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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

I've had this and private offices... what happens is that difficult conversations can't take place except outside of the office (unless there is another space to go). Need to have a 1-1? Everyone else hears it. No meta conversations can take place unless someone is willing to go out for some coffee. The team banter ends up being trivial, and can be incredibly distracting if you need to buckle down to get something done.

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Your office doesn't have a single shared meeting room? Most places I've seen with open offices have some sort of meeting rooms to use for private conversations. How do you have a client call or anything of that matter?

If everyone has their own office, then someone coming into your office is an everyday affair. They could be talking about a programming problem, lunch, or something personal. You don't know, but you would go crazy wondering about it, because it happens all day.

In an open room where half a dozen or so people sit, if two people stand up, walk into a conference room, and shut the door, that's weird and curious.

> In an open room where half a dozen or so people sit, if two people stand up, walk into a conference room, and shut the door, that's weird and curious.

This also happens all the time, thus not weird. (or people don't talk ...)

Or people just have non-sensitive conversations right at their desks.

I work in an open office and grabbing a room with somebody is totally normal—it happens every day, for all sorts of boring reasons. We even have small rooms perfect for this purpose: three or four chairs and no tables or video conferencing equipment. People use them for anything from random conversations (technical or not), personal phone calls or even just a bit of extra privacy and quiet for solo work.

Personally, I've been very happy with the environment. It helps that the open part of the office is bright, quiet and pretty sparsely populate.

> If everyone has their own office, then someone coming into your office is an everyday affair.

Why don't you introduce the rule that entering another office is only allowed for scheduled appointments and emergency cases (life is in danger or the production server crashed).

The company I just left does not. The company I was at previously had so little meeting room space that it was almost impossible to get a room without booking days in advance.

I know, right?

There were things I liked at that company (mostly the people), but everything about the way the offices were set up had me on edge all the time. No private meeting space, not a single person had their back to a wall, people were thrown into offices at random with no regard to who was on what team...

After I got laid off, I landed at a place where I work in a cube farm, and it's so much less stressful.

I hope your leaving was voluntary, though... if it was, then congrats on the new job!

(and, yeah, I figured out who you are from the about section on your profile... I used to sit right behind you)

It does, with shared walls with another meeting room (where one can hear a lot of what goes on in the next room). Its considered neutral ground, and honestly it doesn't work well for private conversations (everyone in the office knows you're both tense and holed up in a room). I find that conversations take a different tone in a shared rather than private environment.

Yes, people do use it for those conversations, but you have to walk past all the business/marketing/sales people and your boss(s). Outside the office is a place to confide - where an "official" meeting or neutral meeting room is a place that puts everyone on the defensive, more so than anywhere else.

The idea put forth by Mark Cuban that "there should be no secrets at a startup" is extremely unfounded in my opinion - unpopular opinions or contrary positions frequently only flow in privacy as to not cause embarrassment or hostility.

Mine does, but you need to go through two doors to get to it.

That's a barrier compared to just chatting at someone's desk. Or the developer doesn't want to move their laptop, so they'd rather stay at their desk that go to the meeting room.

That leads to too many conversations in the open plan office.

There's also the problem of all the small meeting rooms being booked out and occupied all the time. Usually by people from sales or administration/hr.

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