Hacker News Reader

Comment by a2tech | Hacker News Reader

Yup. Its impossible to really focus in an open-office work area. I have to meet with another team occasionally that's management bought into the open-office hypetrain. Its awful. The noise is overwhelming, there's constant distractions (even small noises like people shifting in their chairs can become overwhelming when its coming from you from every direction)

View on HN

As a programmer it's almost unavoidable to have conference calls with clients, vendors, etc. I've been on 4 and 8 hour conference calls before. Those calls are distracting to everyone around. I can't imagine anyone working productively while someone tries to coordinate with multiple teams on single call. Nevermind that when conferencing with people on speakerphone or with thick accents (or both) it is your tendency to speak louder and clearer.

There's simply no denying it. Maybe these open space workplaces don't have situations like this. But in my line of work it's part of the job.

It sounds like the acoustics are pretty bad if small noices are that noticable. Can you get them to install sound dampening?

This is a large open space with small 'break spaces' (soft carpet covered cubicle walls left scattered around) that break up sound/spaces between different groups. They have the soft drop ceiling tiles to help absorb sound. The floors are carpeted.

There's really only so much you can do with a hundred people in a large open space-there's a constant background hum of people moving, shifting, eating, listening to music that you just can't get rid of

Whatever you do, don't do what my office did - they installed speakers that play pink noise. It helps with the noise (so much chatter) but it's annoying as hell.

That sounds like the closest thing to work hell that I can imagine

Reply on news.ycombinator.com