[webvictim]

I used to work at FB and the huge, open offices were one of my least favourite parts about the job. I worked in the London office for a year and that was actually a little better because it's smaller and generally quieter there, but the three years that I did in the Menlo Park offices were not particularly fun for all the reasons described. It's very difficult to concentrate when there's constant background noise. Mercifully, all the teams I worked with were based in the old Sun campus rather than the new warehouse style Gehry building across the road - I'm told that the noise and general foot traffic in the new offices was at times completely unbearable. There were a huge number of pot plants, whiteboards and other makeshift obstacles used to try and block paths between desks there, both to block out noise and to channel foot traffic away from groups of people fed up with being disturbed.

The worst thing of all (in my opinion) is the fact that the open office culture is simply accepted there as being the best thing for all concerned. It's like a theory that cannot be challenged. The introverts basically don't get listened to, while the extroverts can sing and dance with happiness. This surprised me greatly because anyone who's worked at FB will tell you that it's a hugely data-driven company - lots of people did try a great many times to suggest that we should trial team-sized offices or at least something different to the status quo, even providing studies and statistics to back up their hypotheses, but the requests always fell on deaf ears. I'm not sure it was ever taken seriously as a concern despite numerous articles like this being linked internally and debated ad infinitum. It's a real shame, as the company was a pretty great place to work on most other levels.

[erobbins]

> The worst thing of all (in my opinion) is the fact that the open office culture is simply accepted there as being the best thing for all concerned. It's like a theory that cannot be challenged. The introverts basically don't get listened to, while the extroverts can sing and dance with happiness.

Agreed.. this is the most troubling part. If you raise a concern you're brushed off or even worse looked on with suspicion.

[otakucode]

It doesn't even have anything to do with introverts or extroverts. Open floor plan offices annihilate productivity of both groups. Human beings, especially when doing mental work, can not cope with distraction. Period. It's just like how human beings can not multitask. These are limitations to the human animal which are supported by decades of research. The research on open floor plan offices isn't even a tough call. There are over a thousand different studies, all concluding the exact same things - open floor plan offices are total poison. I'm sure in 50 years we'll look back on today and be flabbergasted at what we did to people, like looking at an old work site filled with asbestos fibers drifting about and lead paint chips flaking off the walls.

[zachrose]

Check out William H. Whyte's The Organization Man, a 1956 book describing American society's turn towards valuing the group and togetherness for its own sake.

If you want the tl;dr, check out this 1982 interview with Whyte about that book:

http://www.pbs.org/video/17759115/

[nocarrier]

I joined FB in 2006 and had never been in an open office environment before. It was quite an adjustment. I didn't like working in the office until I had been there for about six months. The office on University Ave was packed tight and didn't have a lot of creature comforts--it was cheap desks arranged in groups of four, some conference rooms, a break room with snacks, and that's it. And I had come from a cubicle farm at Apple.

There were definitely large benefits to the open floor plan back then since we were working on so many things and each person was wearing so many hats. It made staying in touch with people's progress really easy. We were also working 80-100 hours a week back then, so it was good to constantly stay in touch since there was so little structure and process back then.

I have mixed feelings about FB being held up as one of the models for open floor plans today though. While I think it was definitely useful at the time, I think the open floor plan has become less important as tools have gotten better. We didn't have tools like FB Groups, Phabricator, etc, so you had to be within earshot of your collaborators in order to make sure everyone was in sync.

My sweet spot would be team sized rooms if I was starting a company today. I used to be so jealous of teams that had to grab war rooms and ensconce themselves in there with a bunch of laptops and displays. Even though they were working super hard to meet deadlines, they looked happy as can be.

[strictnein]

> "I used to be so jealous of teams that had to grab war rooms and ensconce themselves in there with a bunch of laptops and displays"

In a previous job we used to find conference rooms that weren't bookable in the system and move into there until someone kicked us out. You can get a ton of work done in a small meeting room with 4-5 devs, when absolutely no one is bothering you.

[webvictim]

Collaboration has definitely got a lot better than it was years ago; FB has probably managed it better than anywhere I've worked before. The amount of money and effort they've invested into video conferencing facilities is huge because it really is such an important factor. This is why it always baffled me that they didn't treat remote working as a first class citizen, especially given the crazy prices of real estate in the Bay Area.

I was also always hugely jealous of people in war rooms as they seemed to have the perfect balance.

[geebee]

I used to work at the Sun offices. Back then, everyone actually got an office. I shared mine as an intern for a while, which I actually kind of preferred, since we were both pretty quiet and good at recognizing when we needed to focus vs talk. I was hired on, he went back to school, so I had a private office after that, which was the norm.

