Great and clever if you can, and do on an hourly basis, pack your entire office into a briefcase - and can stand working in a cafe environment for prolonged periods. Obviously made for a building full of on-the-go types for whom a fixed office is a waste of space.
But not for those of us who can't shove our dual- or giant-monitor quad-core computers and sprawled testing platforms into a briefcase. Nor for those who settle in 8-12 hours a day, 5-8 days a week, to the same chair and no desire to hunt around for a different one because someone moved into "yours". Nor for those who don't take irrelevant noise/distractions well (as I sit across the hall from a factory).
Ya know, I'd like to see a slick photo layout/montage of developer's offices, ya know those things with walls that go to the ceiling, doors that close, opaque walls, and windows that reveal a view that's inspirational to creativity & productivity.
Yeah, that part of Fog Creek has always amused me to no end. ~Developers~ are special and unique snowflakes who need a private office and a personal happy-ending masseuse, but sysadmins can work from the bottom of a shoebox, because fuck those guys, right?
I am a sysadmin, and I can guarantee that I would much much much prefer a private office to a shoebox in the basement with somebody else crammed in there.
"One day, Miller's desk was taken away from her. To cope, she brought in a little red wagon, a classic Radio Flyer model. Each day, Miller would pile all of her documents, files, and possessions into her wagon, and begin to drag it up and down the halls, looking for the empty desk of someone out sick for the day. "Everyone thought it was so cute," recalls Miller. "I'd be trudging down the hall, and they'd laugh and say, 'Oh look, here she comes with that little red wagon.' It was like a bad dream.""
We have stuff. We need stuff to work. It doesn't all fit in a briefcase. We need a home base where we can dump our stuff. If there isn't personal space, then we have to waste time hauling all our stuff around - which can get pretty ugly.
Read that entire article. Well worth it. Did it say what year this was in? I think you could infer from the "Think Different" campaign and other tidbits mentioned, but I wasn't really sure.
Providing a variety of nice spaces that aren't "desk with computer" so people can meet each other, discuss things, find a quiet corner to think - Great!
Using it as an excuse to save on 'seats', trying to get everyone to hotdesk (meaning staff feeling undervalued and resentful, storage problems, not knowing where people will be found, many other time issues, and probably heaps more money on laptops, support staff, etc.) - Bad idea!
This is actually a trend that's slowly getting bigger. It's a varieties of measures, combined to what we in the Netherlands call "The new work" (that's literally, it's more like "the new way of working", but that's less catchy). Also has ideas from the "coworking movement".
Hotdesking by itself definately doesn't work - some employees will value the safety of their own desk. Just hotdesking leads to things like "That's my hotdesk", or people leaving their stuff about. The trick is to combine it with the notion of working where you want when you want. Sales people may be better off with hotdesking at (for instance) Regus facilities. Traffic jams and congestion are huge issues here: compensate employees with public transport passes instead or let them work 10-18. It's a culture change - not a perfect fit for all companies, will be met by resistance, but it is the future I think.
Yes - there is a lot about the traditional 9-5 5-day week, 1-desk-space mindset which could do with a rethink (especially in big corporate firms).
Its headlines like 'x fewer desks' which really annoy me though. This is putting the focus on changing your workplace as a way to save money, which is bad. Far more important is showing employees a good environment and keeping them happy. Building and land costs are actually fairly low compared to the damage that trying to penny-pinch (or just not thinking it through) can do...
(disclaimer: I design buildings for a living, though workspace design like this is not my field)
"Flexible working" was the Ministry of Defence (UK)'s solution for overcrowding while I was working there. Result? People just worked at the same desk anyway. The junior people (ie me) had to move around a lot to fill in gaps when someone was absent.
This looks to be quite a different approach. Lots of little corners that you can tuck yourself away in. I'm not sure I'd like to work in that environment though. A big desktop monitor is useful, and working with a laptop actually on your lap is really uncomfortable. I'd imagine that if I was in that environment I'd either stick to a proper desk all the time or find that I wasn't really getting much actual work done while I lounged on a sofa.
For some people, like programmers, they "run on quiet time". This is our effective work, we do meetings, sure, but it's an exception. To work we need a quiet environment (or good headphones - I absolutely don't regret buying my latest pair)
For managers, their work is that: meetings, talking to people, etc. So it makes sense that you have meeting rooms, it's what they need for their work.
I got turned on to the joy of earplugs when doing construction work. The foam ones that you scrunch up with your fingers and expand in your ear, and throw away after.
It's a very different feeling. I feel like I'm underwater when I'm wearing them.
I worked at a wonderful agency with an open-plan office last time. I used earplugs the whole time and loooved it. You get all of the benefits of an open-plan office, minus the distractions of music or chatter, and for me at least, less of the ear-sweat I associate with all headphones.
