The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office. I have a hard time believing that one.
Given how high programmer salaries are, the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings.
It seems like an introvert/extrovert thing. The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers), but extroverts want the easy communication (and they're usually the bosses).
Even small team rooms of 4-10 people get annoying when the other person has a smelly meal, has a cold, prefers a different temperature, or listens to music on his headphones so loudly I can hear it.
One of my favorite jokes is when a job ad says "We provide headphones so you can concentrate!" as a serious job perk. How about a quiet space?
"The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers)"
Uh what? I'm an extreme introvert but don't see any reason to believe introverts are usually the best workers. I am not even that convinced that introverts would prefer a quiet working space any more than extroverts do. After all, just because someone is extroverted doesn't mean they have an easier time concentrating in a noisy environment.
Extrovert here, former introvert (yeah, it's not fixed). I appreciate the defense against what is at the very least a statement of extreme arrogance by the GP.
I love a quiet workspace, and I also enjoy an open office plan. There's a need for the advantages of both environments—the ease of collaboration and the focused heads-down time—which is why this is such a difficult discussion to have.
>Extrovert here, former introvert (yeah, it's not fixed).
Off topic, but how did you "convert"? Was it a conscious effort or did it just seem to happen? I ask mostly because I had a period of a few years where I felt like I leaned closer to extroversion, but now I'm pretty firmly an introvert, and I'd like to be able to push it back to the other side, but can't quite figure out how exactly to do that.
As far as office plans go, as an introvert I really don't mind working in loud, distracting environments. I've gotten blocking out the outside world down to a science, and I'm pretty hard to distract unless someone is specifically talking to me, but I've found that an office with a door doesn't really stop that anyways. My ideal office is probably some variation of what I have at my current job, half-cubicles (4 pushed together) with 1-5 other people nearby. It's isolated enough, but still lets us collaborate and see other people enough to keep the madness at bay.
Yep! Gotta watch those darn words I learned to juggle for comedic effect. Definitely haven't taken the MBTI assessment multiple times in my life or anything. Or read Jung's books on personality that underpinned them. Nope, just heard those words used once in this article I read and people keep saying I done used them good so I keep doing it.
Then why the heck are we talking about introversion and extroversion with a straight face?
Seriously, they're antiquated descriptors. I was only pointing out how ridiculous it is to assume someone's lack of knowledge of terms.
They only persist because they provide a considerable amount of validation to behaviors of self-described introverts who desire permission for their personality. Most humans don't fall into either category absolutely.
I did several things, I think. And it does fluctuate.
- College in an extremely social club environment (marching band)
- Moved across the country to a new place, forced me to meet new people, change social skill set
- Moved from small companies to fast growing larger company, with mostly introverted people around me, I tended to fill out the gaps
- Role more focused on personal interactions
- New romantic relationship that allows for individualism, fulfillment, so I seek social interaction outside it (previous relationships were less balanced)
- Exercise, diet make me feel more positive and social in general
In short, my life has significantly changed since I considered myself an introvert. Most of it I attribute to just growing up and developing as a person. I could also see myself shifting back, depending on my situation. No biggie, both are good, and certainly I still have many introverted qualities.
If I'm not mistaken, you define introvert/extrovert by personal preference. e.g. when you need to recharge your batteries, would you rather be hanging out with 20 people, or alone on a walk?
What you described was your path to developing social skills, which is great.
I am an extremely social person. Many different groups of friends, very social at work, love going out and am always up for just about anything. I know I am an introvert because I need alone time in order to recharge.
I define introversion by the MBTI definition: "I like getting my energy from dealing with the ideas, pictures, memories, and reactions that are inside my head, in my inner world. I often prefer doing things alone or with one or two people I feel comfortable with. I take time to reflect so that I have a clear idea of what I'll be doing when I decide to act. Ideas are almost solid things for me. Sometimes I like the idea of something better than the real thing."
Similarly, I define extroversion by the MBTI definition: "I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I'm excited when I'm around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say."
I define my personality shift from introversion to extroversion as a shift from primarily the first definition to the second. The shift is not in full: Meyers and Briggs not only recognized the spectrum between the two and the conditionality of both personalities, they accounted for it in their assessment.
I still have periods of overstimulation by crowds that require alone time to "recharge." I also have periods of overstimulation of introverted self-care, in which I require crowds and groups to "recharge."
Overall, I find the black-and-white dichotomy to be insufficient to describe the experience. The gray area is better, but I still think the presence of the opposing words does a disservice to the people attempting to define themselves and others in terms of them.
Not everything is an introvert/extrovert thing. Not even people.
Signed, a former mostly-introvert, now mostly-extrovert, who remains an able and efficient member of my team, thank-you-very-much.
