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Comment by robswc | Hacker News Reader

I honestly hate open offices so much. I'm constantly amazed any work gets done with the layout.

The hilarious contradiction:

Companies: please come back to the office

Employees: why? Why have them at all? I don't have an "office" I have a small section of table. At home I have an office.

Companies: we invested money in these work spaces and want them to be used

Employees: you mean the shitty open space you moved to in order to save money rather than real "offices"? the ones that make us provably/demonstrably less productive than being at our home offices? If its about money, get rid of them entirely.

Companies: Um, yes. It helps build interaction and community

Employees: No, being shoved together like cattle breeds resentment and irritation and distraction and a feeling of no privacy or ability to think.

Companies: Just come back to the office. It's about buy-in

Employees: You mean the buy-in you refuse to provide for reasonable work spaces?

Yep! I mean honestly, a rather nice "perk" of working with a company could be a private office, almost like an extension of your home... but within reason. They have the building anyways.

Similar to how professors at university usually have such an office.

With how much remote work has taken off and how much companies want to bring at least some people, this is certainly a perk that I would consider.

I despise them. I'm convinced that they became "cool" purely for two reasons:

1.) Bosses loved the feeling of superiority they had by having their own office but everyone else is sitting out in the open where they can easily see them all and bother them at a moment's notice.

2.) Fresh out of college grads would see them and get this feeling of a cool, buzzing, hypersocial hive that made them feel all good inside.

Accountants love the cost — you can not only save money on construction costs, you can squeeze more bodies in there…

And it's very easy to rearrange things if some departments grow or shrink.

The first time I was introduced to a massive open office space, they tried to play it off as exciting and it just filled me with an utter sense of dread. It caused a massive amount of stress then my brain compartmentalized it all and ran the stress subroutine in the background. Blaring bright lights overhead, endless chatting and movement in your perpipheral view, witn an absolute requirement to wear isolation headphones to get any concentration. Tech can be utterly barbaric.

Yep, I will 100% admit they "look better" but I'm convinced productivity is not the same. I'm all for having "collaborative" spaces but surely the optimal environment is one where employees can get hours of work in without distraction. With an open office, the opportunity for distraction is practically everywhere.

I wouldn't have made it through my last consulting gig without headphones/earbuds and a 45" (114 cm for the more enlightened measurement connoisseurs among us) ultrawide screen to block 95% of my view that I bought and brought in to the office.

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