The Open-Office Trap

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/01/the-open-office-trap.html

by bqe • 13 years ago

130 121 13 years ago

wil421• 13 years ago

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.

shijie• 13 years ago

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.

res0nat0r• 13 years ago

I've worked in both and I can't stand open office plans. You mentioned that you have your headphones in when you are busy, I did the same. I'm sure I contributed to my hearing loss because I had to cover my ears to prevent me from being distracted by my co-workers when I needed to concentrate. What about when I want to concentrate in silence? Can't do it.

Also open office "productivity" devolved into my co-workers being able to easily turn around and interrupt me constantly for trivial items vs. if there was a bit more friction in them getting my attention: walking to my office etc, they would go figure out the problem themselves. These two things were major reasons I hated working in an open workspace.

owenmarshall4• 13 years ago

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

Being in my late 20s and having worked in cubicles, open-office environments, and now with my own office, the thought of not having my own office sends shivers down my spine.

For me, an office with a door is mandatory. It's now the second or third question when I'm interviewing. I would not work at company that does not provide one to me. Period.

The surprising thing is that I was like you - when I worked in the open floor plan environment I really liked it, and felt like it improved my collaboration and teamwork. I wasn't able to see how damaging it was until I got my own office: ambient noise is now nonexistent, I don't have to rely on a clunky signal (headphones) to tell people I'm available/not, and I'm able to sit down and focus on a problem without playing my music at full volume.

Again, yet another anecdote. But I haven't seen any study that indicates a cross-generational difference in office preference; open floor plan settings are universally panned, and rightly so, IMO.

nilkn• 13 years ago

I think this can be summed up fairly easily. Among those who've never had offices, there's a fair amount of disagreement about the value of offices. But among those who have private offices, you'll virtually never find someone who would want to give it up in exchange for a seat in an open floor plan.

vqc• 13 years ago

I am also in my late 20s and have worked in situations in which I've had my own office and situations in which I had to share my office with one other person. I much prefer having my own office. I dislike the feeling of always being watched in an "open office" environment. If you can take out your headphones, why can't you call a colleague or go into her office?

I'm also not sure there's a generational difference in how "differently [people] approach and accomplish tasks."

majormajor• 13 years ago

I had a private office with a door before I ever worked in an open office layout. I currently do not want to go back to having an office at all, but there's an enormous caveat there: I don't want to go back as long as the team is good. I've seen other teams where it quickly turned into a really bad situation, and can see how easily it could be a nightmare compared to a private office situation.

More important than the office layout is having a good IM setup that everyone uses, IMO. Even when you have your own office there are people who'll knock on your door which is more of a pain to deal with then just wave them away with a "not right now," IMO, if you don't have some other way of communication for trivial questions or indicating status.

The other thing an open plan has to have is lots of small conference rooms you can jump into at any time either for a discussion with other people or just to take advantage of silence for a while.

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

Sweatshop-style open office plans are great and even mandatory if you're an early startup, very small, full of very bright, energetic, motivated people. It is awful in any other situation.

dpark9• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

lgieron• 13 years ago

You can play white noise on the headphones. It mutes other sounds without drawing attention to itself.

Dewie5• 13 years ago

Maybe headphones with white noise is an option? And perhaps also headphones that actively reduce outside noise.

sfronczak• 13 years ago

I'm with you... headphones are not comfortable. I've tried all sorts to either listen to music with or to just block out the noise and after a while they are almost as distracting as the noise.

With the wonderful weather we've had in the Midwest this past week I've been working from home and I have realized how much I hate our office setup. I'm very much dreading going into the office tomorrow.

VLM7• 13 years ago

The door was invented before the headphone as a signalling technology. I can personally verify it works very well. There is also an elaborate exception handling protocol, knock on a closed door if its a total emergency, but there better be something close to a fire.

stephenhuey• 13 years ago

So many people advise wearing headphones to signal being busy, but that doesn't seem like a good cue. I'm still going to stop and ask a question even if my colleague is listening to music.

Dewie5• 13 years ago

Not to mention, the headphones are probably also for blocking out background noise, which you might not want even if you are fine with being talked to directly.

pasbesoin2• 13 years ago

In college, I had a friend who always studied with his music on. He was having a really hard time with chemistry -- or was it bio? -- and was worried that he was not going to make the cut for pre-med.

I suggested he try studying without music.

After his next test, he sought me out and thanked me. His last score was at least a grade level higher than he had been achieving.

He'd always studied to music. He didn't know the difference, until he experienced it.

Admittedly, individual reactions vary.

However, I also worked with some people who were very aggressive multi-taskers and rather proud of their ability to juggle numerous assignments and responsibilities.

Whenever I touched something they had worked on, inevitably I immediately ran into numerous and significant errors, including quite often apparently a very superficial approach and lack of insight into deeper implications as well as relationships to a broader context.

I've rarely encountered a noise, or music, embracing person nor a heavy multi-tasker, who actually performed well.

Many of the best developers I worked with at Big Co, after our "cubification" (or "veal-ification", as it were), spent numerous hours in the evening actually getting the meat of their design and programming work done, at home. There they would be, on IM.

