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kitten smoothie posted:Yeah, basically people see this and then end up cargo-culting it. Yeah, I've definitely seen this too. Don't get me wrong, we totally don't have enough space at Google (we're guilty of Strike 3, but not 1 or 2). We use our microkitchens (break rooms, but open-er and also full of the famous free food) sometimes, and other times we use the cafes, and other times we just try to be quiet at the desks. But at least we're solving that by building more buildings with more space, and starting more offices in more cities / states / countries. It's just that we are expanding so fast that we literally cannot build enough buildings quickly enough. (I know this is the standard bullshit upper-management lie. I believe it only because there is actually active construction all over the place) That said, the "can't see me slacking" is a HUGE factor in my current happiness with my environment. I sit with my back to the wall, and on my right is my most senior colleague who is relaxed as hell. If I want to spend twenty minutes on the internet while I wait for my map-reduces to finish up, no one will bother me about it. Anybody else feel micromanaged when their open floor plan prevents them from the occasional ten minute Twitter/Facebook/SA/Reddit/Hacker News break?
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May 25, 2014 00:38
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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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v1nce posted:your work-wife Your what?
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May 25, 2014 08:14
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chippy posted:Your what? What happens at work, stays at work.
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May 25, 2014 15:17
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chippy posted:Your what? A work spouse. Apparently it's pretty common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_spouse
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May 25, 2014 17:09
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I work from home and I get to stock the fridge with whatever I feel like 
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May 25, 2014 20:23
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Also working in an open plan studio. One one hand, I like having my entire team around me but it's noisy as hell. Also we are near the kitchen, which has a foosball table that gets used a lot. So I end up listening to music all day long. I've been working for that company for years and my team is pretty chill so I don't worry about being caught slacking off. Pretty much everybody has a MUD or irc window constantly in plain sight. I'm changing job in a few weeks though. It's on a tropical island, less than 100 feet from the beach. 
Senso fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 22:20
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I mean, other than a potential waste of space is there a reason why it would not be better to give everyone either an individual office or a shared office?
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May 27, 2014 04:46
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Eleeleth posted:Hi I am your opposite: I'm also quite cluttered:  Although, I'm doing some client-server stuff on iPads using Xamarin, so my desk has to have at least a Windows machine with Visual Studio, a Mac for compilation/deployment, and at least two iPads (sometimes up to 5). The offices at my company have 1-2 developers each. Everyone is really friendly and there's a culture of just dropping in on each other and talking. If you feel like getting work done, though, you can just shut your door and people won't bother you. I never really realized just how good I have it until I started hearing about all of these open floor plan offices.
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May 27, 2014 14:44
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Lord Windy posted:I mean, other than a potential waste of space is there a reason why it would not be better to give everyone either an individual office or a shared office? The Panopticon!
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May 27, 2014 14:57
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Bognar posted:I never really realized just how good I have it until I started hearing about all of these open floor plan offices. I have a small window office now, but in a couple months, when the new building is done, I'm moving into a "high-end cubicle". The building planner actually used the term "reward the we" when telling us how cool this new building is going to be.
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May 27, 2014 20:28
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MononcQc posted:I work from home and I get to stock the fridge with whatever I feel like I'm in the same situation, and it's almost always water.
