The "MBA dicks" didn't start this, we did, like it or not. All the agile, write stuff on sticky-notes, stand up meetings did this, not managers looking to cut costs. They may have benefited, embraced an idea, and exploited it, for sure, but this didn't come from higher up.
The problem is, they do work - for a lot of people. Things are getting done, at the biggest companies (case in point, the original article). People can complain and I'm right there with you - I love my quiet, but you have to adapt, and an engineer that can't adapt isn't much of an engineer, in my opinion. There's an army of people who can adapt working at these "god forsaken hideous open offices" which must then be "gender discriminating experienced engineers" when they can't work like it's 1990 anymore.
This is the new reality. We don't have to write COBOL or VB or Pascal anymore, we don't have to wear suits, and most of us are paid really well, taken very seriously as a profession and in high demand.
That comes with a little bit of give for all that take.
The problem is, they do work - for a lot of people. Things are getting done, at the biggest companies (case in point, the original article). People can complain and I'm right there with you - I love my quiet, but you have to adapt, and an engineer that can't adapt isn't much of an engineer, in my opinion. There's an army of people who can adapt working at these "god forsaken hideous open offices" which must then be "gender discriminating experienced engineers" when they can't work like it's 1990 anymore.
This is the new reality. We don't have to write COBOL or VB or Pascal anymore, we don't have to wear suits, and most of us are paid really well, taken very seriously as a profession and in high demand.
That comes with a little bit of give for all that take.