149 Sq feet? Are you sure it's not inches? My cube is 6 x8 feet (I just measured)
7
The same thinking applies to research labs, where the distractions include odors and music. The collaborative contacts take place in adjoining conference rooms, usually with colleagues chosen, not forced together.
3
My employer, a small company, recently moved into a WeWork office. In my space, there are five of us in a roughly 8' by 12' glass-walled office, with busy corridors on both sides (and because of the wood flooring, we can hear anyone in heels or hard-soled shoes coming from the other side of the building). The experience reminds me of the three years I spent in a Beijing office building: the original design was surely never intended for this level of employee density per square foot. There aren't enough bathrooms, there aren't enough elevators. But those are petty annoyances compared to the noise pollution. If you've ever tried to sleep in a dorm-style hostel, you know what it's like. There is always "something" going on, it's a beehive of constant distractions. It's an unworkable situation, pun intended.
18
Open office spaces = perfect analogy of how neoliberalism promised the best but delivered the worst.
The Obama years were more dystopian than anyone wants to admit.
Capitalism dictates workers be treated like cattle -- stacked on top of each other to "increase efficiency."
Maybe it's time to try a new system? One that places workers at the center -- since MOST people are workers.
8
"What was We thinking?" Brilliant opener! Probably not written in an open office...
51
I've been in any number of WeWork sites in the Bay Area. They are 21st Century sweatshops. Cramped, dingy rabbit warrens where workers sit staring vacant-eyed at their computer screens.
Joyless, soul-less beehives of the gig economy.
69
Working at a startup in an open office. When a my deskmate sneezes I have to throw my cup of tea away. Deepest competition in our office is booking the little one person phone conference rooms so you can have a moment of peace to get work done.
It's an awful system, a real productivity killer.
52
Good wordplay. But why did you capitalize Goopy in paragraph 4?
@FJA a reference to Goop, Paltrow’s lifestyle brand
13
I was a newspaper reporter and editor and the open work space was a "tradition" of the field. Many of us often enjoyed it, many of us also occasionally hated it and would decamp to conference rooms to get work done. There was a certain amount of collaboration and collegiality that went with the set up.
However, when I changed fields - went into PR at a university - and got my own office with a door, as small as it was, I was in heaven. In newspapers, only high-level and moderately high-level editors got offices with doors.
There was a reason - status - and man does that count. Frankly, every worker should have an office *and* a spot in which to collaborate. We're not farm animals, although, of course, that's how we're treated.
147
@Berkeley Bee
"There was a reason - status - and man does that count."
Indeed. Does anyone else remember Les Nessman in "WKRP in Cincinnati" putting the tape on the floor to mark the "walls" of his "office"?
36
Farhad, got to hand it to you – with your sense of futurism, they should have you covering Impalas and Cutlasses, rather than our latest $100B gimmick...
One simple set of moves, and WW could’ve doubled its valuation beyond its recent high-water mark...
> Start charging workers for the food and drink
> Stop paying them by the hour – or, perhaps, at all
> Give them time-off-at-desk to take selfies, holding beverages on which they’ve mis-spelled their own names – and post them on the Internet
PS
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/theater/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child-jk-rowling.html
“...yet Ms. Rowling, who started out as a struggling single mother, writing her first Harry Potter novel in Edinburgh cafes...
If JK had franchised cafés – instead of improbable characters – she’d have been able to retire by now...
Instead of – like you – always having to think about the next writing gig...
PPS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Grove
“...Grove's office was an 8 by 9 ft cubicle like the other employees, as he disliked separate "mahogany-paneled corner offices." He states, "I've been living in cubicles since 1978 — and it hasn't hurt a whole lot...Preferring this egalitarian atmosphere, this made his work area accessible to anyone who walked by...
Talk about capitalist dead ends...
1
Quick! Somebody buy Emperor Neumann some clothes! Oh, right... his company doesn’t have any money.💸
The emperors new robes! Thank you !
1
Treat people as sardines in a tin long enough and eventually they begin behaving as sardines in a tin.
11
I agree!
1
For Indians, WeWork is often a step up. i worked with an IT department at a major pharma company and the boss and 4 underlyings were in something that would typically go as a broom closet without windows. In it was a server and various other hardware. The air conditioning was bone freezing cold.
And these individuals didn't have the worst place to work ...
3
Many start-ups claim that they innovate new business models that disrupt the status quo in favor of new models of productivity and of extracting value from processes in all sorts of businesses. from transportation to healthcare to education. They have new algorithms and AI and mission statements that walk the tightrope between profundity and absurdity. Some of them, after a decade of huge investments, eventually become profitable. Many are perpetual money-losers, yet still turn their founders and early investors into billionaires. The scoundrels and scammers always get rich off the suckers.
7
Mike Bloomberg was a sucker for open office space. He sold the venerable Board of Education building and brought that administration into the much smaller Tweed Building where the ambiance was Starbuck's at 8:45 a.m. It was impossible to have meetings or hear oneself think because everyone was cheek by jowl. But that was the point, wasn't it? All the decisions were made elsewhere -- by the mayor -- and the Tweed Building just for the small stuff.
7
If you're interested in a deeper dive on this topic, you should read "Cubed" by Nikil Saval. Goes into the history of how the office has changed over time and was an early debunk-er of the open office floor plan.
9
Keep all of these stories in mind when you hear someone wish the government was as efficient as business...
8
Can we please STOP calling any social phenomenon we dislike "capitalist".
If anything "socialist" work places (I was in government for 30 years) led the anti-individualist open space and cubical trend.
4
@Mark we have open offices because they save money. It’s a capitalist trend
22
The now familiar problems of "open offices" were explored in depth way back in 1977 in "The Fall of Public Man" by Richard Sennett.
4
It’s just cost reduction dressed up as something else
11
Well I'm gonna stop complaining that the placement of my monitors blocks people when they sit at my desk!