Also, anecdotal evidence -- people seem somewhat more hesitant to interrupt someone wearing earplugs than someone who's listening to music. I might be wrong there.
> To work we need a quiet environment (or good headphones - I absolutely don't regret buying my latest pair)
This is of course by no means universal. My desk at work is in a room full of very quiet types. I could sit there all morning and nobody would say a word.
It drives me mad. After 10 minutes I find myself browsing HN or reddit. The only way I can really get work done is to go to one of the other buildings with a coffee shop and sit down at a table where I can see the whole room.
I thrive on the buzz of activity. It makes me feel like I should be getting something accomplished. Quiet offices make me feel like I should take a nap.
Totally unrelated to the beautiful pictures in this post, but I was recently talking to a Credit Suisse employee who mentioned they'd made a large move to F#. I'm not a big fan of working in finance, but that's a much bigger selling point for me than plants (which I'm probably allergic to) surrounding uncomfortable-looking chairs.
Luca Bolognese (who was on the F# team at Microsoft, and who gave the first talk on F# that I ever watched) left Microsoft to go to Credit Suisse, so that makes sense.
As to other financial firms using F#, Don Syme (the F# lead) posts F# job listings on his blog, and many of them are at finance companies:
I know of three major London investment banks with Clojure teams.
You have to know where to look, but there certainly exists many very interesting cutting edge technical positions in finance, both traditional banks and hedge funds.
The BBC have a similar approach at the new Media City development. On the surface it seems like a neat idea but in reality humans needs a place to call their own in some way, even if we start off as a nomadic civilisation even back then we would have has something to call ours that demarked our "space".
I think the idea is nice but people should have the ability to have some territory if that choose to
I can't think of any cultures which are nomadic by choice. Peoples such as the Mongols and Bedouin come from desert regions where resources are too low density to sustain static groups.
I work as a consultant for CS, it's weird when your workplace pops up on HN.
We have one of these on the 18th floor in London too, it's so out of place with the rest of the building but it's super awesome, we sneak up there for lunches etc.
I don't think any devs would be able to use this as just getting permissions + your box in order would be a nightmare here, unless you were logging into a vm or your usual machine.
Most devs have pretty good setups here, here's mine http://i.imgur.com/QoK8F.jpg (I am aware of KVMs, I just think this looks cooler ^_^)
But if you look around any traditional office, you see personalization. People tend to merge with their environments. People tie themselves to their environment. They make their work part of their lives.
If you can't personalize, you're less tied and more prone to leave. In any case, I would probably leave, because I'm non-assertive and it would be stressful to me to compete with everyone every day for work space. I don't want to think about work space, I just want to work. If I have to, I'll work somewhere else.
OK, call me weird but I didn't like these digs. How to articulate what I find wrong with them ... they look banker-y, MBA-y, wanna-be-the-only-way-is-up-lets-meet-after-work-in-a-sports-bar-y.
I like spaces with a lived-in feeling, you should be able to change the places of chairs, tables etc. and not totally screw up the feng shui aesthetic chic of the environment. Also, I hate those cool chairs with flimsy legs, for some reason I tend to break those legs when I fidget on them.
If I ever have a chance to lead a company, I would give a fixed (small) amount of money (e.g. $500) for furniture (except chair, that costs too much) to each new hire, show them an empty space and let them design it. I think a good programmer/hacker would do a great job with this.
Is this the one in Stamford? I've been there! In one corner there used to be a group of traders who had at least 8 monitors (often more!). The second interesting thing about them was that they were what remained of Enron, after that company blew up.
By the way, these people are traders. Developers generally don't work on that floor.
with regard to the Enron thing: The very few ones that - in the moment - are taking in new people in the "Greater" City area are the commodity guys - all the others, as it seems, are getting ready to "letting go" in multiples of that trading floor.
That seems like a really good idea. I am assuming that some of the working nooks have large screen displays with laptop adapters handy. Also having charging cords for laptops, phones, etc. would make things more convenient.
As long as there is a private room I can work in then it's all good. I don't mind picking up my laptop and looking for a new place to think, but privacy is key.
But not for those of us who can't shove our dual- or giant-monitor quad-core computers and sprawled testing platforms into a briefcase. Nor for those who settle in 8-12 hours a day, 5-8 days a week, to the same chair and no desire to hunt around for a different one because someone moved into "yours". Nor for those who don't take irrelevant noise/distractions well (as I sit across the hall from a factory).
Ya know, I'd like to see a slick photo layout/montage of developer's offices, ya know those things with walls that go to the ceiling, doors that close, opaque walls, and windows that reveal a view that's inspirational to creativity & productivity.