| Open-plan offices are but one of many symptoms of the much larger problem in the software
engineering industry today: nobody in "the business" understands what we do. I started
working professionally in the industry in the late 1980s. Since that time, I regret to say
that the people who hire we software engineers don't see us as anything but factory labor. To wit: - We've evolved into a world with "Agile", which our paymasters have defined
as the equivalent of warehouse/factory/shop floor process. Each engineer is
"the same"; thus, swappable; - In this view of the world, the only valuable thing to do is the tiny little
sliver of work in front of you. Spending time on anything related
to real engineering is verboten. When you're eventually asked why the application
is slow, producing work faster isn't possible, or new features are difficult
to implement, your "technical" answers about "the code", "the design", and/or
the "architecture" are derided as "lazy work" and "not valuable". We
just don't understand "the business"; - Since you're a factory laborer now, and there is no expectation that you
must "think" to do this job, the notion that you require privacy is laughable.
"The business" does not give the shop floor guys privacy, why should they give
it to you? Oh, and how long do you suppose it will be before you must
ask permission to use the bathroom? Just like factory workers; - Since you obviously don't need to "think", after all you just have to crank
out that next ticket/card/story, then being interrupted isn't an issue. As
the foreman of a factory floor, I can reallocate my "resources" however I see
fit. After all, they're all assembling the same "widget", right? - If you're lucky enough to not be in the physical fish bowl of the modern
software engineering shop floor, then you're expected to be tethered to some
god awful chat client. Again, what you're doing isn't complicated, right?
You don't have to plan. You don't need to design. You don't need to think.
That's what all the tools, and frameworks, and geegaws they spend big money
on are for! So if you get pinged constantly by 20 different people for 8 hours --
and your work isn't getting done -- there is something wrong with you; - If you are unlucky enough to be in the fish bowl itself, then being interrupted
now includes both the physical and virtual; - Meetings are what "the business" does and what we do isn't important, obviously.
So whatever "top of the stack" issue is critical to them at any given
moment in time overrides any worthless thing you might be doing. The simple truth is that software engineering is a low prestige career in the majority
of companies. There are a handful of real software vendors that still, on some level,
grasp what it is we do. However, the vast majority gave up decades ago and just
decided to treat us like factory workers. Welcome to the software industry in the 21st century. |