My work space over the years has shrunk from a solid cubical with space to hold things, down to a down with side partitions and now just a desk pushed up against others with both visual and auditory distraction. My productivity has gone down with each move and at this point I am counting the days until I can retire and be out of there!
14
When I was first introduced to an open office environment it was at an ad agency. Designers were actually sitting across from each other with only their screen size separating their eyes from their counterpart. If you weren't staring at your screen you were staring at the other person. Also, headphones were a must in order to have any semblence of privacy. I would posit that prisoners have more privacy on a daily basis. Talk about really really uncomfortable. Also, who really wants constant collaboration- I mean interruption - when trying to come up with a concept or content?
15
I recently retired, early, as an editor from a huge, multi-national communications company that has wholeheartedly adopted the open-office concept to help promote the new buzzword (and consultant-driven idea) of the corporate world, "collaboration." Alas, it has resulted in nothing of the sort, but probably saved the company millions of dollars eliminating cubicles, which at least provided some semblance of privacy where true work could be performed. The distraction of the open office is overwhelming, not to mention the outright rudeness of folks 18 inches away, yelling on speakerphone, call after call finally drove me to retire early. These same noisy corporate climber types then put on headphones--excuse me, I mean "airbuds" to block any noise or interaction with their coworkers. And don't forget that open office means no desktop personalization, no photos, no familiarity with those around you. The open office converted my place of business from a nice, comfortable, cheerful, sharing place into a cold, impersonal, distracting mess!
16
Amen.
I despise the open office, where one has no privacy. But I also wantr to maintain a wall between work and home.
4
The open space idea is crazy if one has any ability to think. Even without partitions or enclosed work spaces, having people sitting close together assures that they cannot just focus on work but must actively disregard what others are doing. The human brain can actively disregard for about an hour before it becomes exhausted. After that, it just cannot ignore all the activity and people feel frustrated because their focus is impossible to maintain.
This idea of saving overhead costs by sacrificing work efforts is a product of thinking that reducing a significant cost by any means available has no undesirable consequences.
17
When I took a job in a building with cube farms, the physical and mental toll on me was staggering. I had to use headphones to block out the noise, which meant I was far more easily startled when someone snuck up on me (our backs were to the cube openings). When I got home from work, I was so exhausted from the effort of getting work done that my leisure time was consumed with sleep in hopes of recharging my batteries for the next day. Climate control was the pits, too. The environment was never comfortable - always too hot or too cold. I had to run a fan in the dead of winter to keep from roasting to death. Cube farms and open office spaces are horrible. I'm retired now and there's no way I could be enticed to return to work in these open environments.
18
I have long known that open plan cubicle spaces make people far less productive than they ever were in closed offices. In the software industry back in the 1970s it was estimated that productivity of those in a closed, quiet office was about two to two and a half that of those in cubicle space. Despite this, and the simple equation that office space is far cheaper than people, companies still squeeze more and more people in to less satisfactory space. Why? Because they are tasked with cutting costs and not with increasing productivity. That is the problem.
17
You can read through comment after comment from this thread and come away with a clear impression. People are as passionate about their work space as they are about their vocations. Clearly, human beings place a premium on a lifetime of satisfying employment.
Which makes the imminent threat of AI replacing most routine, and a shocking number of "creative" jobs all the more dire.
We have no idea what the economy in 2030 will look like. But a large new class of replaced workers living on a Basic Universal Income does not seem out of the question.
The pleasant memory of a vexed work space may come to be a cruel irony to some posters on this very thread.
Don’t worry, A.I. that can function with awareness of existence has not been developed nor is there any existing work that describes how it can be done. The replacement of jobs already reduced to easily reproduced and unvarying repetitious actions is automation but not intelligence that is even close to living animal intelligence because it is unaware. What is called A.I. are computer systems that extend human abilities but are useful only depending upon the person using them, like any tool.
2
I’m self-employed and work from home most of the time. Occasionally I pack up my laptop and carry it to the nearest coffee shop, just for a change of scenery. A quiet buzz of conversation is actually conducive to concentration.
However, there’s a point of crowding and noise—not one I can quantify— that forces me to pack up and head back home. Maybe it’s the salesman making loud cold calls on his cellphone. Maybe it’s the barista who decides that everyone needs to hear her favorite music. Maybe it’s the tables around me filling up with chattering high school students or parents with out-of-control children.
I’d hate to have to work in a crowded, noisy environment 40 hours per week and spend an hour in traffic each way to get to that environment.
The more I hear of life as a cog in the corporate machine the happier I am to be out of that world.
16
Two years ago I accepted a job as a program director for a progressive university, only slightly wary that my office was more like a construction-site trailer with no real door (a sliding screen was more like it). That the mandate from my dean was to evolve the program so that it would be more integrated with the systems of the broader university and set up an endowment, meant I had to do a lot of quiet thinking, research and writing. To no avail! All day long, students, staff, and others would walk into my “office”, interrupt to chat about various sundry topics that had little or nothing to do with the work, and expect me to be responsive, lest I risk being thought aloof.
Very quickly, I had to seek out other places to do any kind of smart, deep work. A month into it, I realized that “program director” really meant “on-call concierge,” “den mother,” “therapist,” and “activities director.”
Six months later I happily fled and have been doing strategic planning and fundraising campaigns from a home office, or working/meeting clients at their sites (enclosed workspace, yes!)
Open offices are a travesty that perpetuates the very hierarchical structures, systems and values they were supposed to eliminate. As others have pointed out, the only beneficiaries and proponents of this draconian set up are the people in nice, comfy real offices with doors that close for privacy.
24
@TurandotNeverSleeps: I learned about hierarchical systems back in the early 1980s when I spent three years temping in both industrial and clerical jobs and holiday retail.
