[mclemme]

Visited an IBM office in San Francisco, near market street iirc, back in 2006 on a study trip, cubicles everywhere and a promise of a bigger cubicle, a cubicle with view of a window or maybe even a corner office if you had X years at the company. It all seemed pretty ridiculous to everyone in my class.

But this seems equally ridiculous, worked 4 places before starting my own company, and open office spaces were a thing in all of them. They ranged from absolutely horrible to fantastic. Good noise canceling headphones can cancel out most sounds, but there's no "cure" for visual disturbances, which for me (and a good part of my former colleagues), are almost as bad for my concentration as sounds. So in the worst open office spaces, there was always a "race" to get the best spots, whenever anyone moved places. By good spots I mean spots away from the main walking paths and a place where no one walks behind you and there's no visual stimuli other than maybe a window to gaze out of when wrestling with some weird bug in your mind.

Of course you can go in a meeting room when you want absolute isolation, but working on code it is awesome having two big monitors as well as peace and quiet, both audio and visual (or maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish).

The best designed open office space I've worked in was the Spotify office in Stockholm, Sweden, squad areas closed on three sides, open on the fourth and with a little sofa corner and mini meeting room in each: http://tech.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-07-11.19.2...

[jeggeragain]

The FB office makes me feel anxious just looking at it (the noise and the distractions) whereas that Spotify office looks calming and a place where I could concentrate and get some real work done (just look at the white wall with the patterned lines!).