And as a virtual presence became increasingly tolerated, they signed up for as many days out of the "farm" as policy would allow and they could manage without getting into political issues.

fuckpig4• 13 years ago

My observations are the same. Especially the significant errors that reveal a superficial approach.

I have another thought to offer:

I love music. There's a reason that when I listen, it is either when doing nothing or doing nothing complex. I want to dedicate my brain to it.

Most people listen to highly repetitive music[1] so this may not apply.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUT5rEU6pqM

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

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.

There were kids growing up in Soviet Russia who really loved Lenin. They didn't have anything to compare it with, either.

jmspring• 13 years ago

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.

LandoCalrissian• 13 years ago

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.

pbreit2• 13 years ago

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?

mrweasel2• 13 years ago

Private offices surrounding a shared area. It's not really that hard, just more expensive to build.

Take a look at how FogCreek designed their office.

Joeri• 13 years ago

Separate offices for at most 3 or 4 people who need to cooperate closely, with doors that close. Using glass walls you can get the same spacious feeling as an open office without the noise.

dpark9• 13 years ago

Glass walls don't provide any feeling of privacy, which is one of the complaints employees typically have about open floor plans.

If shared offices are used, I think they should have opaque walls and everyone should be able to position themselves such that they have a wall at their back. This leads to a feeling of privacy. And it actually encourages discussion among those sharing an office, as opposed to the more typical layout of N people staring at the walls with their backs to each other.

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

Are you serious?

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

pbreit2• 13 years ago

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.

mrweasel2• 13 years ago

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?

bane5• 13 years ago

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_Andrei10• 13 years ago

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.

Nicholas_C• 13 years ago

Showing a picture of iProduct lined desks with young people staring intently into their screens looks a lot cooler and trendy than a picture of a hallway with closed doors I guess.

mattgreenrocks• 13 years ago

SV isn't interested in 'progression' or 'disruption,' only generating disproportionate returns for VCs.

fuckpig4• 13 years ago

People go to great lengths to try to prove that business isn't business.

And yet all of my experience says: business is business.

If they're catering to employee needs, that's a non-financial benefit to the job that they're trading on. They took something else from somewhere else.

Why does management love open-office plans?

It's easier to see who's doing what and to spot anyone not doing anything important.

We talk a lot about privacy here on HN, but it's sort of taboo to mention that most startups work aggressively to deprive you of any sort of privacy.

Gotta make sure they get their full 8-18 hours a day of you.

tptacek• 13 years ago

Because closed offices are expensive, limit your options, and are less flexible. A company with 10 people now can scale up to 15 or even 20 in the same space with an open plan, but would have to move offices and break leases with a closed plan.

Another way to say the some of same thing is, for the same office budget, you can get a nicer place in open-plan format than closed-plan. When looking at offices, people tend to prefer the nicer offices and nicer locations. Hence: open plan.

AlisdairSH2• 13 years ago

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?

dpark9• 13 years ago

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.

bluedino• 13 years ago

> Also your plan requires that everyone work primarily on laptops

That's not a bad idea either way. Then you take your computer home if you want to work from home, or after hours.

AlisdairSH2• 13 years ago

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.

nucleardog2• 13 years ago

Why not just cut the space up more efficiently and give everyone a private space? ... Workers still feel like they have no privacy and are constantly distracted

Maybe it's just me, but for me it's not just about the privacy, it's about having a place for my things.

Having a desk and some drawers, some desktop space that is mine to leave papers on, etc. makes me feel a lot more at home and productive. Having to keep everything in a bag I can tote around leaves me feeling kind of uneasy and like the situation is impermanent, much like staying somewhere and living out of a duffel bag.

I'm a lot more inclined to do good work if it's for a company I feel like I'm at home at, that I'm going to stay at, than one that feels like I'll be gone from any moment now.

VLM7• 13 years ago

Lack of psychological territoriality. Still unhappy, but better. Oh if only I had a job where my boss thought I was important enough that I could have a picture of my kids in my cube, you know, a Real job.

Also I've seen this tried and inevitably rules have to be put in place because no one wants to sit in the big room and everyone wants to sit in the cubes to do work. So you get people arguing about who's work is important enough to require the cubes. Which is not terribly motivating to people demoted to working sullenly, silently, in the big room.

owenmarshall4• 13 years ago

Also I've seen this tried and inevitably rules have to be put in place because no one wants to sit in the big room and everyone wants to sit in the cubes to do work. So you get people arguing about who's work is important enough to require the cubes. Which is not terribly motivating to people demoted to working sullenly, silently, in the big room.

Bingo.

The next time you see an open floor plan office, look at the 'quiet area' or the 'heads down space' or whatever they call it. Dollars to doughnuts the most senior person that doesn't have an office has claimed it as their personal domain.

You end up needing someone to go around and evict people, or a big shared calendar where everyone has to schedule their important work time, or...

