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I've got to say, I'm not sure I ever met a software engineer who prefers open plan to individual offices. You said cubicles, but I'd argue that cubicles would be better than the proverbial nothing that open plan is.

I'm certainly happy that I have my office, and if I need to talk to people, their offices (or their open plan, unfortunately) is usually not very far. But a lot of the time, I just need and want to focus a lot, and for that open plan is absolute cancer. My office seats two people, but it actually helps that the other person is not directly in my team.

I don't see what standing desks have to do with it, as offices can have standing desks as well, and ours do.

The last time I sat in open plan, I felt like an animal in a cage, to choose a seemingly paradoxical wording. It wasn't the walls closing in, but the distractions.

You found one right here. I work in videogames, I'm a programmer/engineer, I love my standing desk and open plan office. It's a huge game changer in terms of morale and quality of the life for the team and company, since the whole company has moved to open plan and standing desks by default. (and we're not a small game developer).

People often don't consider the ostracism and uncomfortableness that a standing desk preferred policy makes for those with hidden disabilities. There are many people for whom standing desks are good for their health. There are other people for whom being peer pressured to stand is extremely uncomfortable and that are too embarrassed to share the details of why. At least in closed offices people can work the way they are most comfortable without the pressure of other people seeing them work.

Is peer pressure to use a standing desk a common thing? I’ve worked with plenty of people who use standing desks some or all of the time, and I’ve had enthusiasts casually recommend I give it a try sometime, but I can’t imagine any genuine pressure to do so. All the standing desks at offices I’ve been at are adjustable, so even if they’re the standard issue desk there is a big problem if people are pressured to stand.

Peer pressure to stand??

Most of my team use the desk in "sat" mode 80% of the time. For me personally I'm about 70% sat, 30% stood, there's definitely no ostracism for people sat on our team.

Count me in as well. All of my career has been at VC-funded startups in SF with team size between 8 and 30, and the idea of me sitting in an office by myself is honestly laughable.

Open plans are much better than cubicles. The transition to open plans and standing desks has been a boon for social interaction in teams, more role-crossover, and just more physical movement in general.

My $DAYJOB is for a big multinational corp that has embraced this insanity... my floor is all "open plan" except for a smattering of offices that are reserved for the elite VP level folks. But some of the other floors are cubicle based - sometimes I go down there and just wander around and dream of how nice it would be to have one of those cubicles.

"What cruel twist of fate", I wonder to myself, "led to me being banished to the eldritch and grotesque horrors of the land of endless noise, constant distractions, free-roaming viruses and germs, and - most terrifying of all - sheer and utter hours of non-productivity?"

The personal website in your profile says that you live and work in a converted school bus, which is, "as much an engineering and teaching platform as it is a home". No judgements, but maybe you're just not the typical office dweller?

Me? I don't want "role-crossover". I'm a coder, who wants to occasionally enter a state of flow by getting to code uninterrupted for longer than 3 minutes.

> The personal website in your profile says that you live and work in a converted school bus, which is, "as much an engineering and teaching platform as it is a home". No judgements, but maybe you're just not the typical office dweller?

Perhaps you're right. But I will say this: when I tell people about (or show them) the bus, nearly everybody - I'm talking 90%+, say something like, "oh, I've always wanted to do that!" So maybe buses are more popular than cubicles. I don't know. :-)

> Me? I don't want "role-crossover". I'm a coder

I mean, OK. But much of the world has long since moved on to a DevOps style of engagement. I find it much more difficult to have awareness of the entire operation without frequent (even forced) social interaction with colleagues.

It's also possible that you're the one that's completely out of touch in a school bus shaped bubble. Devops is big, but no most people have not "long since moved on to a DevOps style of engagement." Also, 50% of the 90% of people who say they would prefer working out of a bus are probably being nice. Finally, as you can see from the unscientific poll here, most people do not prefer open offices.

Of course I could be wrong, but you could be too. Don't cite anecdotal statistics with such an air of uncertainty.

> The transition to open plans and standing desks has been a boon for social interaction in teams, more role-crossover

The social interaction results in less work. Most of a programmers job is staring at a wall of text and trying to concentrate, anything that distracts has a serious impact on productivity. As for role crossover, I've got enough on my plate without being concerned about what other people are dealing with. Some cross-over might be good but there are many areas of a company that are completely disconnected and crossover is just noise.

> but one aspect of it that seems almost like fantasy is the idea that people primarily working on software might sit down in cramped cubicles and prefer fake privacy to real social interaction.

It's not so much fantasy as a portrayal of the time, the cramped cubicles are presented as bad because they replaced actual offices.

It sounds like you need to spend more time designing -- alone and with peers -- or installing tools, so that you don't spend so much time starting at a wall of text.