That was the last time I ever had a private office. Funny, it was my must entry level position, right out of school, where I had a private office. Unfortunately the industry trended away from it over time.

Sun did manage open offices well back then, though. There were a number of "drop in" centers that were essentially large open offices. However, Sun ran them carefully. There was a "quiet room" of workstations with no phones, and a general room where people made noise. Occasionally, it would fill up, and someone from sales or another field would figure it was ok to have cell conversations as long as he or she did it in a muted voice. The only thing that saved that room was the office manager, who pretty much had no tolerance for it. If she saw people doing this (and she checked pretty regularly), she'd explain very firmly that the couldn't do it. She didn't care who they were, either, the chain of command really had her back on this.

Unfortunately, open offices rarely work this way. They tend to just chuck everyone into a big room. I don't like earplugs or headphones as a solution, because I don't like it when people can see my back and my screen and I'm unaware that they're standing behind me.

Ultimately, I'd prefer to let the market solve this one. If employees prefer not to work in open offices, or in high tech in general, they can and should choose to work at other companies and/or in other fields. This is, yet again, why I am so opposed to work visas that allow employers to decide what immigrants are allowed to study, what field they're allowed to pursue as a profession, what they are allowed to work on, what work conditions they are allowed to work in, and where they are allowed to live, as a condition of living in the United States. Honestly, I think that if you just gave the workforce basic choice, a lot of this would get sorted out on its own - it's propped up by a system that gives employers monumental power over a large portion of their workforce (if you risk getting deported if you quit your job or try to change fields, you aren't free, and this is reflected in our working conditions).

[jm_l]

did you mean potted plants, rather than pot plants?

[Smaug123]

In the UK, the phrase "pot plant" means "plant in a pot"; no cannabis implied unless the context specifically demands it.

[webvictim]

Haha, thank you. My heritage is clearly given away by my phraseology :)

[ClassyJacket]

I'm pretty sure they meant pot plants. It's a plant, but that's in a pot, not in the ground.

[fryguy]

In California (and likely the rest of US but I don't know), "Pot plants" exclusively refers to Marijuana in its plant form. "Potted plants" is what we call what you're describing. It's a plant, but it's been potted.

[justinlardinois]

Not an unreasonable question.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-28/silicon-va...

[underwater]

I've worked in a bunch of the Menlo Park buildings. The new Frank Gehry designed one is quieter than the old Sun buildings. Foot traffic is only a problem if you're immediately next a thoroughfare, and even then it's not terrible.

[personjerry]

Huh, when I interned at Facebook in the new, open floor building, not only was noise not a problem, I could always walk to one of the many mini-lounge/libraries for absolute silence when I needed to. Plus, headphones and ear plugs are always offered, if I recall.

[deckard1]

> headphones and ear plugs are always offered

This isn't a solution. Wearing headphones all day will lead to hearing loss. Especially if you have them turned up to any sort of level needed to block out even light conversation.

[cm2187]

The in-ear headphones with a rubber membrane will be excellent to

- isolate you from external noise

- isolate your co workers from your music (a problem with most alternative designs of headphones)

And if you listen to classical music, you are unlikely to suffer any hearing loss. And I find it to be perfect to focus on something in noisy environment (used them when I wanted to focus on something on a trading floor for years).

http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/earphones-headphones-sound-isola...

[wruza]

Is that because classical music is natural/harmonic? I often hear that but google previews say something suspicious.

"classic music hearing loss" (sorry my phone browser copies google urls as plain text).

As for me, having something in ears is already disturbing, especially for a long time. In my office we came to mostly-silence mode without even negotiating on that. That culture was accepted naturally after quick inter-assimilation. People just respect silence and it is great.

[cm2187]

From my point of view, classical music has a slower and more stable rhythm than a bunch of short pop songs, and is often in Italian rather than English (when there are any lyrics), which (since I do not speak Italian) ensures I do not get disturbed by someone talking in my ear. Also the general noise level of classical music is typically less than pop music.

Now everyone is different and I am sure some people find it more comfortable to focus while listening to heavy metal!

[wwkeyboard]

If any one else wants to know more about these google "in ear monitor". That's the trade name for the headphones musicians use to hear the mixed product while also protecting themselves from the amplified sound.

[jedberg]

It depends on the headphones. A good set of active or passive noise cancelling headphones will block all the sound even with no music.