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May 27, 2014 21:06
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Cocoa Crispies posted:I'm in the same situation, and it's almost always water. I have two cartons of maple milk. It's likely super unhealthy and for 5 year olds, but it owns 
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May 28, 2014 00:19
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When you don't have to write code for a living your dev environment is anywhere you drat well want it to be,
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May 29, 2014 00:21
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chippy posted:When I really need to concentrate, I go to simplynoise.com and put on some brown noise. Works a treat. I just want to thank you profusely for this. My brain has been tricked into thinking I'm sitting next to an ocean for the last couple days. "Brown" (technically red noise, I think) plus oscillation = ocean
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May 29, 2014 21:50
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SolTerrasa posted:That said, the "can't see me slacking" is a HUGE factor in my current happiness with my environment. I sit with my back to the wall, and on my right is my most senior colleague who is relaxed as hell. If I want to spend twenty minutes on the internet while I wait for my map-reduces to finish up, no one will bother me about it. Anybody else feel micromanaged when their open floor plan prevents them from the occasional ten minute Twitter/Facebook/SA/Reddit/Hacker News break? This is a major, major sticking point for me, too. If your computer faces a door or hallway, it doesn't matter how little you slack off; at some point your boss (or worse, some middle manager that is completely outside of your chain of command) will walk by JUST as you're taking a break, and throw a shitfit. All of your previous performance is out the window at that point for the sake of appearances. I have to have my back to a wall. I have to have that privacy. I feel so anxious when people can just walk by and see my screen, even if I'm not working, to the point that it's a continuous blow to my ability to focus. I know that the computers and the network are owned by the company and that they could be audited or remoted into at any time. These aren't sacred spaces for me. I also expect that they won't be unless the company has a reason to suspect me of some real wrongdoing, and if the company fails to live up to that expectation, it will be a problem for me. It's about extending a little autonomy and trust, and if they are just going to peer in on me for shits and giggles, I'm going to have a hard time putting my all into the cause. Edit: To directly respond to the OP. My last job was in an office I shared with the DBA. He was overworked. He was the only one trusted to handle a lot of the poo poo that should have been given to the IT support staff. He was the personal bitch of the Payroll manager who if her daily crisis was not handled within 5 minutes would complain in person to the GM. The phone rang. It rang and rang and rang. I could not focus for more than 10 minutes at a time. The DBA used the speakerphone, I don't know what he had against headsets, but to be fair half the conversation would have shattered my concentration as well as the whole thing, so it didn't matter. It took months for the situation to get better, and that only happened because I couldn't get poo poo done and the DBA knew that the distractions were the reason. I asked for my own office (there was a closet-sized one that was empty that I would have loved) but I had only been there for 6 months so I didn't rate it. It ended up going to a nepotism hire. On the plus side the office had enough room for a couple of whiteboards, a door that locked, and a wall-sized window looking out onto some decent scenery. So when the Payroll manager wasn't having trouble logging in for the third time that day, we could really hammer out some designs on whiteboards illuminated by the actual sun. Che Delilas fucked around with this message at 23:39 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 23:28
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Munkeymon posted:I just want to thank you profusely for this. My brain has been tricked into thinking I'm sitting next to an ocean for the last couple days. "Brown" (technically red noise, I think) plus oscillation = ocean You're welcome. In between trying to code in a noisy office, and trying to do a part-time degree in a house with a gaggle of noisy house-mates, that site has been an absolutely godsend to me. I can't deal with the oscillation though. That stops me from zoning it out. Without the oscillation, my brain tunes out the static within a few minutes and it's like working in perfect silence. (except if I'm over-tired, then I start hearing music and voices in it, but we're not going to talk about that)
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May 30, 2014 15:40
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What's funny is that offices are like this mystical magical place that only elite executives can have due to their exorbitant cost. I built an office from scratch in my house for like 300 bucks including flooring, drywall, lighting and wiring. It's a better equipped working environment both from a decor/finish and equipment standpoint than any place I've ever worked.
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May 30, 2014 18:28
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It's probably because they take up more room, cost more than cubes/open plan and there probably obstacles with a company leasing a space doing all kinds of construction. Not saying it's totally impossible but that is a lot of inertia to overcome vs "whiny devs just wish they had an office".
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May 31, 2014 00:18
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Building offices is generally not at all an issue once you have a real lease and aren't just renting a spot month-to-month, and it's often assumed that a new tenant will want to move all of the non-load-baring walls even if there's no particular need to. The space used is a much bigger issue.
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May 31, 2014 00:27
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Living in a country where open offices are the name of the game, I sometimes wonder why the infamous cubicle is the subject of endless shaming and pretty much considered a symbol of being a slave in the corporate machine. I'd love to have a cubicle where I could feel semi-private and concentrate. In an open office (or semi-open like mine; offices with 3-5 people in them, open doors at all times) there are endless distractions. It's great being next to other developers, but project managers and other admin people are like a train station of traffic and phone calls.
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Jun 3, 2014 09:02
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I have an office to myself. It's really fantastic, to the point where I think I'd have to think long and hard about taking a job without that perk for more pay.
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Jun 3, 2014 23:05
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I had an office, but frankly it made me lazy as hell. In my opinion, the ideal environment is 2-4 coders in the room together, who are all working on the same project.
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Jun 4, 2014 07:29
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 I'm graduating with a CS degree next week, but I've already started at my first real grown-up developer job. And that's my desk! I'm pretty psyched. The company is really interesting, the pay is better than average, everyone seems really cool, the office is in a great location...
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Jun 4, 2014 20:47
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Geisladisk - Looks like you need to give us permission to see that DropBox image.
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Jun 4, 2014 20:59
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They must teach that in grad school.
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Jun 4, 2014 21:28
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Anyone had experience with shared workspaces? I get lonely as gently caress doing work at home and the uni library has been just as dead recently.