> Most of a programmers job is staring at a wall of text and trying to concentrate, anything that distracts has a serious impact on productivity.

That is an extreme overgeneralization. For instance, plenty of programming jobs involve a significant amount of time spent on collaboration and communication with designers, other programmers, customers, and stakeholders. That’s perfectly normal, and I would argue that in many cases those are the product development teams that will make the best products.

> plenty of programming jobs involve a significant amount of time spent on collaboration and communication with designers, other programmers, customers, and stakeholders.

Unless all of those people just happen to sit next to each other or they're shouting across the room then an open plan office does nothing to help that anyway, you'll have to organize meetings to collaborate or do it in other formats. For customers and stakeholders you'd be lucky if they worked in the same building at all.

Face to face communication is not the only form of collaborations and IMHO it's the worst and least scaleable one for technical fields. And when you're collaborating through a mailing list or something similar (that doesn't involve interrupting each other) that's just another wall of text.

Sounds like we’re talking about vastly different sizes of company, or vastly different levels of bureaucracy. If a company wouldn’t seat together people who need to collaborate, I don’t think the choice of office plan is the most important problem to solve.

So, you have 15 people who try to work. And 5 people sitting close together, who are loudly collaborating around a white board.

You do realise that these people will disrupt the work of the 15 people around them?

That's what daily life is in an open office.

What is your experience? Per your profile you work on a bus, not an open plan office with 50+ people.

The health benefits of standing desks are speculative and unproven. What's healthy is walking away from yout sit-or-stand desk. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-truth-behind-standin...

Why would a cubicle be more cramped than a seat at a cramped table?

Why is a cubicle privacy "fake" but a bullpen office "real" social interaction -- where you can't speak freely because dozens of people are eavesdropping on all your conversations?

I can't disagree more. Having worked in cubicles (at Netscape), those were far superior to open office. We could get work done and we still were able to socialize and have cross-team interaction. These days I eschew open office, preferring to work from home. At most open-office environments, people trying to get work done wear headphones, which is like a virtual cubicle (minus the personal space).

The reboot of office space would have everyone in an open office, that is for certain.

> people trying to get work done wear headphones, which is like a virtual cubicle (minus the personal space).

And strategic positioning of computer screens (+ books and fillers) to kill line-of-sight to other people. My last open-office job, almost everyone did that quite naturally, probably even unconsciously. Not always possible, and were we sitting in the ridiculous shoulder-to-shoulder setting I see in photos of some hip software houses, I'm not sure how long I would last there.

>foreign to my personal experience

Yes! I'm so glad you took the time to acknowledge that your personal lived experiences aren't necessarily representative of the experiences and perspectives of office employees as a who-

>seems almost like fantasy is the idea that people primarily working on software might sit down in cramped cubicles and prefer fake privacy to real social interaction.

Oh. Erm... I hate to break it to you, but a lot of us _do_ prefer this!

> Oh. Erm... I hate to break it to you, but a lot of us _do_ prefer this!

Literally the cubicles from Office Space?

Yes - I’d love that compared to the open plan layout with constant distraction and interruption.

Omg I would definitely take those cubicles over an open office.

My preference is actual office (which I currently have and share with one coworker), cubical (the higher the walls, the better), open space (no, just no).

Different people have different preferences.

> Literally the cubicles from Office Space?

I worked in the high cubicles like that once and they were not that bad. A full wrap around desk allowed me to have a PC, Sparc Station, and some test servers in my space. It was fairly quiet, but someone could get your attention by calling your name.

Those cubicles are actually pretty nice.

Yes, I have worked in both and I would prefer the cubicles from office space to open plan.

Open office plans are great if you want to plan a skiing trip with your coworkers who are incidentally also your friends. If you're the sort of person who wants to keep it professional in the office, they're a nightmare. Blurring the line between work and personal life is encouraged by companies because it gets people working longer hours (on paper anyway, since so much more time is burned socializing.) Thanks, but no thanks.

Great point. I never realized that open floor plans made it harder to keep things professional. You're absolutely right.

Think of it this way: everyone has a moment when they just want to take a break and goof off for a minute. It's normal, and a part of keeping a healthy and productive mind. Now consider how many other people will a person taking break affect. In a regular office, or even cubicle setting: probably just themselves, maybe someone else to whom they walk to. In an open-office plan? Everyone within earshot. With multiple people taking breaks at random, if you don't have someone with a strong personality telling everyone to shut up and get back to work, you can easily have half a day or more wasted just on talking bullshit. Individual cubicles or offices are a natural dampener for this.

Very ironic. People in my office work just 8 hours yet the open office plan leads to a lot of those 8 hours be some sort of socializing or chatting - wasting the company's time and money.

If you're an extravert. I'm not; I hate open plans. Give me a cubicle any day.

You can be an extrovert and also hate open plans because they are incredibly distracting 90% of the time.