Blue collar jobs usually started at 7:00AM , but sometimes at 6:00AM. The workday ended at 3:30 or 2:30PM, but sometimes at 3:00 or 4:00, depending on whether the employer made me clock out for my breaks. I always had to clock out for my half-hour lunch.
Retail jobs had set rules for breaks. If you worked such and such a length of time, you got such and such a break. If you worked six hours, you got a 30-minute break, but I was often scheduled to work 5.75 hours, so that I qualified only for a 15-minute break. If you worked eight hours, you had an hour-long break, but I was often scheduled for 7.75 hours. I then had to decide whether I wanted lunch or two 15-minute breaks.
Clerical jobs started at 9:00 and lasted till 5:00 with an hour for lunch. No clocking out. If I needed a drink of water or the bathroom, I just got up and took care of it.
The executives? I never reached those lofty heights where it was OK to saunter in late because of having attended some function the night before, take as much time as "needed" for lunch with clients, or leave early because of an "important" golf date with clients.
4
Where are these nine to five office jobs? Everywhere I have worked regular eight hour day shifts a job day ending at five began at eight in the morning with an hour for lunch.
2
Thank you. Let's hope the demise of wework spells the demise of the fantasy that open offices are a good idea. I work for a large company and have a wework "space" and I thank God I am allowed to work from home when i want to, which is whenever I need to be productive. The whole idea of pushing people together into a space without walls to "foster collaboration" was hogwash from day one.
16
I always enjoyed being an elementary school teacher. I had my own room with a door. We got stuff done.
22
I got a job offer from WeWork last year. I told them this:
As a long time remote worker, the concept of WeWork goes against everything I stand for. No work that can be done without a commute and an office should ever be dependent on travel and external real estate.
"I need to go to the office" should give you the same feeling as "I need a cigarette" and "I need a drink". It's a social addiction that is fundamentally bad for you and profits others offering the means to stay addicted.
The Earth can't afford it anymore, either.
24
Open offices are a huge productivity killer. I write software, which often required intense focus to do properly and working in an open office environment is a great way to generate bugs in my product. When we need to communicate with our coworkers we usually use chat, even when sitting in close proximity. That is less distracting to other people who don't care to listen to our discussions anyway. Even when working in cubes most developers I know wear headphones to help filter out the distractions.
I doubt that very many people forced to work this way are advocates. As far as I can see the main motivation is to cram as many workers as possible into the smallest, cheapest space. Ironically the people who get paid a lot to basically talk get nice private offices where they can close their doors, even if their work does not involve any deep focus or thinking.
22
Cal Newport, PhD, a computer scientist at Georgetown University wrote a brilliant book, “Deep Work”. In it he discusses how open office environments erode the ability to concentrate and undermines productivity.
There have been other articles and publications that support the need for a more private environment to work in as opposed to an open office. Unfortunately, the addictive allure of cost savings by cramming people together when an office is designed becomes satisfied, but with the result of a long-term, counterproductive work environment.
14
My last job was work benches and the sound of computer mouses was quietly deafening. So overwhelmed with computer data work we didn't talk out of fear of falling behind. The meetings we had were all corralled into the one small conference room with a door, the least used space of all, where by cell phone on speaker we were practicly screamed at by the head of our department to not talk. Hearing what had just come out of her mouth as patently offensive, she tried to walk it back. That she did say it and then did walk it back was not lost on all but the most competitive, backstabing types who always use such environments to hurt anyone around them for personal advantage.
4
In my experience, the people who decide that there should be an open office are the ones that have their own individual office with a door that can be closed.
70
Yes, absolutely. It seems the Pied Piper has gained control once again & the Lemmings, for some reason, must all follow.
If this latest development doesn't illustrate the dangers of following every Hyped up Pop Culture fad, I don't know what does. Sometimes you just have to hang your head and laugh very hard at some of the dumbest, boneheaded ideas people latch onto ... Whew !
6
Finally .... yes, yes, yes. Some can work without distractions; many can not. And the quality thinkers are often the ones that most need to be able to avoid distractions and concentrate on their good work.
11
As an employee of a large company that opted to put several hundred of us in a WeWork, I can attest to the failure of this model. Our desks are so small we can't put our work product on them, everyone texts their coworkers on skype instead of talking, our office looks like a call center not a professional office, the noise level is off the charts due to the stripped down environment (nothing to dampen the sound), employees disappear to the extent you can never find them, executives stuff themselves in phone booths for hours to have a private call, the WeWork chairs we have are so fantastic that if you lean back the mechanism snaps and you fall backwards, due to our work type our employees get random drug/alcohol tests yet there is free flowing beer, many employees finally decided to come in only when they have to because they cannot tolerate the atmosphere. The free coffee, fruit water, a refrigerator without a freezer (?) doesn't make up for the atmosphere that this place puts people in long term. No doubt productivity suffers.
25
@WeDoesn'tWork
I too was at a WeWork site for two months, and totally agree with you. The photo in this story says it all.
6
Most really good ideas are hatched in solitude and bad air. The open office concept has always been about saving money and jacking up rents, pure and simple.
9
As a former chemical engineer in a large Silicon Valley company, my job was to interpret the results from a variety of analytical methods. I needed to stare at the data and come up with ideas, non of which comes easily (or not at all) in a noisy environment. We had cubicles and privacy rooms for phone calls that were personal, not ideal but it worked. Thank God for the recognition that WeWork peddles a very dubious model
9
I have worked in cubicle environments and in workplaces where I had my own office.
The private offices were the best work spaces. In the cubicles, I felt like I had no privacy. I would hate an open office.
What's wrong with office spaces for everyone?
11
The open office was a mediocre idea at best. So are collaboration spaces which where I work are used mostly for meetings. I am happy that my cubicle is surrounded with 5'10" walls that most of my colleagues can't see over - at 6'3" I can.
Collaboration is real, and so is the need for space to work when you are traveling but most real work takes places where we can hear ourselves think.