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Jun 5, 2014 02:38
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Clutter and mistmatched monitors AHOY! There's 3 devs, 1 intern, 1 QA tester, 1 Project Manager, the CEO/dev, and the President/dev (read: the entire company) in the same room, which is coincidentally the only room the company has.
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Jun 5, 2014 18:58
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What's that weird looking thing with the green LED and buttons all the way on the left, just behind the box of tissues?
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Jun 5, 2014 23:40
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Deus Rex posted:What's that weird looking thing with the green LED and buttons all the way on the left, just behind the box of tissues? Some sort of paperweight. It makes noise every so often, but I ignore it.
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Jun 5, 2014 23:51
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Deus Rex posted:What's that weird looking thing with the green LED and buttons all the way on the left, just behind the box of tissues? That's what we in the industry call a Randomized Interruption Engine.
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Jun 6, 2014 01:21
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LP0 ON FIRE posted:Geisladisk - Looks like you need to give us permission to see that DropBox image. YO MAMA HEAD posted:They must teach that in grad school. Haha, I guess I deserved that.  Now with more viewable image! 
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Jun 6, 2014 11:40
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aBagron posted:Clutter You call that clutter? This is actually pretty clean for my desk.  Open plan bullpen type thing and the HVAC screeches intermittently, so some nice earbuds have saved my sanity.
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Jun 6, 2014 17:23
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Munkeymon posted:You call that clutter? This is actually pretty clean for my desk. Now with added telescope for neighbor watching action! My office has yet another horrible open plan layout, but I'm blocked from half of the room by a mobile whiteboard, so that eliminates some noise. And I have an awesome white noise generator in the form of an old Sun rack from our datacenter with a couple servers in it!
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Jun 6, 2014 19:58
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G-Prime posted:Now with added telescope for neighbor watching action! There are peregrine falcons nesting nearby  Here's the female cleaning a kill the male had just passed her before feeding it to her hatchings:  They band them in the building lobby every year: 
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Jun 6, 2014 21:10
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Munkeymon posted:There are peregrine falcons nesting nearby That, right there, is the best office feature ever.
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Jun 6, 2014 22:16
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UncleBlazer posted:Anyone had experience with shared workspaces? I get lonely as gently caress doing work at home and the uni library has been just as dead recently. If you get the right group of people it can actually be pretty cool. It ends up sorta feeling like you all work at the same company but on your own projects. The one I was at had a bunch of small offices, with a shared receptionist who made coffee for everyone and kept the place clean. Me and another guy (who was actually part of my group) shared an office and one guy next door had a futon that he let me nap on all the time. Everyone was pretty cool and seemed eager to help others out with projects or ideas or whatever. Other ones I have seen, but not worked in, had individual desks for rent in a nicely designed open environment, looked really cool. I would say give it a go for a month and see if it works for you. I guess it may not work if you got some rear end in a top hat there you found annoying. Shared workspaces seem to be growing, so there must be others who like it. Edit: Oh yeah, if you are really computer savvy, don't let anyone know. You will become the office IT guy and people will become hurt and offended when you tell them you are too busy to fix their webex plugin for the tenth time in a week and any computer you touch will become soulbound to you (well it was working fine, then Lonny fixed it, and it broke again, so Lonny must have done something) Begby fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 18:51
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Learn to read, Che. NEVER MIND.
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Jun 11, 2014 16:09
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UncleBlazer posted:Anyone had experience with shared workspaces? I get lonely as gently caress doing work at home and the uni library has been just as dead recently. I work out of a coworking space. For me a 100% WFH environment kind of oscillates between either letting home invade work (aka periods of slacking), or letting work invade home (work all day and through the evening, only punctuated by dinner). The place I go to has a mix of dedicated desks you rent by the month, drop-in free-for-all desks, and private offices. I rent one of the offices (initially I paid out of pocket but my company has started picking up the tab). However I'll go wander into the community room from time to time as well. The building's got 24 hour card access, a shared kitchen, a reservable meeting room with a big TV and A/V hookups, and a big room with foosball/pool/pinball to goof off. I'm really happy with the place, and it's a decent way to get additional human interaction in your day. And having to "go to work" helps instill a certain amount of discipline for me to timebox my work. The people who I think really get a lot of value out of a place like this (beyond just a place to come work) are freelancers/indie businesspeople. There's a solo practitioner attorney, an accountant, software developers of all flavors, designers/artists, etc who all are members of the space, so there's a lot of business networking going on and people helping each other out. Your rent at such a space may be tax-deductible if you pay out of pocket, ask your accountant.
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Do you guys kick your shoes off while you are at your desk?
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