Do you work in an "Open Office Space"? 8

[bridgebuster]

In a few months, we’re moving into a new office. It will be the latest fad – the open floor plan; no cubicles and offices. Everyone gets an 18” x 42” table and a 1’x1’x1’ cart on wheels for personal belongings. According to the bean counters who run the company this will make everyone more “collaborative and productive.” Don't hope to have any privacy with a phone call.

It’s similar to the old days when we each had two drafting tables or a desk and a table. However, in this new arrangement there won’t be any bookcases, reference tables, plan files, file cabinets. The management wants as paperless an office as possible. I have 1000’s of reference files in electronic format but there are times when it’s easier to open a book or roll out a set of plans.

I don’t see this as a way of making the staff more productive. It’ll stop people from surfing the net but if someone wants to text the rest room is a good hideout. To me, this is about saving money by jamming more people into less space.

I’d be interested in hearing what those in this type of arrangement think.

 

[bridgebuster]

where I work, the management seems to fall for every fad that comes along.

Presently, the moving police are harassing everyone to scan and dispose of project files, including active projects, because there won't be any file cabinets in the new space and they don't want to send anything for cold storage.

When I was reassigned to this office several years ago they had a very good collection of reference material. About a year ago, some pinhead threw 95% of it away because it was declared an eyesore. The upcoming office reminds me of kindergarten class. There were groups of tables; five kids in a row facing five other kids. There was a cupboard with "cubby holes" for our few belongings, coloring book, crayons, and painting apron. Every night the tables had to be clean. Funny thing, a few weeks ago, the wellness police sent out an email telling us if we feel stressed during work we should take a time out and color.

 

[weldstan]

I've been in all types, from private office to shared offices to cubicles to fully open arrangements. Enjoyed shared office with one or two fellow engineers the most - great sharing of information. Liked fully open offices least - too much noise and when I had a recalcitrant contractor/engineer/manufacturer on the phone, too many of my fellow inmates had to experience my wrath.

 

[LynnB1]

My resident cube farm recently downsized our cube space. We used to have 5ft walls and tabletop surface on 3 sides, with a large under-desk filing cabinet, coat closet, and set of drawers in each cube. We all had nice big whiteboards, hanging trays on the cube walls, and an extra chair for someone to sit down and collaborate with you.

Now? The walls are just under eye level when sitting down (makes for lots of awkward eye contact with the guy sitting across from you). We have one primary table surface (reduced by almost 2ft from the old cubes) and a little scrap of a table to one side, big enough to hold a desk phone and one stack of paper, and maybe rest your elbow on. There are only 2 walls per cube, so you have a shared middle space with your neighbor to one side. We still have a coat closet, but say goodbye to those drawers. Instead we have a rolling mini filing cabinet (one filing drawer, and one pencil drawer) that tucks under your desk, and can be rolled out for someone to sit on if they want to squeeze in next to you and work through something together at your desk. No whiteboard. No trash can.

We all threw a fit about the whiteboards, so management caved and bought us magnetic ones we can stick to the side of our coat closet. Still no luck on the trash cans.

We are a pretty large company, so there are many major product departments. The way management has us laid out is everybody within one product group sits together. So us engineers and designers are mixed in with the marketing people for our product. For this reason specifically, I am one of those frequent headphone users. I would never get a damn thing done otherwise! I could rant for days about the marketing guy that sits behind me, but I'll save those stories for a rainy day.

I find our new setup very distracting even with headphones, so I'm sorry to say I don't have high hopes for your upcoming open office setup. My condolences.

 

[rb1957]

"We do have a roof over our heads, ..." ... luxury ! we have to work in an open boat, sitting on benches, listening to a drumbeat ...

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?

 

[UniCO2]

I have had a private office, shared office, open lab with desks, cubicles, and an open office. The worst, by far, and a deal breaker for me is the open office plan. Noise can be dealt with, but as LynnB stated, its the eye contact and visual distractions that got to me and destroyed my productivity. I felt like I was in a prairie dog colony, everyone with their heads up living in fear, looking around and management were the raptors circling about and then going back to their lairs (offices). It's funny how the ones who decide to make it an open office usually don't have to work in the open office. Distracted every minute of every hour of every day.

As for the paperless office - this is another short sighted management trick to make people feel good about themselves with a reduced carbon footprint like recycling - but the quality/creativity of the work declines. Here is an example - if I give you a pen and paper to write a novel or a laptop, which will be better? I suspect the pen and paper - because you are going to hit way more parts of your brain.

 

[Terratek]

Private office pros and cons

Pro: I can fart loudly in my office.
Con: I can't pretend the fart odor isn't mine if someone walks in afterward.