9
So much trendy ‘innovation’ has not turned out the way it should. I just font see how this company was ever worth $47 billion. All it has is some long term leases, thrifty furniture and ??? It’s the Air B&B of offices but knowledge workers can work at home and WeWork doesn’t even own all the real estate. Even then, they lose a lot of money. So why would people give them more?
5
How many of the bosses and CEOs who put their workers in an open office actually work in an open office themselves?
26
None. They are also routinely over paid for what they do fo the institutions.
7
"Nilay Patel, the editor in chief of The Verge, told me that he only goes to the office for meetings; for writing, editing and other work that demands concentration, he has to work from home, because the office is far too distracting."
I have been in higher education for 40 years. I am not an editor like Mr. Patel but I do the same as he does. The office (a fairly large one I share with 3 colleagues [we are seldom there at the same time], is for meetings or a place to rest somewhat between classes.
When I was much younger, I could actually write in the library, but today, like Mr. Patel, to write or do anything that requires concentration, I go home (although i do have music in the background).
A short while ago our university president came up with the brilliant idea of tearing the walls down between faculty offices to have one large space. The local WeWork here was to be in charge and they sold the president. He wanted the faculty to sit around and brainstorm. Thankfully the idea was not implemented. Turns that the President wanted to save on space and by using a WeWork set-up so he could turn some of the freed office space into classrooms.
There is a time for all together and a time for quiet and alone. In my world, quiet and alone gets most of the work done.
19
If the money is good enough and you actually enjoy the work, you will adapt. For many people one or the other is sufficient. Office workers have comparatively cushy circumstances compared with, say, farmers, police and fire, factory workers, mechanics, commercial fishermen, and so on. When you start your own newspaper or other business, and are actually responsible for keeping the lights on. by all means go big when it comes to spacious offices for everyone.
3
@Frunobulax The digs are cushier, maybe, but also the work is fundamentally different. Apples to oranges.
11
What comes to mind after reading this article is another curious and trendy capitalist dead end. Billions of dollars are pouring into low-fee and no-fee index funds and ETFs, and this is seen as preferable to putting your money in a managed fund that consistently beats the market over time. In other words, if you can pay little to nothing in fees, a 7% annualized return is more valuable than say a 10% annualized return in a managed, sector fund, with, say a .7 fee, even over the course of 10 years. Do you actually make more money in the low to no-fee fund with the lower returns? I don't know, but I imagine the savings is minimal or perhaps there's even a loss. This maniacal focus on cost-cutting without any analysis of the costs of the cutting is strange. I would imagine that open office spaces lead to millions and perhaps billions of dollars in lost productivity, but the companies save a few bucks on office space. Is the savings better than the millions or billions in lost productivity? I don't know but would be curious to see an analysis.
5
No managed fund consistently beats the market over time. Study after study has shown low fee index funds to be the most efficient form of investment for the vast majority of investors. But it's like a religion. People want to believe that managers are doing something for them in the face of all the evidence that all managers do is take their money.
15
@JerseyGirl
Not in each and every case. https://money.usnews.com/investing/funds/articles/why-its-time-to-consider-actively-managed-funds
The point being made is not to drink the Kool-Aid. So, in other words, Vanguard, Blackrock, etc., are non profit organizations? You pay or you pay.
Take someone from a private office or home office and stuff them into an open floor plan. Within weeks, that person will either quit, jump out of the nearest window, or quit by default as a result of jumping out of that window.
13
As a reporter in the 1960s in Washington, somehow my father was able to hammer out article after excellent article for The Wall Street Journal, pipe clenched in his teeth, in a vast open space known as The Bullpen, loud with the sound of ringing telephones and typewriters. How anyone could write or think in such an environment is beyond me. But who knows? Perhaps the silence and seclusion of my home office would have driven him mad -- the thump of an apple falling outside my window is often the only sound, though hardly the only distraction. (We have a bullpen here, too, by the way: for the cattle in winter.)
11
The idea of "open" office plan was to imitate the trading desk environment where "ideas" exchanged quickly. But not every job is that of a trader. Some jobs require quiet to concentrate and privacy for calls and discussions. Cubicles replaced offices and open plan seating replaced cubicles. Open office plan does save money, so the management jumped on the idea, and mindlessly deprived lawyers, risk managers, etc of office space and any semblance of privacy. The work environment became a torture environment fraught with degradation and humiliation. Nobody at the top really cares because they have their offices. Treating people like cattle is economical and good for the bottom line. WeWork is just monetizing on a trend started by cheap corporations and they are undermining physical and mental health of the workers on a daily basis.
26
@realist
What "ideas"? Offices are where dreams and ideas go to die. I think, where to eat lunch is about the only eureka moment which ever is likely to happen. Most office work is lobotomizing and most workers know it. Trying to construct an identity of self respect from doing what a trained chimp could do is a cruel absurdity which is why office life usually devolves into cycles of pettiness, spite and vindictiveness. At least those give life meaning.
3
Many years ago I worked in a large office (graphic designers and writer/editors) with half-height barriers between desks. The graphic designer in front of me played the same Enya CD over and over. And over. And again. I didn't have enough standing to ask him to turn it down, and I thought it might be rude, too. No one else objected so I started to believe it was a test: if I could work through eight hours a day of Enya, every day, I could land a permanent job (I was contract). I worked through Enya; I got the job. But open offices? No, nothing to recommend them.
25
I stayed in a job much longer than I should have because I had a large office shared with 3 others. We sat high up and out of the way of every other character in the building. Big windows about 5 feet high and 50 feet long gave us a great view of the weather and traffic. It really was a great perk.
They remodeled and I was put into a cube in a cube farm right outside the break room, so it was constant noise, traffic, and smells of whatever people ate. I only lasted a year after that. Thank God.