I wear my headphones as earplugs on an airplane when I want to sleep, and I can usually keep my volume at 10% of max or less and hear everything crystal clear.

The biggest downside is that my headphones cost $350 and are only available in Europe or Montreal, CA.

[TylerE]

Noise canceling headphones are much more effective on constant noise like an airplane engine than transient noises like speech or phones ringing.

[jedberg]

I guess I just found the magic pair, because with them in I can't even hear my baby cry.

[notyourwork]

Care to tell us what pair/

[samastur]

I am also interested in learning which headphones you use and added this comment to signal there's more of us that are interested.

[eropple]

Noise-canceling headphones are really hit or miss, though. Like, I can't wear them. They drive me crazy. Ambient noise is not bad. Ambient noise is good! Being in an isolated bubble is the sort of dystopic future-stuff that...ew. No. Do not want.

(For a while I thought things like Coffivity were a good idea to restore the ambient noise I was killing out with perpetual headphones...but then I realized what I was doing to myself, and felt kind of ashamed and embarrassed.)

[wolfgke]

> Noise-canceling headphones are really hit or miss, though. Like, I can't wear them. They drive me crazy. Ambient noise is not bad. Ambient noise is good! Being in an isolated bubble is the sort of dystopic future-stuff that...ew. No. Do not want.

My experience is different. I'm a person who is very sensitive towards noise (even in the classroom writing tests was horror). I personally consider silent environment + good noise canceling headphone (for silencing all the remaining noises that are still there - you are surprised how many there are) as comforting. The static noise that any noise-canceling headphone will produce is the smaller evil here.

For https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=raziel2701

> Noise canceling headphones are much more effective on constant noise like an airplane engine than transient noises like speech or phones ringing.

Also my experience. They decrease the noise of speech and phones rining, but that's it.

[raziel2701]

Noise canceling headphones are for low frequency sounds such as those found in airplanes. They don't work well with conversations phones ringing and laughter.

[jedberg]

With my headphones in I can't hear phones or conversations or my baby crying.

[wirelesskarma]

Even if they're at 10%, the actual volume of your earphones is more dependant on the drivers themselves and the amperage rather than the arbitrary 'volume percentage' on the device you're driving them with.

[jedberg]

That's a fair point, but my point was I don't keep it very loud at all.

[vincnetas]

Earmuffs. 3M™ PELTOR™ Over-the-Head Earmuffs X4A for example goo.gl/kNR9ZG

[heed]

For me noise isn't the only problem. People moving around, and walking by my desk is just as distracting.

[arsenelupin3]

Same for me. My productivity is divided at least by 2, not only because of the noise, but also because of the visual pollution, constantly seeing x or y going around.

From my experience, situation is rendered worse when management people are in the mix: then you have to observe the subtle communication tricks of small power politics, which seem to favor those who think loudly.

Not to mention non-IT guys are usually ignorant of the huge cost of context switching for programmers.

As I do no see myself explaining that I am an introvert who needs calm, the only hope is to see my side project allowing me to earn enough money to escape this nightmare.

http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/04/05/the-open-plan-offic...

[TeMPOraL]

Same here, and also my productivity gets divided by 4 whenever I'm aware of people walking or standing behind me. I've been like this since childhood - when I'm doing stuff on computers, I get distracted by the very presence of other people; doubly so, if they're able to see my screen.

[wruza]

When I worked at "analytics", i.e. solving issues right at client's place, we noticed that the people who can write code there are special. They have skill of resolving issues quickly under pressure, but have less skill of implementing hard things even at our noiseless office. I think it is a waste of resources to put hard-skilled group in uncomfortable conditions and vice-versa. We let some of them away from that because we had both hard tasks and quick tasks.

[jrs235]

I feel I'm similar to you. In high school in many classes, like AP Government, I rarely took notes. I often would put my head down (facing down) on my desk and just listen to my teacher usually just repeating in my head what they said. I would do this to help eliminate [visual] distractions. My teacher called on me with random questions a few times and after I had rattled off the correct answer, often faster than others, he stopped "checking" on me. I scored a 4 on the AP test, higher than most others in my class. My teacher even told me he was surprised that I did that well.

[protomyth]

Some folks cannot wear head phones for an extended period of time which makes me very happy I have an office. Plus, noise canceling head phone make me dizzy even if no music is playing. I'm pretty sure that's not unique.

[Freak_NL]

It probably isn't. I can wear my in-ear noise-blocking headphones for about two hours until they become physically uncomfortable. Over-ear headphones are fine for up to four hours. An open office is just not a workable environment for me.