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cballard

This working environment looks like a cramped nightmare. How can anyone focus?

https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/zap03-15_b...

Compared to, say the Basecamp offices, which look open, airy, and peaceful:

https://basecamp.com/about/office

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Crucially though, you know that chap in the Zapos office wants to work in that environment. He made it that way. He's happy. That's great. That might be the case with Basecamp, but you don't really know.

The choice isn't between the clutter of Zapos or the open space zen of Basecamp. It's between the "make your own ideal workspace" freedom of Zapos (on a relatively small budget) and the "this what we made for you" design of Basecamp (on a relatively high budget). Some people will prefer Basecamp, but not everyone.

you know that chap in the Zapos office wants to work in that environment.

I don't know that at all. All I know is that social pressure works, even at Zappos.

If every desk at Zappos has a bunch of crap on it, then by damned your desk better have some crap on it too. Otherwise, you could end up on a hero's journey to figure out why you're not fitting in.

Remember that 'conforming' doesn't always look like clean desks with the stapler always in the upper left hand corner.

Looking at the Zappos office all I can think is "pieces of flair" with respect to the cubicle decorations.

It's so cluttered, it's giving me anxiety just looking at those photos. I keep a fairly clean desk, I don't think I could function well in that environment...

But that's a person's own desk. If you wanted to keep a clean desk then surely you could.

Could you? I'm thinking michaelbuckbee[1] is right about the flair thing. I would bet that if you keep a clean, organized desk with no decoration you would get asked about your feeling working there and maybe not be seen as Zappos material.

I'm not sure who's working PR as Zappos but that picture[2] cballard[3] linked to is probably not a good corporate message given the sign in the upper left corner.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239602

2) https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/zap03-15_b...

3) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239584

Many years ago I worked for a stint at ebay and I was definitely considered a pariah for not flaring out my desk with juvenile toys. I did that in Grade 9 with my locker

I know it's not fair to whoever's desk that is, but I'm tidy/OCD enough that sitting near that disaster would cause me serious anxiety.

"Stig of the Dump" immediately jumped to my mind looking at that [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_of_the_Dump

This was precisely my thought as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg

Basecamp has 14 office employees (though they have more employees, and are big proponents of remote working) sharing a 10,000 sq foot space, compared to every office it's going to be open and airy.

Wow I worked in a place where I could have spit on the 10 people that sat around me they were so close. I think I had 10sf to myself.

Here are more pictures of the Zappos office: http://officesnapshots.com/2013/12/16/new-zappos-downtown-la...

The open areas are Basecamp-esque cleanliness, the cubicles are the quirky-and-random crampiness.

From what I remember about my tour of Zappos, those larger open plan areas are primarily for customer support whose staff operate on shifts meaning that not 100% of those desks are filled at any one time (except maybe the busy seasons).

If you carefully look at the desk next to him, it's quite neat. That chap is... chock-full of flair. And I suspect the desk next to him had to put up no boys allowed to keep his stuff from spilling.

Am I seeing things or, in the Zappos picture, is he using an older flat screen monitor as some kind of a cork board for storing random pieces of paper, like that calendar?

...and oppressively sterile. Grim, even.

> This working environment looks like a cramped nightmare. How can anyone focus?

Still more space than I have now. :(

Like putting stickers all over the bumper of your car, this is the most superficial and shallow and uninteresting way to shout to the world, "I am interesting! I have interests!"

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