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Che Delilas posted:I had a lot typed up but I'll just say I find your statements rather disingenuous. They ignore a lot about what can make an open office lovely, and they assume everyone can or should think and work in exactly the same way. Of course open offices can be lovely. Just like places where everyone has their own office can be lovely. A terrible workplace is terrible regardless of where you sit and if having a door to close is your only sticking point then you're looking at a terrible place to work without even realizing it. I stand by my statements about not looking for enough soft skills in hiring. I hate working with people who isolate themselves in order to get work done. It always ends up that their idea of work is drastically different from project management, product management, leadership, and the team's idea of what work actually is.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:15
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Blinkz0rz posted:Of course open offices can be lovely. Just like places where everyone has their own office can be lovely. A terrible workplace is terrible regardless of where you sit and if having a door to close is your only sticking point then you're looking at a terrible place to work without even realizing it. In every open office I’ve been in, I’ve at varying points been distracted by conversations other people have that I neither need nor want to be privy to. Both social and professional. Maybe open offices have features that are uniquely bad. 🤔
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Feb 11, 2018 14:25
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No, it is you, the person bothered by loud personal conversations while you try to get some work done, who must be wrong.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:26
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It is you, the person that can't do their professional job without any distractions, who is wrong. e: leper khan posted:In every open office I’ve been in, I’ve at varying points been distracted I want to call this out very specifically. If you are so fundamentally broken that being distracted by personal conversation makes for unpleasant working conditions then the only place you will ever find yourself happy is working a remote job from your home.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:28
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Blinkz0rz posted:It is you, the person that can't do their professional job without any distractions, who is wrong.  https://senate.ucsf.edu/2013-2014/mb2-kim%20and%20de%20dear%20article%20on%20communication%20privacy%20trade%20off.pdf You are so totally and completely wrong.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:32
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Blinkz0rz posted:It always ends up that their idea of work is drastically different from project management, product management, leadership, and the team's idea of what work actually is. By all means, don't hire cave trolls. Don't let someone hide for months while they work with a fey mood. Check in! Make them check in! But use slack first instead of doing a drive-by. Wanting engaged people doesn't excuse you from forgetting what a calendar is. Schedule things, that's part of your loving job if you are in management.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:34
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Brain Candy posted:But use slack first instead of doing a drive-by. That's not how an office works. Part of the contract of having a place to work is that you are there to be available. You don't go to work to sit in isolation and hammer at a keyboard. That's not how any of this works and it astonishes me that some of the folks in this thread seem to think that it is. quote:Wanting engaged people doesn't excuse you from forgetting what a calendar is. Schedule things, that's part of your loving job if you are in management. That's not what we're talking about at all. We're talking about people who have such a tiny attention span or have such a fundamental inability to ignore others that their own work happiness suffers because they get distracted. Meetings are one thing but I'm not going to schedule 5 minutes with anyone to go over a question or some feedback. If you feel like that's unacceptable then I'm not sure what to tell you.
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Feb 11, 2018 14:58
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Blinkz0rz posted:That's not how an office works. Part of the contract of having a place to work is that you are there to be available. You don't go to work to sit in isolation and hammer at a keyboard. That's not how any of this works and it astonishes me that some of the folks in this thread seem to think that it is. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0001839212453028
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Feb 11, 2018 15:06
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Blinkz0rz posted:Meetings are one thing but I'm not going to schedule 5 minutes with anyone to go over a question or some feedback. If you feel like that's unacceptable then I'm not sure what to tell you. Serious question: what would be the problem with hitting up the person you want to talk to on Slack (or even email) with a "hey, I know you're busy, but when you hit a natural stopping point, can we chat for 5." Ideally, the chat could also happen somewhere outside of the earshot of others. If you're someone's peer and you're interrupting them without consideration, you're probably being a bit of a jerk. If you're their manager, you being a bit of a tyrant.
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Feb 11, 2018 15:10
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Blinkz0rz posted:Meetings are one thing but I'm not going to schedule 5 minutes with anyone to go over a question or some feedback. If you feel like that's unacceptable then I'm not sure what to tell you. Why not? Why should anyone respect you if you don't respect them?
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Feb 11, 2018 15:32
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B-Nasty posted:Serious question: what would be the problem with hitting up the person you want to talk to on Slack (or even email) with a "hey, I know you're busy, but when you hit a natural stopping point, can we chat for 5." Ideally, the chat could also happen somewhere outside of the earshot of others. Why are you assuming it's not sop to slack first? All I'm saying is that you come to work to do work and part of work is working with others. Isolating yourself to bang out code is only part of your job. gently caress off. If you're trying to extrapolate effects on working conditions in the tech sector based on the conditions in a Chinese mobile phone factory I don't know what to do with you.