Now, down to business, my office actually does have a 'quiet space' of substantial square footage, filled with bean bags, comfy chairs, and lots of nooks and crannies. It's highly effective to go work there when needed.
The rest of the office remains an open floor plan. I find it useful to split my time between both places, one bearing all the advantages of human interaction (it's not so bad), the other providing concentration when required.
As one of the comments on the Facebook page points out, DeMarco's Peopleware (1987) book has actual research documenting the problems with open office plans.
I love how $100 billion companies with a hair (~11%) shy pf a billion - a billion users, active, d-a-i-l-y and run by 9,199 employees (for a company value of $1 million per empoyee down to every last employee including someone taking out the trash, and likewise meaning each and every last employee has whole army divisions, a hundred thousand users, they account for --) - suddenly doesn't know as much - to an OFFENSIVE extent - about productivity as someone who has time to post 5 paragraphs about it. There is someonething offensive here indeed.
Congratulations, you just attributed luck to skill and established that when you had luck you somehow have any idea what you are doing. Nokia was very big once. Was.
You haven't established the link between wealth and an understanding of productivity so much as asserted that wealth is a proxy for knowledge/intelligence.
> the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings.
Individual productivity isn't the aim. I've seen research that suggests the most predictive factor in the success of a team is how much they communicate. Yes, you might lose out on lines of code productivity, but you might also find that you're writing much more of the right lines of code and your colleagues are too.
I'd be fine with this, actually. As long as there was someplace quiet and private to go when needed. I wouldn't mind if these spaces were just booths you could grab when needed. As long as there were enough to go around.
At my workplace pretty much everything is on the network. All the important stuff and a lot of the personal, non-important stuff sits on a file server somewhere. It wouldn't be a huge jump for us to put everything on the network and make the machines dumb terminals. If you did that, you could just put high-powered desktops in each of the booths.
I'm a fan of huge/multiple monitors too. There could easily be monitors in the "booths," that part's easy. As for desktop-level compute horsepower, hmmmm....
1 programmer per office is pretty sparse. We have 3-4 here where I work, and it seems to be a nice equilibrium between privacy and ease of collaboration.
> The offensive part is the people who say that open offices are MORE EFFICIENT than a traditional office.
To be fair, I don't think everyone that uses the term "open office" is thinking "auditorium with 1000+ people." Attempting to extrapolate anything conclusions taken from open office environments of 4-10 people out to 1000+ people seems insane.
4-10 is team room, please don't confuse the conversation by calling it an open office. Don't be overly literal in mincing, let words have useful meaning.
This is like every tired introvert/extrovert stereotype all combined into one post.
No one person is fully introverted/extroverted. Everyone appreciates alone/quiet time to an extent and appreciates other people's company to an extent. It's way more of a spectrum than it is a black and white status.
I love meeting new people and going to social events, but I also have no problem spending time alone working on projects. What am I? A worker or a boss?
Another kind of efficiency is the pure real-estate economics angle. Open office plans typically allocate fewer sq ft per employee, are cheaper to maintain, and are more easily reconfigurable as divisions/headcount changes.
This is probably less of a factor for Facebook, who built a bespoke office building and have a ton of cash, but it's definitely driving things elsewhere in the real-estate market. If you read what's being written in the architecture / office-consulting business, there is much touting of the cost/flexibility advantages of open-plan offices compared to "legacy" floorplans. Even boring old companies like ExxonMobil are moving towards open-plan offices in new construction mostly for this reason. And office buildings built speculatively by investors in the past 20 years almost never have actual structural offices like older buildings do, because that's seen as producing a rental inventory that's less flexible. Companies leasing space just get a big open floor space, and then have a choice between setting it up in open-plan or cube-farm style.
Sure, now you know when people are at their desks, which is irrelevant. You want to know when people work and that doesn't follow from "is at the desk".
That depends on who is your measure for normal in comparison to programmers: Lawyers? Doctors? Waiters? Cleaners? After that is decided we can check whether you or the GP post is more correct.
According to us news best jobs, in San Francisco, the median salary for a dental hygienist is $112,970. For a software developer, it is $114,400, and for a registered nurse, it is $126,670. Numbers are pulled from BLS data (check their methods page).
Given how high programmer salaries are, the productivity loss due to open offices is almost definitely more than the office space savings.
It seems like an introvert/extrovert thing. The introverts would prefer a quiet working space (and they're usually the best workers), but extroverts want the easy communication (and they're usually the bosses).
Even small team rooms of 4-10 people get annoying when the other person has a smelly meal, has a cold, prefers a different temperature, or listens to music on his headphones so loudly I can hear it.
One of my favorite jokes is when a job ad says "We provide headphones so you can concentrate!" as a serious job perk. How about a quiet space?