10
For collaboration and innovation you don't need open *office* spaces, you need open *hangout* spaces. When you're working you can work, and when you need to change scene or mindframe you can sit on some couches for a tea or coffee break and interact with the people who, in this country at least, you'll spend more time with than your family.
This isn't hard to figure out. Companies just hate to pay for what makes their employees perform the best. They hate paying for PTO, even though it makes everyone healthier and happier, they hate paying for sick days, even though it makes people work better, they hate paying for bereavement days, even though no one works well when they're grieving, and they hate paying for individual spatial needs, even though no one likes to feel under constant observation. Go figure.
57
@Claire it’s like the old secretarial pool idea where a bunch of women sat typing with a male supervisor who sat in the middle on a platform so he could monitor their productivity. But the new iteration is worse because not everyone is typing and otherwise it’s chaos. Saving a few cents on office space while losing hundreds of dollars on lost productivity. Way to go corporate America!
8
The only exception in my experience: I can get (writing) work done in a coffeeshop. The background of activity can be stimulating and keep me on track. The big difference—no-one knows me and therefore I won't be interrupted. Meanwhile, having my door open even a crack at the office (yes, I have my own office) is a honeypot for time-wasters. It's a good place for meetings, that's pretty much it.
13
@Matt,
Coffee shops often have just the right amount of white noise that leaves me able to really concentrate. Far better than my private office where interruptions are not strangers asking to take an unused chair from my table but a coworker with an issue that requires my full attention.
8
It isn't just the commercial sector that tried open offices and failed. The federal government's landlord, the GSA, also bought in big time and got similar results, at least at the agency I came from. Big dollars spent to reduce real estate footprint (along with lease and rent costs) only to find people couldn't get as much work done as before the change. Sad!
13
My one year experience in an open office environment was meant that I caught every cold and virus that came around. The boss was a tyrant and time off for being sick was frowned upon. So everyone came to work when they should have been home. I had to wear headphones. My latest gig was a mix of at home and in office work. I can 100% say I was way more productive in my tiny home office. The owner was constantly calling impromptu meetings and no real work got done.
17
I am a physician.
"Doctors" used to have "offices."
You could work in your office. You could review charts. You could write notes. You could research problems. You could call patients. You could meet with patients.
No longer.
I now work "somewhere in the US" that spent tons of time and money designing an "open-plan" "office" ["bullpen"] where over a dozen physicians, midlevels, nurses, and aides all sit crammed together at identical non-assigned "work stations" shouting to each other over the din of numerous intersecting personal conversations, critical work communications, and telephone calls, in a scrum not unlike the floor of the stock exchange.
It is not surprising that I am less "productive" in this environment than the "benchmark."
47
A company I worked with had to use WeWork space for about 9 months during an office move. Everyone hated it. Six of us were crammed into an office that was really meant for one, maybe two. It was like eating lunch in a high school cafeteria. You had to go to a tiny phone booth to do calls. Sure, we liked the free coffee and the beer after noon. But in terms of work, forget it. I ended up working from home most of the week as did others. I knew right then that WeWork was a scam - just maximizing space utilization like a storage facility. A great real estate concept, a terrible idea for productivity or trying to get any real work done. It should be called WeSuck.
49
So, yes, when I had an office, I got a lot done. Managed $300M in scholarship funds, spend to within 1% and never over promised. Then I moved to a software company with an open floor plan. Got nothing done, 5 years bored and sad, retired.
41
$47 billion valuation for a company that leases office space. They are creating absolutely no wealth except for themselves, and that's money, not wealth. All these techy, app-enabled, awesome companies are shams, just bilking money from the starry-eyed and vulnerable. They deserve to fail. But the next darling start-up is right around the corner and the mistakes will all be made again.
31
Doesn't anyone remember the DotCom boom ? Way back in the dark ages ? No more layoffs / No more recessions / no more downturns. Was just a large empty gas bag of a boom. Why on earth do people continue to fall for this garbage every few years ?
Just over & over & ...
4
I faked severe belching from acid reflux (I was on Prevacid) to get complaints that resulted in my getting an office. I had been in an office since my 15th year out of college and I was much more productive in one.
Jeff Skilling promoted this when he built his human Potemkin villages to impress stock analysts at Enron.
All depends on your job. I worked in a plan for a couple of years without an office. No biggie since most of the time I was roaming the plant looking for problems. All depends on your job.
6
I started working for a company from my home office. As I became more involved in various decisions, they wanted me to have an office at their small HQ. I tried one-day-per-week at first, and found that people in the cluster of private offices usually stayed in all day with their doors closed. The only collaboration done was during scheduled meetings in the conference room.
My small under equipped office there was no productivity match for the multiple computer monitors and other amenities I had at home for getting real work done.
17
Thanks God I'm a lawyer which rates me an office at my company because they aren't willing to risk attorney client privilege for the sake of being trendy (or cheap). However, I do know lawyers who sit in the open where everyone from the CEO to the janitor can hear their not so privileged any more conversations on any number of topics from employment litigation to what regulators might be investigating the company. Nevermind not being able to get work done, a few smart questions in a deposition could put all their legal advice in their opponents hands.
42
@ROK couldn’t agree more with you and Farhad (there’s a first time for everything). I’m a lawyer retired from a large financial institution which went to the open plan save for tiny lawyer offices. The idea was to lock legal behind glass doors so everything stayed in the area. Wasn’t good for client relations. We had trendy colors, lots of chatter about collaborative space and memos about open plan etiquette. The noise level was awful and no one could think. People hogged the quiet spaces. I ended up at home. I was senior and didn’t give a rat’s rump about office presence. Morale was destroyed.
7
'On average, workers now get about 194 square feet of office space per person.." Count yourself lucky. When I first started work in 1971, I SHARED a desk with another employee. When I retired in 2009, I was in a 4x6 cubicle. Working a job that required I assess risk on deals up to $100 million. Even the managers had cubies right next to all the worker bees, so we got an earful of the managerial wisdom associated with performance reviews, correcting employee behaviors, confidential discussions...that was Northwestern Mutual Life. CEO loved the "open. collaborative" officescape.