You can also be an introvert with good “distraction management” skills who prefers an open office.

I'm an extrovert, and I hate open plans. Sometimes I feel being an extrovert makes it worse, as I get tangled up in conversations. It's still good and important to have conversations, but we just have them in the hallway, or visit our offices. That way you can go back.

I love how in open plans everyone is attempting to shut out the rest of the space using headphones. That was the only way I could concentrate. At that point you've isolated yourself that you might as well be in a more isolated workspace.

Not to mention that a lot of introverts self select for jobs like programming, engineering etc...

Meanwhile the majority of people, and certainly the majority of the executives and sales guys, are extraverts and simply can't understand why programmers hate open plan.

Also I think there is an asymmetry.

I think introverts can easily 'get' what extraverts prefer, because honestly extraverts are the majority[1], so when you are an introvert, you get to know extraverts pretty well because you live in an extravert world.

I don't think the reverse is true. Extraverts don't 'get' what introverts like because they don't have to, they are the majority and their preferences dictate how everything is built. Their preferences are the default, and are what is considered 'right.'

[1] They used to say the split was 75% extravert/25% introvert. Later studies report a 50/50 split but extraverts are more outgoing and vocal, so they may still be overrepresented in public debate/discourse.

You are literally the first person I've ever heard of who prefers open plan for development.

There is a time and a place for social interaction in the office. But when I'm coding, I need to concentrate. People talking to me, talking to each other, walking behind me or around me, every bit pushes me further off the rails and takes me longer to get back into flow state. Cubicles aren't perfect, but they're a fuckload better than open plan.

"You are literally the first person I've ever heard of who prefers open plan for development."

Are you really naive enough to think that because in your small sphere of experience, people don't seem to like open plan, there aren't millions of people who love open plan? For an engineer that doesn't seem like logical thinking.

Your anecdote isn't data. I'm an engineer, I love my standing desk and open plan space. I know many engineers at our company who feel likewise, it's a huge improvement.

> Are you really naive enough to think that because in your small sphere of experience, people don't seem to like open plan, there aren't millions of people who love open plan? For an engineer that doesn't seem like logical thinking.

> Your anecdote isn't data. I'm an engineer, I love my standing desk and open plan space. I know many engineers at our company who feel likewise, it's a huge improvement.

You go off on him for stating what his experience is (backed by almost everyone else on this site, by the way) and then turn right around and do the same, just from your minority perspective, with the added idiocy of essentially stating you're somehow stating facts. Do you realize how hypocritical that seems?

You should take the downvotes to heart, honestly. Normally I think they don't really signal that much, but in this case (and all your other arrogant comments) they clearly signal that your view is the clear minority and your comments are very out of touch with reality.

-4 downvotes "clearly signal" something? It's meaningless noise in the grand scheme of things. Also, I wasn't using the fact that I prefer standing desks and open-plan spaces as "data," I was providing a single example of an engineer that prefers these things because the OP said he had never heard of a "single" engineer who liked this, which is clearly wrong.

Also, you don't seem to understand data or statistics yourself. The amount of people who would A) Be using HS, and B) Choose to comment on a post like this:

Is clearly not representative of engineers/programmers across the world. Most engineers at my company don't use HN period, and out of those that do, most won't comment.

I work at a company where standing desks were greeted with excitement across 90% of the engineering population and there was even friction between engineers because some people got them first and others had to wait. Again, just because you think HN represents the whole engineering world, doesn't make it the case, it's a bubble here.

Again, if you actually read my comment again I never said I was stating a fact. I'd love for you to show me where I said that! My point was that there are clearly engineers who prefer standing desks and open plan spaces, unless you're somehow asserting that I'm the only guy in the world that likes this...

I agree with you, but most I've met would prefer to set expectations with a private office. Preferably with a door and social contract to leave alone unless needed.

"I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don’t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance.

"He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.[...] But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."

--Richard Hamming, "You and Your Research " http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

Yes. But unfortunately, most of us aren't researchers, we are code monkeys, paid for contributions to company's project - contributions that mostly require concentration, not cross-domain research thinking. Note that when Hamming talks about working on "right" vs. "wrong" thing, he's talking about practical, mundane stuff vs. ground-breaking, world-class research. Not many of us here are paid for the latter, and as much as we do it, we probably do it outside work setting.

Even though, an "open-door" office is still infinitely better than no office. You get to focus in between visits, and the visits are less frequent simply because the other party needs to lift their butt and walk to your office.

> The transition to open plans and standing desks has been a boon for social interaction in teams, more role-crossover, and just more physical movement in general.

Two thirds of these qualities (social interaction/role crossover) are exactly what I don't want when trying to program.

In my experience, companies where social interaction/role crossover are required aren't working on any complex problems.