Open office pros and cons

Pro: I can pretend fart odor is not mine.
Con: I must be careful about the noise.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I used to wait until the end of the day to do work that required concentration.
Then I got stuffed in a cubicle farm.
The walls were high enough to minimize visual distractions.
The walls were not absorbent enough to control aural distractions.

Olfactory distractions were the worst.
One of our secretaries left on time every day,
just after setting off some kind of perfume bomb,
that let loose a lethal dose of stuff that might be pleasant,
at half a mile range in an open field.
The air conditioning usually cleared the fog by morning,
but nobody could work evenings in that building.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[loki3000]

It can be rubbish - until you really need to concentrate on something and then it gets worse. Key skill to develop: Learning how to tell your neighbour they're being loud and distracting without offending them.

headphones

 

[SomptingGuy]

Things I don't like about our open office environment:

- The sound of the office microwave going "ping". It's my cue to leave the open office before I get the pleasure of someone else's reheated lunch wafting over to my seat.

- The always-angry, shouty, sweary person, whose time-management skills are almost as bad as his delegation skills.

- Other people's conference calls.

- Nowhere to hang my scenic calendar.

Steve

 

[moltenmetal]

I already work from home one day per week because my high-walled cubicle isn't private enough to permit me to focus and concentrate on specific tasks.

If the high walls were to go away, I'd be working from home five days per week quickly.

Having at least a little semi-private space that you can call your own is a minimally necessary token of respect you must offer to professionals.

 

[SandCounter]

If they really want to save money on space, give you a cell phone and send you home with a laptop. It's 2017, employers need to get with the program.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[3DDave]

Headphones don't work when there's a loud talker or whistler nearby unless I want to induce deafness with 120dB white noise.

 

[CWB1]

The problem with working from home is that productivity suffers, most folks don't focus well at home nor do they communicate well remotely.

 

[moltenmetal]

The statement "most folks" is obviously too broad a generalization. But I do agree that you'd need to know someone really well, and/or have them doing something which is very easy to monitor from a productivity perspective, before you let them work from home. In my case I worked in the office for over a decade before I began my day's work from home per week. And if we switched to an "open office" or even worse a "hot desk" situation, I'd consider it to be functional/constructive dismissal as I cannot be at all productive in that kind of environment. Call it a disability if you like, but given how hard I find it to focus in a cubicle, I know it would be impossible for me to focus in such an environment. I have no problem focusing at home at all- I have an office in the basement, complete with a door which shuts. As a bonus, the walls go all the way up to the ceiling.

 

[epoisses_]

People's needs vary throughout the day: sometimes you have to be alone to think or write something lengthy. Sometimes you have to discuss and bounce ideas around. The employer should provide different environments that suit those various needs.
This is so freaking trivial I can't believe how so many companies don't get it.

If you "lock people up" in an open space where they can't focus, nothing substantial or thought-through will ever come out of their hands, the situation is as serious as that.
When I worked in an open space, I used to do my thinking in the bathroom. Could spend 30 minutes there in relative quietness. European bathroom walls usually go all the way up to the ceiling and all the way down to the ground

 

[epoisses_]

PS I'm most productive (up to 600%) on business trips, when I rush through the emails at the speed of sound, from 10 to 11 pm in the hotel room, and with a beer

 

[GregLocock]

@cwb1 i thoroughly disagree. I work from home 100%. My productivity is better than in the office. The section I work in wear noise cancelling headphones in the office. Our main work customers talk to us via VoIP. I miss the banter. I don't miss the commute, the germs, or the interruptions.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[bridgebuster]

We got a preview of the new world order last week. I like how interior decorators describe things: "this is going to be fun and exciting", "a new way of working", "opportunities for collaboration", "opportunities for socializing and building community". The collaboration aspect will be good for the young people. Now they can sit together and pretend to be working instead of using Jabber while pretending to be working. On a serious note, it will probably cut down on their texting because it will be more blatant than it is now.

They're discouraging assigned seats. Everyday you just plop yourself down somewhere in your "neighborhood" - I wonder if Mr. Rogers will be joining us?(in spirit of course). Meanwhile, whenever I need something I'll have to go to my locker and get it; of course I'll skip the coffee bars because I'm not waiting on line for the men's room - they didn't listen to Zeusfaber. I guess that's why they said the office will have plenty of green plants.

 

[3DDave]

Any time someone feels it necessary to say something will be 'fun and exciting' there is cause for worry. I'm pretty sure I can identify fun and excitement on my own.

 

[bridgebuster]

He was a young guy, comparatively speaking. I suppose he was simply expressing the views of modernity: Everything has to be fun and exciting. Of course, if everything is fun and exciting nothing is fun and exciting.