15
I appreciate the idea of these flexible, scalable office arrangements, but honestly what is more flexible or scalable than a home office? I'm a full time telecommuter and I would stack up my productivity against anyone at my company. Part of the reason is I never have to go find a cubicle (or "collaboration space"), spend hours in transit at either end of my workday, or try to isolate myself with headphones when I need silence and concentration.
Occasionally I pull up a city in Google Maps in the morning or late afternoon and turn on the traffic indicator. I marvel at the tangle of crimson colored roadways. Each red line represents thousands of people who do what I do: sit at a computer and phone or chat co-workers, all day long. They're trapped in traffic while I'm either already at work or already at home, depending on the time of day.
We *do* get to take breaks on our own schedule (witness this comment, for example!), but instead of heading to the garage or bus at 5 pm, I'm going back to work for another hour.
33
@Stuart I agree. I worked from home as a contractor from 2009 to 2018 and got tons more done there. Anytime I was "required" to go to the office (usually for "training" involving watching some Powerpoint slides, which could have been done remotely,) I counted on getting nothing done that day. There are still employers who don't like and don't trust remote work assignments.
22
@Stuart I also look at Google Traffic to remind self what I no longer suffer, and the destination is now cheap looking hotel-office space in high cost Back Bay Boston.
Low walled cube farm, 2/3 empty, not one person talking. Except the occasional loud person, we try to ignore. We wear noice cancelling headphones on the floor.
To get this, my company reduced the relative proportion of dedicated worker space in favor of more hallways and "flash meeting zones" all unused, and empty glass walled phone rooms and exercise rooms and conference rooms.
They said, we want you to work from home so we can save money and they simultaneously said, we want you to be agile and cross fertilize, and all that.
We have thousands of people in hundreds of departments and no protocols are allowed to change.
I go to the city a maximum of twice a week, and only if a pleasant lunch date is on the calendar.
3
My husband used to think I watched Mad Men because of Don Draper (not totally untrue) but to be honest, it was the office scenes that captivated me. Those luxurious midcentury offices with eagles-nest views down to Madison Avenue. The huddled brainstorming sessions, the solo office brooding, the after lunch couch naps...sigh.
64
I used to work for a startup located in a Midtown WeWork space. It was a total nightmare even with the earplugs in. 16 people crammed into a small space with zero soundproofing. After that startup, I categorically declined to interview with companies that were located in a WeWork space. My current employer has its own building and I have my own office. I can think again and do more quality work much faster.
46
It's not just open offices. It's also doorless cubicles with low walls.
I worked in one such place (though I was senior enough to have an actual office). Folks in the cubicles had no privacy, had to listen to the person in the next cubicle (coughing, phone calls, etc.). And when anyone got a bit antsy, things would go flying over the walls.
Ridiculously unprofessional and definitely not conducive to getting actual work done.
52
@JoanP Try that with a "call center" type arrangement. People with headsets talking nonstop, all day long. Cacaphony!
6
Right on. Open offices and dehumanizing cubicles are the primary reasons I left my last two places of employment. Toiling in these terrible spaces is soul-crushing.
32
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for proving I am not alone!!!!
I assumed the problem was me - i.e., I was undisciplined, unfocused and just not committed enough to get work done at the office. But in reading this article, I see that many people struggle with exactly what I struggle with - i.e., it is at least twice as hard for me to get work done at the office. I'm not anti-social. But I hate working in the office because it's just completely un-conducive to deeply thoughtful work. The interruptions just do not stop. And they can't be kept at bay with headphones, ear plugs or closed-off body language.
I am most creative and productive when I am home alone, in my sweatpants and slippers, wearing no make-up and my hair twisted up into a messy bun.
On the 1-2 times a week when I need to be in the office, I'll spend 30 minutes to pull myself together. But I don't want to do that everyday. Believe me, once or twice a week is enough.
I like that, at home, I can completely control my surroundings. It is silent. The kitchen and bathroom are right there. There's no one I have to try to avoid, lest I get sucked into yet another 20+ minute blabfest that I don't have time for but yet have never found a way to politely extricate myself from. And because there's no distractions, I zip from one task to another, all day long, with barely any interruption. And I get a ton done. It's blissful.
But yet, I feel the guilt that I should be in the office every day...
90
@Josa The worst is when enough people start working from home, the company downsizes the office space even more by providing "floating desks" so then you don't even have your own desk!
12
WeWork loses money at a ridiculous rate that has only scaled up as it has grown. The 47 billion dollar valuation was a joke that stemmed from fooling only on man: Masayoshi Son of Softbank.
The IPO was shelved at Softbank's request because once the market had a chance to short it to it's proper price, it would become apparent Softbank had wasted most of the 11 billion it had put into the company.
12
@D. Conroy -- It's like the old used car dealer line: "We lose money on every deal but we make up for it in volume!"
7
@D. Conroy
WeWork bought Lord & Taylor's flagship store on Fifth Avenue and is now converting it into office space. The store (and the jobs of all of the people who worked there) was destroyed for nothing.
2
There's at least one more frontier in the quest to save a buck by eliminating the last private work space.... with the open-plan restroom! Imagine a layout resembling commuter train facing seats, employees toiling with knees interlocked and a single roll and magazine to share. And urinals will be a thing of the past; your desk will have those late-night-TV prelubricated catheters in a pay-per-use dispenser. At long last women and men will be equally served by restroom accommodations. It's a brave new world out there!
22
@Tone Kind of like the public latrines in Ancient Rome!
1
I guess limited space to work is the reason no one takes their laptop to Starbucks any more.
