[martinpw]

no_wave's reply is exactly on point.

You don't need the open office to pair program, you just need to be with one other person. So go to an office, because otherwise you are disturbing everyone else in the room with your pair programming if you are going to be talking 7 hours straight. In an open office that is plain rude and selfish.

And by the way I would love to work in a private office, but that is not an option. So everyone needs to compromise, and that includes not pair programming and talking all day out of respect for your co-workers.

[kerkeslager]

Again, please read the posts you are responding to. You're not reading my posts. I'm not your enemy here. You're just taking your anger at other people out on me.

If you would read my posts, you would see that what I'm proposing is a mixed office space with open areas for those who work best that way (like me), and private areas for people who work best that way (like you).

1. I'm definitely for you having your own, private office if that's how you work best.

2. An open office with enforced silence is the worst of both worlds. The extroverts can't work effectively because they can't collaborate, and it's really never quite quiet enough for the introverts. This kind of "compromise" means nobody is happy.

3. Being in the open office isn't just about talking with your pair, it's about being able to collaborate with people outside your pair too.

[martinpw]

I think I am reading your posts - we are just focusing on different aspects.

I agree with your ideal - that indeed would be a nice place to be. My concern is more around the reality for most people which is that everyone is in an open office environment. How do you propose to handle that situation assuming no offices are available? Would you still pair program and talk all day? Would you at least first ask your neighbors if they are ok with that? And what would you do if they said no?

[kerkeslager]

The emergent norm at coworking spaces seems to be that you keep the volume down (just above a whisper) and don't talk to people if they have headphones in, as this signals that they're trying to concentrate.

Pair collaboration happens all the time in this sort of setting. These days I'm not the one pair programming, since my coworkers are a 5 hour drive away--it's other people. And they typically don't ask first.

But the reality is that if people are paying to work in an open office coworking space, they've chosen to be there and are at least somewhat extroverted. So those norms aren't likely to fit the needs of people who don't want to be in an open office.

The flipside of that coin is, I don't think introverts get to come into an open office space and determine norms for an office space they don't want to be in anyway. If a coworker communicated to me that they needed more quiet, I'd try to come up with a way to meet that need. But it's a bit aggressive to assume that I will meet your needs without you communicating them, and call me "rude and selfish" when I don't.

In the short-term, if you asked, obviously I'd just quiet down so you'd be able to get done what you needed to get done that day. But that's a short-term solution, and I'm not going to give up my productivity forever. The longer-term solution would be to help you lobby management to get you the privacy you need. Can we designate conference rooms as "quiet spaces" when not in use? Can we schedule all the meetings for one day a week so the conference rooms are not in use the rest of the time? Can we re-examine why we're not letting people work from home? Whatever compromise arises is going to come from us discussing what we both want and coming to an agreement. And if management really isn't amenable to anything that works for you, I'd probably leave the company--I don't particularly like working for authoritarians, even if the open office mandate doesn't harm me directly.