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For the place I just left, the office was open plan with our desks in rows, so you're sitting in a line and facing the opposite direction to the other half of your team, and there were "cells" of teams across the main floor. This was great for collaboration as you just turn around and bam, there's the person you want to talk to, and you can usually see if someones at their desk and call/go see them. Everyone had their own phone, so if you're feeling super lazy you didn't need to get up, ever. Being open plan and a very friendly, the place was always noisy. Almost everyone had headphones, and personally I find Pandora with an upbeat or familiar station to be good for idling the rest of my brain and allowing me to think. We had 3 meeting rooms and extra space we could use if needed, and one room was intended for use as a "silent" coding space if you needed no sound whatsoever, though it never got used. Due to the nature of the company you'd always have people coming and asking questions, so we set up a system of having placards we could put on our desks which said in big magenta letters "Busy! Email me if not urgent". This comes off a bit stand-offish to start with, but after a while you really appreciate not pissing someone off by accident. It was also acceptable to forward your phone to a teammate if needed, so if you're in the middle of say a critical live bug, you can defer all contact to your work-wife, from both colleagues and customers. The GMs description was a "high performance work environment" which basically meant you're constantly working your rear end off to keep the company in the black. Being an agency all of our time was logged, so I never found the opportunity to slack off in my working day, even if I was feeling burn out. The direction of my monitor was such that the GM could see everything I was doing, and resulted in a few reminders that we have work that needs doing.. once while I was on a late lunch. My new job has me sat in a high-walled 4 person corner desk cubicle setup, so now I spend all day staring into a blue felt corner, despite being in a high-rise with a great view. The people basically don't talk, so I listen to music all day. In comparison, I now welcome any interruption because human interaction is nice. I can also slack off when I need to let the air out of my head, which is a far cry from the last place. If I had it my way we'd use lower dividers so you could talk to people across desks. The difference it makes in relaxing the environment is quite significant.
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May 25, 2014 03:55
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 02:38 |
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