Hacker News Reader

Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

Usual dumb management BAU. Worker in the cubicle is the limit of their imagination.

I mean, I'd love to go back to cubicles at this point. You watch something like Office Space today and it looks like a wonderful degree of privacy compared to the bullpens we're all sitting in today.

The bullpens that are full of distracting off-topic conversation that makes it hard to concentrate, but apparently is some type of secret sauce of what makes for a productive office environment compared to being able to focus in the peace and quiet of our homes or work environment of our choice.

When the floor is full of nearby teams, I used to just spend my time in office zones out and eavesdrop, waiting for a wake word somewhere on the floor, then go chat to make sure they're building the right thing.

Worked pretty well

You can just put noise canceling headphones on and completely turn off the distractions when you need periods of focus.

I worked in an office bullpen type environment briefly with everything director and below being required to sit in the bullpen, and they were so proud of the set up till the nearly universal complaints of all the noise from everyone on the phone and all of the privacy offices being in constant use with nobody using the reservation tool to book them and they added white noise machines in the ceiling. Well that kind of helped with the cacophony of conversations a bit, but lead to just high noise floor so everyone just talked louder. At least with the white noise machine the noise cancelling headphones were a little more effective, but it still doesn't stop people from tapping you on the shoulder while you are trying to focus.

Jazzy is a pretty sharp guy, and corporate managers are aware of the 1st order effects of this mandate... I wouldn't be surprised though if they are caught off guard by how this plays out - its always the top talent at a company that have the most options.

Business as Usual (BAU)

You guys get a whole cubicle?

I remember learning the hard way during the dotcom bubble that the optimal cube size is just big enough for another person to bring a chair in and discuss a problem with you and not smack into each other.

If there's barely space for two workstations, someone will put a second person in there.

You want a cube that could theoretically hold about 1.3 to 1.4 people. Any bigger than that and it might be worth it to the company to redo the cubes for higher density, at which point you will have space for 0.9 people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com