manner or there is some emotional content to
the call. With this setup there should not be to much background noise and you
can ask a colleague a question when it suits you as long as you are respectful
and don't disturb them if they are 'in the zone'. There is research that
supports the 5-10 people sharing a office theory, I think done in the
Netherlands in the 70's but I can't find it now. I can't help but think that
there is a good reason related to camaraderie and teamwork that around 8
people just so happens to be the smallest organisational unit in the army, a
principal the Romans discovered 2000 years ago.

------
al2o3cr
Meh. YMMV - I work in a smallish office (20 people) which is entirely open and
it works out pretty well.

I suspect the real problem is that if you take a dysfunctional office culture
and change it from one-person-to-an-office to an open plan it's (shocker)
still a dysfunctional office culture. See also "hey, if we just buy
$SOFTWARE_METHODOLOGY_X our code will suddenly not suck anymore!"

Some factors that may help open-plan work in our case:

* we pair pretty much all the time, so that may be acting as cultural filter selecting against people who don't work well with a certain level of noise / distraction.

* the main office is open, but there are plenty of smaller conference rooms for times when the lab is too noisy / too distracting / etc.

* although we share an environment, we're still in control of it. The current layout was arrived at after a bunch of collaborative tweaking and furniture shuffling. I suspect having a layout imposed from on-high wouldn't work as well.

~~~
mindcrime
_I suspect the real problem is that if you take a dysfunctional office culture
and change it from one-person-to-an-office to an open plan it 's (shocker)
still a dysfunctional office culture._

I believe this is probably true, but noise and distractions are still noise
and distractions no matter what your culture is like. My feeling is that
(almost) all teams would be better off with people in private offices,
regardless of the culture.

------
LandoCalrissian
I have worked in both, and I really like open office layouts more. It works
well for me and the open spacious environment really helps my mood especially
in the winter. I'm pretty good a tuning out surroundings though, so I
understand that can be frustrating for some when trying to concentrate.

------
memracom
The property department is responsible for acquiring and managing office
spaces and all that other stuff like toilet paper. If they can save money by
cramming the people into a smaller space, then they will look real good on
their year end review, get a raise, and next year move on to a property
management job at another company where they can do it again.

------
ArkyBeagle
Cubes are not cheap. Price them some time. The last time I saw figures, the
were considerably more expensive than offices made of sheetrock and steel 2X4s
plus modest desks.

They do increase potential density of employees.

~~~
johnward
I find it hard to believe a cube with cardboard walls could be more expensive.
Assuming that is true. What about the fact that you can jam 4 cubes into a
single normal sized office space? You could probably get 8-10 in some VP level
office. All of that space adds up in expensive real-estate. Open offices are
purely about jamming as many people in a space as possible.

~~~
cma
Cubicles aren't cardboard boxes; that would never pass fire code.

------
davidgerard
First thought: the obvious answer is to fork it as a Libre-plan office.

------
owenjones
I feel like the problems with the open office plan are, and always have been,
pretty evident.

Why they continue is also obvious... You just have to ask yourself who is
benefiting.

------
pbreit
So we've seen a lot of "open offices are bad" articles but they rarely are
accompanied by any solutions.

Anyone have any better ideas?

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Are you serious?

Have you not heard of real offices - with, like, doors?

~~~
pbreit
While I do think "real offices with doors" might be a component of the "right"
solution, I still think there needs to be more thought and experimentation
about other components such as shared spaces, rotations, etc. I also think
easily reconfigurable cubes, possibly high-walled, might be another component.

So, yes, very serious.

------
Dewie
I am a student who is not in the workforce.

The biggest benefit for me when it comes to having a private room to study is
that I can do light physical activity while I'm taking a break, which most
often invigorates me. This is much more convenient, and a supplement to,
"properly" working out by donning clothes to sweat in, perhaps going to the
gym and the like. I can't really take these breaks when I'm around other
people because I'm too shy, and doing pushups while in such a context makes me
feel that people think I'm trying to show off (and no one would be impressed
anyway).

Sure, less noise and less visual distractions of other people walking by is
great, but I most often listen to music anyway. The article claims that this
is suboptimal, but it is what I prefer, and I sometimes listen to music
without vocals if the music is too distracting.

Thankfully there are a fair amount of places I can study at my university,
most places with other people and sometimes places where I can be alone (if I
feel like being alone).

On a slightly other note: I wonder how much of the hatred of cubicles (which I
have the impression of not being thought of as truly 'open' office) is
disliked because of the noise and such around them, and how much it has to do
with perceived status and feeling like a 'corporate drone' without the
privilege of having one's own door?

~~~
PythonicAlpha
Of course, nobody wants to be a corporate drone. But the "hatred" is also
based on scientific evidence. Programming and other creative jobs make it
necessary, that the level of distraction is low. There might be differences in
different people, some like music, others could also hear radio or the like.
But everybody should be able to decide himself, how much distraction is
acceptable for his task or his level of concentration. Open Offices or
cubicles take the decision away from people, because there is no door you can
leave open or close. And the evidence is, that any extra distraction leads
into decreased productivity altogether.

And of course: "Corporate drones" are less creative -- think by yourself!

~~~
johnward
For some reason everyone in here hears "open office" and thinks "cube farm".
There are open offices where you don't even have to privacy of a cube. I work
in one. We have groups of 4 desks, two on each side facing each other, with
some frosted glass in between. So you basically are in a 'cube' with 4 other
people (since two people from the next group over are back to back with you).

I worked in cube farm and it's not really that much different but a completely
open office is weird at first. Too much of a distraction for me so I prefer to
work remote.

~~~
Dewie
> For some reason everyone in here hears "open office" and thinks "cube farm".

Not to be pedantic, but I did mention in my original post that they aren't
necessarily the same. :)

~~~
johnward
It was more of just a general comment that landed here :)

------
fuckpig
In an open office, anyone at any time has the right and ability to interrupt
what you're doing.

People seem to love the idea of openness, but what it really means is that you
the individual are wide open to the demands of any other individual.

Offices were probably invented in the first place with a twofold purpose:
first, to separate the worker from the herd and interruptions when work was
being done; second, to visually separate them to aid in concentration.

What broke that down was the telephone. You could call right into the
office... so why not just walk in?

At some point, smart agents are going to serve the same role secretaries did
back in the day: filtering access to workers.