5
I manage 10 developers, and several years ago gave them the option to design their own workspace. Nothing was off the table - cubes, individual offices, whatever.
They chose an open office layout, and it's been fine ever since.
It's very fashionable in the tech world to complain about open offices, and cubes, and a million other things. So I'm not at all surprised to see Manjoo jumping on the "I don't like it so nobody does!" bandwagon, particularly since he admits here that he doesn't work in such a configuration.
And his comment that "I can’t write without aromatherapy" would disqualify him not only for my department, but for any position in my organization, where potentially offensive smells -- candles, perfume, etc -- are considered by unanimous decision to be just as bad as pumping obnoxious EDM out of your desk speakers.
24
@Michael-in-Vegas
I laughed at the aromatherapy line too. Probably the basis of my disagreement with Manjoo on 99% of his output.
The picture of the Boston office reminded me of a room full of developers at an office I visited in India a good 15 years ago. They were literally side by side, but somehow managed to get things done.
5
@Michael-in-Vegas
I am sure things get done in an open office. However, the data suggest that you would get MORE done in something other than an open office.
45
@Michael-in-Vegas
"Nothing was off the table"—did the table have to be in your building? In other words, was telecommuting among their workspace design options?
33
You think the open office is bad for folks in IT, etc. Imagine the concept applied to people working in biotech. Open lab space - have your desk next to your lab bench, see your neighbor across from you and all the other occupants of your area moving about. Despite the years of evidence that the open plan is counterproductive and unpleasant (just think of it - people and equipment make noise), biotechs and pharmas are designing new labs in this way. So, grind away at your lab bench and generate data and then sit at your desk and analyze your data - without the benefit of a glass of water, cup of coffee, or snack - because that would be a violation of environmental, health and safety. Oh, looking for that quiet space beyond the lab to have a coffee while doing data analysis? Good luck, it's called the lunch/break area where 10 other people are likley to be congregated. Collaboration is great but the open floor plan does not promote it.
Down with open office areas and open lab space!
29
I used to work at a WeWork in Boston. Probably the same one that's pictured in this oped. I can confirm that it was next to impossible to concentrate. And not just because we were crammed sardines like pictured. The whole place was hollow and loud like a human gumball machine. One startup that had moved next to us was literally the worst in terms of noisiness and lack of consideration. The head sales guy would be on a call with his door open and then his underlings down the hall would all put go on speaker phone and I'd have to hear this guy's long, vocal pauses uhhhhs & ummmms in surround sound.
24
@EM Totally agree. I currently work in that building. Even with your office door closed, you can hear almost everything being said in the adjoining office; the glass walls don't seem to block any sound. I think it was actually quieter when I worked in a cubicle before we moved to WeWork. I don't know if it's a Millennial thing or a startup thing but many people who work there are very inconsiderate or clueless about how to be a good neighbor (e.g. don't have a speakerphone call with the door open, use your indoor voice, etc.)
7
Ah, and then there's the "flexible workspace" which I am now experiencing. In my current situation, some employees have assigned desks, and some do not. Those who do not have an assigned space must book a cubicle from day to day or week to week. The thinking goes that if an employee is traveling or working from home, there's no need for them to take up space with an empty desk.
However, this means a couple of things: first, absolutely no personalization of your teeny space. You can't even hang up a calendar since chances are someone else has claimed the cube you're sitting in for tomorrow. Second, it's lonely. You don't know who you're sitting next to and you won't be sitting next to them tomorrow. Last, at least for me, it's hard to remember where the heck I booked myself so I spend the first 5 minutes of my day looking it up.
Talk about impersonal, feeling like a mere cog in a wheel. Reportedly, the company will save about $1M/year this way.
34
Ahhh... but it is so easy to count the beans of how much less office real estate is costing the bottom line.
However, no one has figured out how to count the loss in hours of productivity.
So the number of hours you sit at your desk, regardless of how much work you actually get done is what’s counted.
Then those hours are used to determine your value to the company... if you work less hours at work... you end up on a list for lay offs.
Talk about craziness and the rat race!
Even when I worked from home, I was expected to be available via text or phone 24 hours a day... and responses were supposed to be instantaneous or within seconds if I did not pick up.
10
@democritic Those "touchdown" spaces, yeah....You never know where you are going to "touchdown," and if the workspace and equipment (especially a shared laptop or desktop computer,) has the necessary upgrades since no one is "responsible" for that work station.
4
As a consulting contractor, have worked in a variety of settings.
In one 'open' cubicle workspace, I was located next to a printing and document management room. It had a door, but kept it open.
The constant sound of multiple printers running, with raised voice conversations to compensate for the difficulty of being heard over the machine noise....and when the conversations weren't task related, it always turned to malignant gossip...
Unable to get re-located to a quieter workspace, I began using ear plugs with industrial grade ear headphones.
I would often be startled when someone tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention... the combination of hearing gear really got the noise under control.
In another gig, the open format consisted of a long bench with a divider running down the middle. For each workstation, there was a 18" partition between workers. I could literally bump my left elbow on my neighbor's right arm, that's how closely spaced these spots were. When I added a foam core extension to this small partition, my adjacent neighbor wanted to know why, and seemed offended.
Without the partition extension, I could see them in my field of vision the whole day.
Office spaces aren't designed by those who have to use those designed spaces.... the designers are hired by executives who have no idea what it's like to work in the spaces they 'approve' and construct for their employees.
54
I completely agree. And yet, some comments. This is nothing new in my experience. The layout of offices I've worked in has not changed dramatically in over 20 years, the concept always one desk + computer per worker, maybe 50 sq ft. But! As I've aged it has become increasingly difficult to work in such quarters, and the headphones have become more important. The number of distractions has grown (background music, the internet, phones and more phones), and somehow my mind. I don't wish a return to the distraction-free past, but ignorance was bliss.
