[VLM]

Lack of psychological territoriality. Still unhappy, but better. Oh if only I had a job where my boss thought I was important enough that I could have a picture of my kids in my cube, you know, a Real job.

Also I've seen this tried and inevitably rules have to be put in place because no one wants to sit in the big room and everyone wants to sit in the cubes to do work. So you get people arguing about who's work is important enough to require the cubes. Which is not terribly motivating to people demoted to working sullenly, silently, in the big room.

[owenmarshall]

>Also I've seen this tried and inevitably rules have to be put in place because no one wants to sit in the big room and everyone wants to sit in the cubes to do work. So you get people arguing about who's work is important enough to require the cubes. Which is not terribly motivating to people demoted to working sullenly, silently, in the big room.

Bingo.

The next time you see an open floor plan office, look at the 'quiet area' or the 'heads down space' or whatever they call it. Dollars to doughnuts the most senior person that doesn't have an office has claimed it as their personal domain.

You end up needing someone to go around and evict people, or a big shared calendar where everyone has to schedule their important work time, or...

The best solution is for the company to provide a private office for everyone and enough space for teams to work in one room as needed. Unfortunately it's also the most expensive solution.

[Domenic_S]

> Dollars to doughnuts the most senior person that doesn't have an office has claimed it as their personal domain.

Haha, I remember reading when you said this before and laughing at my cube because that is exactly what happens.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6776833

[owenmarshall]

It's the universal truth of open floor plans. I still remember trying to decide if I wanted to annoy the owner, tech lead, or lead designer when it came time to kick one of them out of the conference rooms so some developers could get on a conference call.

That's what is so funny about this whole discussion on open floor plans: it comes up over and over again even though scientific evidence overwhelmingly shows they are bad, employee satisfaction is shockingly low with them... but we can't seem to kick the habit!

[Florin_Andrei]

> Unfortunately it's also the most expensive solution.

Is it more or less expensive than CEO bonuses? Serious question.

[VLM]

Work at home / coffee shop / park is a pretty cheap option. Give the boss an enormous office big enough to hold the whole team at some discomfort, but its only used for team meetings or the occasional (rare) large team effort. Head down grinding is done at home or somewhere else.

Also sub-team meetings often happen at a coffee shop. Three dudes at starbucks not the whole dept or whatever.

I've also seen people working at the public library, although its difficult because so many parent use it as a day care center drop off site. Aside from the homeless shelter antics.

[owenmarshall]

Those are all very decent options as well. The better companies I've worked at understand that programming is neither 100% solo work or 100% collaboration, and trust me to chose accordingly. This means some days I'd come in to work and spend time planning/brainstorming with the team, and other times I wouldn't come in at all because I was grinding away.

Thinking back, those were also the companies that didn't force me into a giant open floor plan with a ton of other people... the ones that did tended to be much more focused around "cars in the parking lot by 8:30, butts in the chairs until 5".

Open floor plan as predictor of quality?