August 27, 2018 at 9:38 am
Jeff Moden - Sunday, August 26, 2018 11:30 PMMy opinion is both brief and blunt... open office spaces suck.They're too noisy, have too many distractions, promote water cooler discussions, and at one company, did nothing at all for quick problem resolution as the two idiots on either side of me would PM me instead of just asking me a question over the 36 inch wall that separated us into separate veal-calf pens. Then there's the moronic knuckle crackers, ice chewers, people that each seriously crunch stuff like carrots and chips and then chew with the mouths open or bang their metal spoons on the glass dishes because they afraid of plastic poisoning not to mention some of the females that (still can believe it) that wear bells for jewelry or have those damned shoes that sound like flip flops on steroids when they walk. You'd think people would be more courteous but, since they're not, I'll take tall single-body cubes over open seating with low walls any day!
One place I worked in had individual cubes with 6 foot material covered walls. It's amazing how quiet it was in the cube even though it didn't have a door.
Jeff you hit it out of the park here. After reading the article I was thinking of everything I wanted to say, but you said it all.
My cubicle walls now are only about 5 feet at the tallest part. Because it is so short I can't really stand at my desk now because of the visual distraction.
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August 27, 2018 at 10:01 am
I'm like you, Steve, in that over my career I've worked in cubicles and private offices. And I see positives and negatives for both. Sometimes having my own office wasn't so good in that I might be tempted to goof off a little, especially in the autumn during (American) football season. But working in cubes isn't always great, either. In my current job I'm in a office with cubicles that I share with 9 other people. This isn't a good environment, because they've lumped IT/dev people who do different things together. Four of us are developers. 2 are help desk people and the rest are technical support. The help desk people are on their phones all day long and one of them is the type of person whose very outgoing and loud, all the time. For her, the words "quiet" or "inside voice" are not in her vocabulary. Fortunately I no longer work near her in this large office space, so the volume is better. The tech guys and gals are always putting together or doing maintenance on PCs, laptops or tablets, so they tend to make a lot of noise, but at least they're not talking constantly. (I work for a state government agency of 3500 so there's a lot of work for them to do.) I've gone to wearing head phones or ear buds a lot, in an effort to try and concentrate. But I've noticed that's beginning to have a negative effect upon my hearing.
Looking at other situations, I know that having a private office has often made it possible for me to focus very well on my job. And I've worked in other open office situations where we were all developers/DBAs often working on the same projects or related projects, so the ability to bring up something instantaneously with a colleague was fantastic. And I've read in Entrepreneur magazine of companies with open office plans that sound incredibly helpful for getting jobs done and collaboration.
Which is better? I don't know. I think it isn't just the office arrangement. It's both the office arrangement and the people you work with, their personalities, etc.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
August 27, 2018 at 10:04 am
mfagan12 - Monday, August 27, 2018 8:04 AMMy boss' solution? Purchasing 3 large monitors for me and setting them up so I'm not distracted by people walking by and gawking in. The monitor solution works like a charm but I can still hear the noise when it gets loud out in the cube area so that's where noise-cancelling headphones come in handy.
Same solution worked for me; in my case as Data Manager (definitely NOT people manager) I had 3 large workstations with 5 large monitors as my screen. Fairly large open work area with a tile raised floor (noise), two developers (quiet concentration), large conference table in the middle for their customer meetings (more noise). Headphones when needed but really enjoyed the work as I had made a lateral transfer from people manager to three years as data manager before retirement.
August 27, 2018 at 10:13 am
SQLMac - Monday, August 27, 2018 3:52 AMFor introverts who have to do deep technical work, open offices are the 7th circle of hell. Idle chatter gets so loud you can't hear yourself think. Most of the time, you wear headphones to tune out the noise however there are those coworkers that are just loud in general. And the lighting.....oh the lightning. No natural light, over head florescents, and all controlled by one switch. Then in the winter, you get to listen to every one cough and hack, passing around their germs. The idea that they are are more collaborative is a joke. People stop by and interrupt what you're working on.....which damages the flow state, taking forever to get back there....if you can get back there.If open offices are so damn great, how come you rarely see managers and executives out there? Personally I believe it's another way to keep costs down and facilitates bad managers keeping an eye on their people.
+1 to that! I'm very introverted and I find open office floor plans to be exhausting. Listening to music and working at home reduce the stress for me and make it easier to work in the office. It really bothers me when I wear my big traffic control center headphones as a signal not to talk to me and someone would stand up across the desk and talk at me or stare until I acknowledged them. I had to explain to management that big headphones on developers mean do not disturb.
August 27, 2018 at 10:17 am
It is only when your walls are taken away that you yearn for a cubicle. I never thought I'd want a cubical but after sitting in an open office floor plan I want my battleship gray cubical walls to hug me.
The reason they are so popular is because they are cheaper. Less materials and more people crammed per square foot. Simple as that. Every other reason is quite secondary to that. At least for our kind of work (admin, dev, analyst, manager, etc). We are not working on the New York Stock Exchange or with a team of surgeons.
Our work does not benefit from this myth of collaboration I see touted as the main reason. Cost is the main - and largely - only reason.
August 27, 2018 at 10:34 am
Jeff Mlakar - Monday, August 27, 2018 10:17 AMIt is only when your walls are taken away that you yearn for a cubicle. I never thought I'd want a cubical but after sitting in an open office floor plan I want my battleship gray cubical walls to hug me.The reason they are so popular is because they are cheaper. Less materials and more people crammed per square foot. Simple as that. Every other reason is quite secondary to that. At least for our kind of work (admin, dev, analyst, manager, etc). We are not working on the New York Stock Exchange or with a team of surgeons.