The best solution is for the company to provide a private office for everyone and enough space for teams to work in one room as needed. Unfortunately it's also the most expensive solution.

bane5• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

Arnor• 13 years ago

I was in a similar situation a few months ago. The worst part was there were two office whistlers. One had a Vice President role so you couldn't really kick him in the shins...

Frqy3• 13 years ago

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...

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

PythonicAlpha5• 13 years ago

Why do 1-3 people offices inhibit communication? I can't see it.

You can also have a central or conference room for communications, or coffee corners connecting the offices.

I think, Joel Spolsky has shown a real good example: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html

His office does give both: Everybody can retreat, but also a huge area to communicate, live and exchange in community.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

I read your parent as saying offices inhibit communication in exactly the way "Meeting Mode" on your cell phone inhibits communication.

bane5• 13 years ago

I think there are lots of quick and subtle communications that happen in a team while they're working. The quick "hey where did you check in the change for foo?" or "Let's do this task first, then the other tomorrow" or whatever, that happen in a team very quickly that I think happen better in a physical space then an IM chat or an email. Isolating a team from each other in separate spaces prevents that. But I can appreciate the need for single rooms for people to use on occasion when they need to really concentrate.

Central conference rooms are critical, but don't lend themselves well to casual, quick communications.

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

I've always wondered what would happen if I told management "you guys made us work in a Dickensian sweatshop floor plan? Okay, how about I bring my own cubicle from home, and install it around my place here? I'm pretty good with DIY projects, you guys don't have to spend anything, I'll just fix the problem on my own. I'll paint it in the corporate colors and all, don't you worry."

VLM7• 13 years ago

Going a little too far. Just ask to install a TV. After all, noise and distraction are supposed to be good, right?

mhurron• 13 years ago

You don't sound like a team player.

scrabble• 13 years ago

Team leads must work in the team rooms to keep things from degenerating to antics.

Why? Why can't we be adults and get the job done? And if we have shown that we get the job done with the desired level of quality in the desired time frame, what's wrong with having fun as well?

bane5• 13 years ago

It benefits both the workers and the manager/lead to be in the same space. Having your manager float in once a day or so and then take time out of your work to get them up to speed on what they would know if they were just in the room is silly. It also makes the manager more cognizant of issues faster and forces them to keep production moving forward.

Nobody said it can't be fun, the occasional break is fine. But I've seen team rooms degenerate into multi-hour wrestling nerf gun matches that costs thousands of dollars.

pasbesoin2• 13 years ago

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.

Dewie5• 13 years ago

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?

PythonicAlpha5• 13 years ago

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!

Dewie5• 13 years ago

Sure, I would always like to have the option of both myself.

I was talking of the hatred of cubicles in general, not just for programmers or similarly creative professions.

johnward4• 13 years ago

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.

jdotjdot• 13 years ago

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

greenyoda2• 13 years ago

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...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet:_The_Power_of_Introverts...

lasermike026• 13 years ago

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

PythonicAlpha5• 13 years ago

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!

fuckpig4• 13 years ago

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

VLM7• 13 years ago

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.

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

Being in a dominant position increases testosterone production, which then promotes a feeling of well-being and energy.

It literally feels good to keep other people down.

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

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.

VLM7• 13 years ago

That is true, but unusual, based on research. However, those people are compatible with quiet offices because they can blast headphones, or talk at the coffee maker, or hang out in people offices/cubes and bug them. So quiet areas are not designed for loud people but are totally "loud people compatible". On the other hand quiet people (the majority) dropped into a loud open plan, are not compatible.

I've never seen or worked in an open plan that doesn't have private areas for the cool kids and bosses either formally or informally. Perhaps a site like that exists. They are apparently rare.

a-priori• 13 years ago

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.

ArkyBeagle• 13 years ago

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.

VLM7• 13 years ago

This would imply you could make floor to chest height walls of sheetrock and studs even cheaper than cubes. I'm not seeing it.

There is a long term savings in that reorgs of cubes means a couple hours for a couple guys with screwdrivers instead of week or so of carpenters / electricians / painters.

jleader• 13 years ago

Reorgs of cubes are a couple hours IF you are using exactly the same numbers of each component (unlikely), or IF you can get additional parts compatible with the cubes you have. Every place I've worked that tried to reconfigure their cubes found that it was much more expensive and time-consuming than they'd expected. In one case the vendor had either gone under, or discontinued that model of cube components (I forget which). My current employer seems to have a small stockpile of extra cube components, so maybe they'll avoid this pitfall, we'll see.

Florin_Andrei10• 13 years ago

I'll make my own cube. Hell, I'll make my own closed office. I'm awesome at DIY projects. I'll paint it nice and everything.

johnward4• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

theandrewbailey• 13 years ago

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.

davidgerard• 13 years ago

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

al2o3cr• 13 years ago

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.

mindcrime3• 13 years ago

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.

trusche• 13 years ago

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?

nucleardog2• 13 years ago

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.

willyt• 13 years ago

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.

owenjones• 13 years ago

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.

memracom• 13 years ago

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.

fuckpig4• 13 years ago

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.

The Open-Office Trap

Related Stories