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Feb 11, 2018 15:37
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Brain Candy posted:Why not? Why should anyone respect you if you don't respect them? You have to be kidding me.
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Feb 11, 2018 15:38
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Blinkz0rz posted:Why are you assuming it's not sop to slack first? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00426-013-0534-4 The literature is very clearly against you. Humans are distractible and open offices are bad.
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Feb 11, 2018 15:47
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leper khan posted:
Your assumption is that distraction is detrimental to work. What I'm trying to get at is that your job isn't only working in isolation.
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Feb 11, 2018 15:54
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Brain Candy posted:Why not? Why should anyone respect you if you don't respect them? Maybe it's just the industry where I've been for so long but this idea seems so foreign to me. Doing iterative work on greenfield creative development has engineering, designers, UI and UX folks working in close collaboration. There were tons of times this past week where things moved ahead quickly because one field would call another over at their desk to see how things went. The product is much stronger for it than it would be if each question was a meeting request on the next 30 minute increment. Isn't the iterative nature of development the entire reason we are talking in an Agile thread? People over process and all.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:00
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Blinkz0rz posted:Your assumption is that distraction is detrimental to work. What I'm trying to get at is that your job isn't only working in isolation. Yes, I’m sure I need to hear sales calls that don’t work out. Or designers talking about features on other products I don’t work with. Or debating whether orange is better or worse than other orange for marketing materials. /maybe/ overhearing product managers talking about roadmap is interesting, but it’s all likely to shift several times without any input from me (that would be unwanted anyway).
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Feb 11, 2018 16:01
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Blinkz0rz posted:Your assumption is that distraction is detrimental to work. What I'm trying to get at is that your job isn't only working in isolation. Nobody is disputing this. However allowing for open offices with the above argument is not a good argument for open offices as there are other ways to allow for collaboration. Ways that are not detrimental to mental health and productivity. I doubt you will disagree with that goal.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:03
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Blinkz0rz posted:I want to call this out very specifically. If you are so fundamentally broken that being distracted by personal conversation makes for unpleasant working conditions then the only place you will ever find yourself happy is working a remote job from your home. Somehow it seems like the most talented of my former coworkers all have ended up working remotely for large successful companies, and at this point I'm unsure how I ever got anything done in an office environment. Yes, teamwork and collaboration are important to the rapidly-shifting demands of early product development. However, large stretches of uninterrupted time are usually required to actually build said products. Removing your developer's ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time is a guarantee that the product will take longer than anticipated to build.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:27
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Blinkz0rz posted:Your assumption is that distraction is detrimental to work. What I'm trying to get at is that your job isn't only working in isolation. No, but that doesn't mean I need to hear the person sitting three feet behind me having a discussion about something that's completely irrelevant to me, nor do I need to be interrupted when I'm in the middle of explaining something to someone via Skype messages. Just because communication is part of the job doesn't mean it's ideal to just have everything completely unfiltered.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:37
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Blinkz0rz posted:I want to call this out very specifically. If you are so fundamentally broken that being distracted by personal conversation makes for unpleasant working conditions then the only place you will ever find yourself happy is working a remote job from your home. I want to call this out very specifically as being incredibly rude.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:37
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vonnegutt posted:Somehow it seems like the most talented of my former coworkers all have ended up working remotely for large successful companies, and at this point I'm unsure how I ever got anything done in an office environment. This isn't uncommon. A lot of the folks who are the most talented in terms of raw output are absolute messes when it comes to everything else. I'd much rather hire someone who's well rounded than someone who will pound out lines of code but can't work with others in an office. quote:Yes, teamwork and collaboration are important to the rapidly-shifting demands of early product development. However, large stretches of uninterrupted time are usually required to actually build said products. Removing your developer's ability to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time is a guarantee that the product will take longer than anticipated to build. Teamwork and collaboration are crucial to continued delivery. If you work for a company where those two things aren't important I'd argue that attitude is far more problematic than whether you're in an open office or not. Main Paineframe posted:No, but that doesn't mean I need to hear the person sitting three feet behind me having a discussion about something that's completely irrelevant to me, nor do I need to be interrupted when I'm in the middle of explaining something to someone via Skype messages. Just because communication is part of the job doesn't mean it's ideal to just have everything completely unfiltered. You have 2 options. 1. Put on headphones 2. Ask the loud folks to lower the volume Neither of the two are hard. CPColin posted:I want to call this out very specifically as being incredibly rude. 
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Feb 11, 2018 16:54
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Hughlander posted:Maybe it's just the industry where I've been for so long but this idea seems so foreign to me. Doing iterative work on greenfield creative development has engineering, designers, UI and UX folks working in close collaboration. There were tons of times this past week where things moved ahead quickly because one field would call another over at their desk to see how things went. The product is much stronger for it than it would be if each question was a meeting request on the next 30 minute increment. Isn't the iterative nature of development the entire reason we are talking in an Agile thread? People over process and all. You don't use slack? Nobody ever says 'give me [5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1hr], I'm in the middle of something'? Everybody loves it when they are in the middle of collaborating and management swings by and you have to halt the world to talk about something else?