Our work does not benefit from this myth of collaboration I see touted as the main reason. Cost is the main - and largely - only reason.
Indeed open office plans(and cubicles) seem almost entirely cost driven as well as so management can have offices as a status symbol.
August 27, 2018 at 10:37 am
Open plan is all I know. It can be VERY distracting and as someone else has said the worst was when my back faced onto a walkway with the water cooler directly behind me - that sucked way more than the chit chat which I have learned to tune out. Also using speakerphone in an open plan office should be a sackable offence.
August 27, 2018 at 10:38 am
funbi - Monday, August 27, 2018 10:37 AMAlso using speakerphone in an open plan office should be a sackable offence.
Bonus points when more than one person is doing it at the same time and they're on the same call!!
August 27, 2018 at 10:45 am
ZZartin - Monday, August 27, 2018 10:38 AMfunbi - Monday, August 27, 2018 10:37 AMAlso using speakerphone in an open plan office should be a sackable offence.Bonus points when more than one person is doing it at the same time and they're on the same call!!
*rage*
August 27, 2018 at 10:50 am
Many years ago, we moved offices. We were all in cubes. The new space was all offices, so we created 2 work areas in each office.
Two things started happening. One was that the daily banter (and collaboration) from "prairie dogging" ceased. The second was two-fold, folks who were now sitting side by side became very good friends, and conversely, some became mortal enemies.
Moving on to other companies, there just seems to be a high level of people getting on each other's nerves when being forced to be in close proximity. It was always exacerbated when 2 people had any kind of conversation between themselves that did not include the rest of group.
Some of the most mundane conversations and decisions turned into month-long debates. Everyone had to express their thoughts.
Michael L John
If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
To properly post on a forum:
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August 27, 2018 at 12:17 pm
ZZartin - Monday, August 27, 2018 10:34 AMIndeed open office plans(and cubicles) seem almost entirely cost driven as well as so management can have offices as a status symbol.
True, true! I always laugh a little when I hear about places with executives in cubes. It is one of those things that "sound nice" but are counterproductive. There is a hierarchy in every organization (or human institution for that matter) and I can understand making separations based on that. When you are a manager you need some privacy. Having employee conversations in the cube farm is weird and demoralizing.
If I ever get an office to myself it will take firemen to pull me out because I won't leave 🙂
August 27, 2018 at 12:59 pm
anyone who is making decisions that affect personnel (hiring/firing/writing someone up/even just having a conversation with HR about an incident) needs to have a door. period.
The thing is, when you're in Management, it's all about facilitating collaboration and enabling cooperation. So Open Concept can be a solution to a problem. And with the right group of people, it may not be a bad thing for anyone.
Me, when I went from being a Manager to an Analyst again, I spent the first month tense, expecting someone to walk up to my desk or tap my shoulder when I was in the middle of doing work, because that was the job before. Now, I work from home, rarely leave it, and am finding that I would be a very successful hermit. I just haven't seen any job postings for that.
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August 28, 2018 at 10:20 am
jonathan.crawford - Monday, August 27, 2018 12:59 PManyone who is making decisions that affect personnel (hiring/firing/writing someone up/even just having a conversation with HR about an incident) needs to have a door. period.The thing is, when you're in Management, it's all about facilitating collaboration and enabling cooperation. So Open Concept can be a solution to a problem. And with the right group of people, it may not be a bad thing for anyone.
Me, when I went from being a Manager to an Analyst again, I spent the first month tense, expecting someone to walk up to my desk or tap my shoulder when I was in the middle of doing work, because that was the job before. Now, I work from home, rarely leave it, and am finding that I would be a very successful hermit. I just haven't seen any job postings for that.
Agreed, IF the team and the work that the team is doing demands continuous swarming on the same topics. In many cases there's a broad brush reaction to say "everyone gets treated exactly the same" regardless of role. If your role is to do heads down analysis, or any number of other tasks not conducive to full-time collaboration, then open space is NOT for you. The folks filling roles such as SME's, analysis/troubleshooting, technical admins, etc,,, usually would not be as efficient where swarming on a single problem is essentially forced upon you.
On the other hand, if you have an open space suited for a single XP or scrum team, then yes, open space might be the answer.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
August 29, 2018 at 3:03 pm
SQLMac - Monday, August 27, 2018 3:52 AMFor introverts who have to do deep technical work, open offices are the 7th circle of hell. Idle chatter gets so loud you can't hear yourself think. Most of the time, you wear headphones to tune out the noise however there are those coworkers that are just loud in general. And the lighting.....oh the lightning. No natural light, over head florescents, and all controlled by one switch. Then in the winter, you get to listen to every one cough and hack, passing around their germs. The idea that they are are more collaborative is a joke. People stop by and interrupt what you're working on.....which damages the flow state, taking forever to get back there....if you can get back there.If open offices are so damn great, how come you rarely see managers and executives out there? Personally I believe it's another way to keep costs down and facilitates bad managers keeping an eye on their people.
"If open offices are so damn great, how come you rarely see managers and executives out there?" EXACTLY. Follow the money. It's always about money. It also suggests a lack of appreciation for the development process. Why do we need constant face-to-face availability? This isn't a restaurant kitchen grinding out junk food. If a group needs to talk all day then the meetings they do have are ineffective and the dev plans and divisions of work are vague at best. Personally I'm most productive in my home office between sunrise and noon with some testing and recap documentation in the afternoon. I produce more and better quality work in that nine hour day than three days in the office. I can Skype, mail, and call as needed, and attend office meetings for group sessions. This arrangement works for consultants and contracted vendors (who really need to be watched) but it often doesn't work for employees. Go figure.
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