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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I don't even need a private office. One of the best environments I've ever worked in was a hybrid office/open model. Basically a bunch of conference rooms where each team got a room, and within the room the desk walls were low. Decorate it however you want, if you agree on style then you can have ambient music, etc. It was pretty great.

But then they knocked all the walls down and put in rows of desks because they could cram more people in that way. Within a year probably 25% of our development staff walked.

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Post-covid WFH discussions have led to a collective amnesia about this. We also spent buckets of time complaining about offices before it because almost every employer made decision like yours. Most offices were terrible places to work and non-technical managers ignored common sense and science to cram as many people as possible into their existing real estate costs. We'd gone from yearning for personal rooms from our cubicles to yearning for cubicles from our loud open-plan spaces.

Yes I remember I had an office in a major office building in Amsterdam.. as an intern.

Shortly after the open plan craze started. And now there's the hotdesking nightmare. I feel much less valued and respected every time.

Worked in a place like that - mostly open cube space for around 80 inbound call agents, and a few 'side rooms'. Worked with 5 other dev/tech folks in one of those 'side rooms' - a suitably sized office for the 6 of us.

It was reasonable, in that we were generally all quiet or talking at the same time, and was not the worst place at all I've worked. Dedicated private space still works best for a lot of type of work (obviously that's "imo" but seems a standard POV from most colleagues today).

People here talk a lot about being able to have closing doors. My experience with private offices was, barring confidential conversations or rarely going really heads down for a few hours, the unwritten policy was you kept your door open. I've never worked anyplace where private offices generally had their doors shut.

Agreed, but having a door meant you could put the "do not disturb" sign up. Of course that's pretty specific to your companies culture, but if someone closed their door at my office, I'd stroll around later.

One of the biggest benefits of course is that you have a lot less sound travel. Doors open and you'll still be able to have a neighbor that has an open door meeting, phone call, etc and it won't interrupt you.

After moving from a private office with a door to a team space, I missed it severely. Now I'm WFH and when my kids aren't home generally my door stays open.

It may be cultural, but in here offices are usually closed. It is kind of "weird" to see them with open doors.

When I have work I'm focusing on, I close the door. When I'm OK with being interrupted (work or casual), I leave the door open.

I don't have a large sample size but across multiple companies in both New Orleans and New England, closed doors sort of meant: "I have a specific reason not to be disturbed." Which didn't include I just prefer to be in "flow" or whatever. The situation is probably different if you're on a busy public corridor as can be the case in universities, etc.

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