6
@northern exposure Don't forget hotdesking, where you don't even get your own assigned desk and chair. To be fair, those companies do tend to offer a lot of telecommuting, but it's still a nightmare for those who have to be at the office most days.
5
I hear that in open office spaces, it's frowned upon to talk with your coworkers because if gives management the impression you're not working. Hey management, if you don't want your workers talking out in the open, then give them each four walls an a door. As in, give them an office!
48
I've been blessed to have have never worked in an open office. I've had my own office for the past 10 years and before that, worked in cubicles with a decent amount of privacy. An open office space just sounds miserable (for the reasons Farhad gave). I'm grateful my employer does not have such a thing, and it has gone in the opposite direction the last couple years (raised the walls and added doors on the handful of cubicles we have).
14
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Open offices are and still will be the wave of the future. The We Work concept is being copied in Asia and especially the Philippines. My son leases one of them. They wouldn't be popular if they didn't offer certain advantages. One of the chief benefits of using a WeWork space is that everything is taken care of, from utility bills to replenishing the ink in the printer. The WeWork staff keep everything running smoothly so members can focus on their work. Is it ideal? No. But it works as a sort of incubator where small businesses can grow until they're ready to move into traditional office space.
4
It is long past time for employers to loosen the leash on intellectual workers, not just because working at home offers privacy and fewer distractions, but because it will Save the Planet!
Why on earth does anyone who's not providing a hands-on physical service need to burn fossil fuels driving across town and back (or cram into overcrowded, dangerously inadequate but expensive to upgrade public transport) five days a week? How about just getting everyone together for a weekly meeting? If managers are worried about slackers, they can make the right to work from home a perk afforded only to employees who meet certain productivity goals.
I'm guessing the reason this isn't happening has everything to do with the number of billionaires who are heavily invested in commercial real estate.
62
A few years ago, I visited one of the early "coworking" spaces in the DC area. It was called Uber Offices - I'm not kidding.
A quick search suggests that they have renamed themselves Make Offices.
In any case, I didn't see the value of paying $300 for access to a seat at a table, in an office with really unattractive grey silk-screened wall art. As I recall, the private offices, for startups with two people or more, had glass walls. So, use the glass wall as a whiteboard, and make all of your company's plans public?
11
eta: sorry, that sounded snarky. :(
I can see the appeal of co-working spaces for startups or others who like the setup and ambiance.
It just wasn't for me.
5
@Karen Lee
You’re too nice. Your first post is accurate.
5
Tiny work spaces have existed for decades in high rent cities such as Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Tokyo, etc., where workers have been less demanding than their US counterparts. Nothing new. We was (or "were" in UK English) able to combine East Asian space planning with student center amenities and associate itself with tech. While bankers salivated, plenty of critics, including the WSJ, pointed out that We is just a real estate company.
6
I've managed to always secure an office with a door and window in both government and business work. Even so, my most productive days are probably home-based. First, eliminate the commute, and you're already ahead. Then lunch is often just me at the fridge, or eating at the keyboard, or talking a walk with a sandwich or slice.
For those in open spaces and feed carbs and caffeine to keep you going, I do feel bad. But you have to draw a line. If you're really not efficient in such an environment, you'll hurt yourself by not doing your best. Forget the company, protect yourself -- over the longterm.
30
Thanks for another brilliant column.
I used to have to wait until after hours to be able to concentrate & get any work done.
53
@Tracey Kaplan Yes, I have a private office with a door, but neither walls nor door seem to block the noise from either a noisy neighbor or 3+-person conversations outside the door. Maybe I should get over my prejudice that earbuds at work look unprofessional.
5
@Tracey Kaplan I do my best work late at night away from the office. That is where I can really concentrate with no distractions.
7
They initiated open offices at PwC. They look nice (the offices on Madison in NY look pretty)
But much of business is conducted on conference calls. The moment someone gets on the phone everyone around that person is disrupted. This gave rise to office etiquette protocol in which you are supposed to speak quietly, a rule more observed in the breach.
If people need to think, they need quiet.
What is so hard about this?
79
@Bill Dan, and it's probably challenging to have a call with a client, without everyone else hearing what you say. Can you book a conference room, or one of those tiny booths, for calls with clients?
12
@Karen Lee
Not easy. i do a lot of conference calls, but I have various screens that I share while doing so. I can't schlep those into a conference room or cubby.
The result is that you often simply don't call and work on assumptions. Too bad. Penny wise, pound foolish.
4
35 years or so ago, Demarco and Litser, in "Peopleware", said this about the transition from offices to cubicles: Modern offices are designed like modern prisons--maximum containment at minimum cost.
Don't buy the line about collaboration. It's all about the money.
The last place I worked had a sort of hybrid between cubicles and open-plan, and its only advantage over pure open plan was that you weren't as subject to the aftereffects of your neighbor's double bean burrito lunch or whatever infectious disease they'd recently been exposed to. I spent my last five years there working from home.
Now I work at a company where there are no cubicles or open-plan areas. Most people work in two-person offices like The Good Old Days, and it's almost as good as working from home. I hope I keep this job until retirement.
102
I worked in an IT department that was not completely open, it had low walled cubicles, in a generous estimate, giving each person, about 80 sqf of space. The guy in front of me had a chronic, wracking cough that, because he was an ex-marine, refused to ever address; he was going to tough it out even if it made everyone around him sick. The guy in back of me was on the phone from the moment he got in till the moment he left. I was actually grateful the conversations were mostly in Russian because that gave me one less distraction, one less outrage to obsess over. I complained to my boss - in his nice private office -telling him that it was impossible to work under such conditions, and he replied that if he had his druthers, he would also work in the open because that's how they do it in real IT companies. Disheartened, I walked out and after a few minutes he closed his door and gabbed on the phone for the next hour, undisturbed.
I left and have since learned that due to an expanded workforce, the cubicles were actually shrunk to about 60 sqft. