[HN Gopher] Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse bli...
___________________________________________________________________
Open offices have driven Panasonic to make horse blinders for
humans (2018)
Author : airstrike
Score : 71 points
Date : 2021-07-26 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Just get an office with a door.
| cjsawyer wrote:
| "let them eat cake"
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Unless you are at a top 10 company, open floor plans are a
| cost-cutting measure. That's a red flag!
| dogorman wrote:
| I don't think you'd be so obtuse to respond with a _' just
| get a better job'_ comment if you understood that
| expression, so for future reference:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| "if youre homeless, just buy a house"
| addison-lee wrote:
| "If you're poor just make more money"
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| These sound awfuly bad for wearing, i would be so nervous less my
| periphery vision. I have office with a door and will kill to keep
| it. Ability to have a call in peace and quiet, talk without being
| heard and without hearing others, do work without other persons
| looking over my shoulder, constant bothers, have not the visual
| distractions, are all reasons why I can have any productivity.
| Open office classic case of a surface cost savings but lost
| productivity make very expensive in actuality.
| honkycat wrote:
| I hate open offices for many reasons. I am one of the fortunate
| people who can tune out the world around me an concentrate
| amongst the bustle.
|
| One thing is everyone to your left, right, and behind you being
| able to see your screen, which makes checking any sensitive
| personal information annoying.
|
| Additionally: Between the person to your left and right, you only
| have a tiny little window of workable space for your desk.
| Basically just a keyboard and mouse, and a water bottle if you
| are lucky.
|
| What an obnoxious, stupid way to make us work. Little did we know
| that cubicles were the NICE version of office work.
| blaze33 wrote:
| > everyone to your left, right, and behind you being able to
| see your screen
|
| This always bugged me, did some research while writing this
| answer, so TIL it's called the audience effect [1]: when a
| person's behavior changes because they believe someone else is
| watching them.
|
| At some level it reminds me of the double-slit experiment and
| how the interference pattern disappears once you start
| measuring through which slit the particle goes. Do some results
| fundamentally require their process to stay hidden to the
| observer if they're ever to see the light of day? Still
| wondering...
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5095155/
| toast0 wrote:
| > What an obnoxious, stupid way to make us work. Little did we
| know that cubicles were the NICE version of office work.
|
| When I started working, in cubicles, 20 years ago, people would
| complain and say we should have offices, not these awful
| cubicles. Now I'm wishing for cubicles. I pity the next
| generation that missing open offices because somehow something
| worse was foisted upon us.
| maccard wrote:
| How about "everyone has a laptop, so just take the first free
| desk when you get in in the morning?"
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Hint: if you hot-desk but never saw a full fare business
| class ticket paid by your employer, it's time to switch
| job; you are at a cost center.
| cmckn wrote:
| Clearly so many nightmarish things about this setup, but
| the one that makes my skin crawl is: my chair. Can you
| imagine having to sit in a different, random office chair
| every single day? It's like getting in your car every
| morning and someone has adjusted your seat and mirrors. I'd
| probably resort to hiding my favorite chair in a broom
| closet. Not to mention having to sit in the dried sweat and
| crumbs of who-knows-how-many other people all the time.
| _shivers_.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| Also monitor: brightness and contrast, positioning.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| "hot-desking"/"hotelling". All the productivity downsides
| of open office, plus opaque social hierarchies
| Bancakes wrote:
| How about 'classroom office'. You have desks you can move
| around in any formation and make cliques. Plus everyone is
| used to it from K12 + uni.
| Polycryptus wrote:
| You're joking, but I've read that Valve Software does/did
| something similar, every desk in their office is on wheels
| so you can move your desk to join up with whatever project
| you want.
|
| Maybe unsurprisingly, I've also read stories of
| "clique"-ish behavior there over the years (though I can't
| confirm how true they are.)
| odiroot wrote:
| > because somehow something worse was foisted upon us.
|
| Hot-desking without any personalisation opportunity is the
| next big thing.
|
| Just rows and rows of homogenous work terminals.
|
| Plug in, crunch, go out.
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| Yeah. It seems like a lot of hybrid setups are going to
| have shared desk spaces going forward.
| christophilus wrote:
| We're a pair programming company, and we believe in it so
| much that we make each pair spoon each other while
| programming.
| BruiseLee wrote:
| Atlassian by any chance?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wUOUmeulNs
| smegger001 wrote:
| In individual "offices' taking designs inspiration from the
| Japanese so called "coffin hotel" these of offices are
| stacked three high.
|
| At our company we realize the problem of open office floor
| plans was the distraction created by coworkers so all of
| our offices have sound proof doors that will unlock to let
| you out for your legal mandated 2 10 minute breaks and half
| hour lunch as require by state law. Thouhg your are allowed
| and even encouraged to eat in your "office" as there is no
| cafeteria and you are not allowed off premise during your
| shift, though we do provide water vending machines and
| affordably priced vanilla soylent.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Capsule hotels, but transparent so you can look at your co
| workers
| smegger001 wrote:
| just wait give a 10 years and it will look like crowded call
| centers, where your packed in knee to knee with your
| coworkers at shared desks in the most "space efficient" way
| possible.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| That's what modern airline cabins look like, with a screen
| in front of each seat, and a headset on each pair of ears.
| Even some business class cabins (I don't fly THAT often but
| I watch travel vlogs).
| xtracto wrote:
| Back in 2008 I was working in Germany as a Wissenschaftlicher
| Mitarbeiter (research fellow). We had 1 office shared by 2
| people. Later I got my own office (when my boss left and I
| had to replace her). Working in a 1 or 2 person office was
| amazing.
|
| Later I moved to _Industry_ , to a "Silicon Valley Startup"
| in an open-floor layout. It is horrible and demeaning (in
| that, it is evident that it is done because your boss doesn't
| trust you). I stayed like that for 7 years and just now moved
| to a 100% remote position. Currently I've got my own office
| at home with everything I want. There's no way I would go
| back to an open-office plan.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| > Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
|
| I can't help but laugh at how much this sounds like "shaft-
| licker masturbator"
| mc32 wrote:
| Open Offices are horrible for all the reasons we all know...
|
| There is one thing I do not get. Why did and do so many people
| who had and have to work in such environment so
| enthusiastically embrace it?
|
| It was so incongruous to see. People I knew and know of all
| types so eager to get on board with this new movement.
| Unfortunately I think they got taken in by the fact that it was
| the so called cool companies that wanted to expand fast and
| save on space that espoused it. So everyone* became a believer
| despite the obvious issues. It was fascinating to see this
| happen (as well as the frowns for not being on-board with this)
|
| I'm happy to see pushback on this miserable layout.
| elric wrote:
| They can seem like a good idea at first. If you've never
| worked in such an environment before, you might not notice
| how shitty it truly is. At least not until the day you're
| desperately trying to concentrate, but Steve who is sat next
| you keeps talking about his pet porcupine, and Fiona breathes
| so loud the elves could have shot her in the dark, all the
| while people at the edge of your field of vision are
| constantly walking to and fro the coffee maker.
| rrauenza wrote:
| In the early 90's in college I worked in an open plan in a
| small software company - 10 developers? Management kept
| proposing cubes and we argued against it. I can't imagine why
| we argued against it now?
|
| Maybe we had fewer personal items on our screens due to the
| internet not being used all that much? We argued that it was
| nice to be able to turn around and ask someone a question.
| Maybe it's just because we were such a small close knit team?
|
| On the other hand, we also had fairly large desks as well.
| mc32 wrote:
| There are full height cubes, half height and cubes with
| "visibility shields" or whatever they call them.
|
| I think the half height ones are a decent compromise. You
| stand up and you can see the people around you. If you sit,
| you have your privacy. With stand up desks this can be
| different, but you can orient desks so that people aren't
| looking at you from behind.
|
| I can see where if a team grew organically that an open
| office can work --but you never know when that will change
| (team changes, management changes, etc.)
| christkv wrote:
| Open offices was so annoying, having to look for a couch where
| you could sit with your back to the wall, or a meeting room to
| answer sensitive work emails.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Did anybody try "inverted open offices" where people sit
| facing the center and have their back against a wall as you
| described? Not necessary like that, any configuration where
| people can't sneak behind you would work.
| robocat wrote:
| Bosses like to see you are working.
|
| If yor screen is private, then you can surf the net, watch
| sports, use Facebook, play games, or any number of
| unproductive activities.
| elric wrote:
| I suggested this to $bossman, and he shot me down. I rather
| liked that setup when I was in school, basically a U shape,
| with every desk facing towards the middle of the U.
| city41 wrote:
| Over my career I've had private offices, cubicles and open
| offices. Of the three, I actually liked cubicles the best. They
| are far from perfect, but they offer the best balance between
| privacy and communication.
| Arrath wrote:
| Recently I was give then opportunity to relocate from the
| cube farm into an adjacent office, but I declined because I
| like being in the middle of my team and able to just talk
| over the walls and communicate with everyone easily. This is
| despite us already all being in a skype room together,
| sometimes verbal communication is easier or faster.
|
| Also the HVAC setup here is just wrong, my cube is decently
| comfortable while the office I was offered is either an ice
| box or blisteringly hot.
| zwieback wrote:
| Agreed, same for me. I do have high cubicle walls.
| kazinator wrote:
| Give me high cubicle walls, a moat and a vat of boiling oil
| ...
| manachar wrote:
| Worth remembering that cubicles were invented as being good for
| workers as it replaced what amounted to the standard open
| office floor plan with the bossman looking over the workers.
|
| Cubicles provided privacy and focusing ability.
|
| Of course, like all technology, cubicles, work-from-home, and
| open floor plans all have pluses and minuses.
|
| Personally, I have started to consider the possibility that the
| problem is we keep thinking about The One Perfect Solution To
| Rule Them All rather than realizing that no system is good for
| 40 to 60 hours of work a week with the varied tasks and times
| needed at each.
|
| For most office work you need places for private and individual
| focus time, places for quick informal chats that don't disturb
| others, places for small meetings, places for small work groups
| to collaborate, places for larger meetings, and others.
|
| That's without getting into individual worker preference - some
| love cafe settings for focus, some want bright sunny windows,
| some dark basements, most will have different preferences for
| different work.
|
| I suppose with enough redundant space you could offer all those
| things, but that's expensive.
|
| Work from home, with proper infrastructure for meeting and
| collaboration spaces is likely the best fit for many office
| jobs, but I know from experience that such things also have
| "work" invade private life and time in ways that can be very
| off-putting (and vice-versa).
| Skunkleton wrote:
| > realizing that no system is good for 40 to 60 hours of work
| a week with the varied tasks and times needed at each.
|
| 40-60 hours? Shouldn't we be going the other way here?
| tobmlt wrote:
| I am with you.
|
| I started out at 55-90 hrs over 5-6 days and occasionally 7
| days a week after being promised 4-10hr days a week. I was
| pretty sure I was paying excessive dues. This was entry
| level engineering after all.
|
| Later got a 32 hr a week job. Should have stopped right
| damn there. Ah the fool I was. Bumped it to 40. Then left
| for "growth" - a "startup within" a megaCorp.
|
| Now doing "every waking minute I can stand without
| breaking".
|
| Sweatshop corporate slavery on both ends of the
| experience/skill ladder. Credentials and experience mean
| nothing to work life balance.
| elric wrote:
| My biggest gripe with open plan offices is that they often seem
| to lead to tiny desks. Maybe because the mindset that leads to
| open plan offices eventually also leads to maximizing the
| butts-in-seats:floorspace ratio.
|
| If desks are wide enough, people next to you can't readily
| stare at your screen, and it's more feasible to add dividers
| between desks. When they're narrow, ugh, horrible.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I wonder if people hated cubicles because they looked and felt
| cheaper than actual private offices, thus giving the Office
| Space/Dilbert/Matrix/Fight Club effect of feeling like an
| office drone, even if the actual work experience is preferable
| to open offices.
| abraxas wrote:
| It's precisely this. Later on when the pivot to open offices
| took hold the management joined in deriding cubicles as
| oppressive and stifling. Well, mission accomplished. They are
| now mostly a rarity and a perk at those places that still
| have them.
| nahuel0x wrote:
| Focus Cap, a similar product: https://focuscap.io/
| abraxas wrote:
| This one looks even more demeaning with its fast food server
| fashion style.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| 'news' from 2018? anything new to add to this?
|
| Like there hasn't been a million further articles about open plan
| offices and strategies
|
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19884448
| saint_olms wrote:
| These seem nice, actually. Even in an empty office peripheral
| motion distracts me easily so I'd get some use out of them.
|
| But 'horse blinders' is not the comparison I'd use, especially
| given the field... this is a professional (ie. expensive) take on
| the stereotypical hacker hoodie.
| christophilus wrote:
| Sounds like a plot from Silicon Valley (the TV show).
| vgeek wrote:
| Maybe they were developed using The Conjoined Triangles of
| Success?
| avelis wrote:
| All it needs is some Hooli branding on it.
| abraxas wrote:
| > (the TV show)
|
| ...or the real thing.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I've had mostly positive experiences in open offices, but the one
| I liked the most was in the mid 90s (if about 10 people in a room
| qualifies as open office): a room in which we had our desktops
| arranged as a square around and facing a giant aquarium. The
| positive environment, the soft music we had 100% control on,
| fishes, and the gentle bubbling of the air in the aquarium all
| contributed to a very relaxing and creative environment. As of
| today however, I very much prefer a libre office than an open one
| (pun intended); that is, my home.
| floren wrote:
| A _good_ open office can be very good, when each person gets
| plenty of space around them, things are generally quiet, and
| management isn 't always wandering around (everybody wants to
| check HN or reddit occasionally, but feels weird doing it when
| management can see). Defaulting to a setup where most people
| can't see each other's screens is a nice touch, and the
| aquarium is cool.
| quercusa wrote:
| And we thought the 1996 Dilbert 'Head Cubicle' was satire.
| https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-09-15
| xur17 wrote:
| Add this to the list of reasons I prefer to work remotely. I get
| a private office with full control over the air conditioning, my
| own chair, desk, monitors, etc, and no coworkers staring at my
| computer.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Ubiquitous open offices are one of those trends that highlight
| that despite high compensation, mobility, and demand, Silicon
| Valley software engineers don't always possess the leverage they
| think they have. Some decisions are just completely in
| management's hands, and if the prevailing management trend is to
| embrace open offices, well- there's no current solution against
| it other than WFH.
| trhway wrote:
| what is the next after horse blinders? Naturally - VR. No need
| for the desk space for monitor, so the office density can be
| increased again, like 2x, while you'll be having prime corner
| office in VR (though probably bean counters would soon find a
| way/reason to "save" in VR too, and you'll get a nice
| collaborative VR open office :). Facebook Horizon and "metaverse"
| somehow come to mind in this context.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| followed by a neurolink in the brain to just type and see &
| maybe a reclining chair with probes plugging directly into
| spine for high b/w connection. eventually if you can work you
| way out of student loans then you start losing your physical
| body parts for virtual until you are finally left as a brain in
| a jar.
|
| Then the real fun begins..
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-26 23:03 UTC)