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Feb 11, 2018 16:56
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Keetron posted:Nobody is disputing this. I don't disagree at all and I want to make clear that I'll never defend open offices as the solution to all problems. What I've been arguing is that there are far greater concerns to an organization (and that you should have when looking at a new job) than whether individuals have their own office.
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Feb 11, 2018 16:58
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Brain Candy posted:You don't use slack? Nobody ever says 'give me [5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1hr], I'm in the middle of something'? Everybody loves it when they are in the middle of collaborating and management swings by and you have to halt the world to talk about something else? You sound like the most insufferable person to work with. When you work in an office you're on company time and part of your job is fielding drop-ins. If you hate it so much then find a remote position.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:00
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Clearly there must be a way to allow for collaboration between engineers and not expose them all to sales and marketing never shutting the gently caress up. Opposite sides of a floor, something. Have you never been to a company's offices and seen sales and marketing all bright and lit up, then engineering has the lights off like the cave dwellers we are? Just keep loud and quiet away from each other.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:11
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Pollyanna posted:Clearly there must be a way to allow for collaboration between engineers and not expose them all to sales and marketing never shutting the gently caress up. Opposite sides of a floor, something. It's weird that this one gets it more than the rest of you. Open office in and of itself isn't bad. It's that too many companies slap it on as a cure for everything rather than addressing organizational deficiencies like, for example, sales and engineering sitting in proximity.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:14
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Nice counter argument. I meant it literally, too; when you used that argument, in my eyes, you became much less credible. Your style of argumentation is offensive and, while I see the point you're trying to make, the way you're trying to make it is bullshit.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:15
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CPColin posted:Nice counter argument. I meant it literally, too; when you used that argument, in my eyes, you became much less credible. Your style of argumentation is offensive and, while I see the point you're trying to make, the way you're trying to make it is bullshit. Not sure what to tell you on this something awful dot com internet forum
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Feb 11, 2018 17:16
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Blinkz0rz posted:I like that it's easy to engage my co-workers ad-hoc instead of having to quietly knock on the door in the hopes that they're a) there, b) not on a call, and c) ok with being disturbed. For brainstorming / rapid group collaboration on something fairly high-level, few activities beat people in a room together hearing each other. But honestly, most of the cross-talk I've gotten over the years is around non-work related things and it helps primarily with the more human side of company culture. If that's what company managers are more interested in than raw technical output, it's perfectly fine to let people interrupt each other and have free access to each other's attention. I do agree with you that individual productivity is only one metric that matters, but I've yet to find a positive study about the varying degrees of productivity, "connectedness," etc. between 100% distributed companies and those with more traditional office colocation. I'm not sure what execs have read to decide upon open office layouts over other options besides "it's what the successful companies seem to be doing" lazy groupthink mentality common among executives because their own attention is constantly dragged around leaving little focus / energy. Heck, because most high-level managers are almost never in their own offices or are isolated from 9-to-5 workers they never really get to experience the problems of trying to do focused work in an open-access culture. I think we're all actually in agreement for the most part in the thread on the facts and that open office layouts are unilaterally dissatisfactory but we just disagree on what's appropriate in between isocubes for everyone and a factory shop floor.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:16
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Blinkz0rz posted:Not sure what to tell you on this something awful dot com internet forum "I'm leaving this thread forever!" would be a good start.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:17
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CPColin posted:"I'm leaving this thread forever!" would be a good start. No such luck big guy. How about you contribute to the discussion rather than being a white noise poster.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:20
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Fine: I've worked in an open office and it was generally fine. Yes, there were times where I was trying to get something done and a loud, unrelated conversation was happening near me that was making it hard to focus. My solution was to turn to them and ask them to quiet down a little. In general, I liked being able to overhear people talk about what they were doing, because I was occasionally able to offer some input. I also liked when somebody could just turn around and ask a question like, "Does anybody remember where X was?" without having to post it in the chat or in a ticket. I think, if you're sitting near people who are working on similar stuff to what you're doing, lowering the barrier for collaboration is vital. Obviously, if you're sequestered off in your own section of the code, it can be much less helpful, but, as everybody's been saying, that reflects a different problem with how your organization is dividing up the work, doesn't it? I don't think there's much value in calling people who want to limit distractions "fundamentally broken" or "unprofessional" or anything like that. There's a limit to the amount of distractions various people are okay with. I agree that part of one's responsibilities at work should be to be available for collaboration with one's coworkers, but if that really doesn't leave room for a situation like, "I'm sorry, but I'm in a time crunch and need to focus for a bit." then there's a problem (probably more than one).
