Hacker News Reader

The reason managers want this is because they dont know how to tell their employees are actually working so if they see the employee in the office, then they feel better. Sad but true.

View on HN

This has "truthiness" but I doubt it. Engineering managers at big tech companies (which are so fond of open office spaces) tend to be former engineers.

Pointy-haired bosses who can't tell what their reports are doing are more of a hallmark of cube farms than open offices.

I think it comes down more to them not knowing exactly when the sausage is made. They can agree if the sausage is good or not when it comes out of the factory, but what happens in the middle is less clear. The thinking goes, "code gets output typically when this person sits at this desk, and so when I don't see them sitting at this desk, they probably aren't outputting code."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com