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Feb 11, 2018 17:28
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I mostly just don't want engineering office layouts to start trending towards a Chinese sweatshop style, even if it's justified through agilespeak or something. I want to feel valued, and a good way to make me feel valued is to give me enough space and let me roam around as I work.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:35
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There's variation in how much people need to talk to other engineers over the course of their projects. If you're designing a user-facing app where the code is almost but not quite boilerplate, then you don't have to concentrate really hard, and working with other team members to make sure all of the pieces work together is incredibly important. Most of my projects involve designing an algorithm for part of a massively complex predictive model and implementing it as a referentially transparent microservice. I need to get the other people on my team to agree that the algorithm I'm proposing is good, and I need to get people on other teams to agree on the interface, but that's all of the interaction required. The implementation work can be somewhat mindless, but the actual research part really does require a high degree of focus, and getting distracted from that necessarily slows me down. Also, one more study: open plan offices are also associated with a higher number of sick days than traditional offices.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:57
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I can see the benefits of scrum teams working in close proximity (and this can be quite good), but don't buy the argument for a full-floor open plan office. The things that really distract you aren't your own teammates coming up to ask questions - it's the other teams chatting loudly, salespeople giving demos, guests being escorted around the office on tours. I've worked in plenty of open plan offices, and like anything else some of them are much better than others. But they all have a distraction factor that just "sucking it up and being professional" doesn't fix. If you're lucky, your office will have some comfortable, small conference rooms you can book in advance and use for those times when you need to just get stuff done as an IC or pair. If not, employees tend to find themselves doing more and more work from home just to keep up, because work hours are too filled with distractions for work to be done. I don't know if a fully closed, four walls and a door for everyone setup is the right answer to this. Probably not. But at least providing each scrum team with a semi-dedicated area where they can go and work comfortably without distractions seems necessary, and if there's nowhere people can go to escape and get heads-down work done other than home, that's absolutely a problem that ought to be fixed.
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Feb 11, 2018 17:59
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There are times when I put on my headphones and ignore the world. But there are also times when I enjoy overhearing other conversations. Either because they might be relevant to me or because I enjoy gossip and socializing with my coworkers.
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Feb 11, 2018 18:24
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The best office layout I ever saw was when I was a summer intern at Apple. The group I was in had a large shared space with a bunch of armchairs and a big whiteboard. Every engineer had a private office with a door and a window. Each office was large enough for two people working on desktop computers. Normal state of working was to have your door open, which meant that anyone could pop in and interrupt. If you were working on something that needed a lot of focus, you'd close the door and then people would only knock if it was some emergency or you were forgetting about a meeting or something. The other reason to close the door was to have small meetings. It was pretty common to need some help from just one or two other people. So you'd walk to their office, say "hey, I could use some help debugging this extension crash" and then they'd come into your office and you'd close the door and talk as loud as you liked. For discussions involving most or all of the group, we'd use the shared space and anyone not involved could close their door. One thing that strikes me when I think back to that job is that I've seen a lot of managers who couldn't cut it outside of an open office. They run around reacting to things they overhear, while my boss at Apple was constantly working to make sure nothing got off-course in the first place.
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Feb 11, 2018 18:52
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Blinkz0rz posted:This isn't uncommon. A lot of the folks who are the most talented in terms of raw output are absolute messes when it comes to everything else. I'd much rather hire someone who's well rounded than someone who will pound out lines of code but can't work with others in an office. this is so ignorant and wrong and the reason it's so hard to get companies to adopt remote friendly policies nowhere is communication more critical than with remote employees. every company that has success with remote development is successful because they have a culture where communication isn't just ad-hoc 'drop by my desk'. they actually take advantage of things like slack and discord and skype if you're just throwing work over a wall to someone and waiting to see what they deliver two weeks later you are the problem, not them
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Feb 11, 2018 19:10
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Yeah, mind you I've never experienced it but I think bullpens or offices with shared space seems like a really nice intermediate. I've only worked in open offices and while it definitely was nice to be able to talk to other people, it could grate on you a little to just never be alone. I tend a lot more towards Blinkzorz' side of things but that's also because I'm a firmware developer, and a lot of the hardest things I have to do involve not only talking with other programmers but also with hardware engineers, a really wide group of people that it gets hard to just drop in on unless the office is fully open.
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Feb 11, 2018 19:14
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Meh, I have a small team that skews more junior on the experience side of things and I'm more than comfortable avoiding remote workers entirely. It might work fine for other teams but I'm acutely aware of what it would take to successfully support a remote worker when the rest are in the office and no thank you at all. Sorry, not sorry.
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Feb 11, 2018 19:15
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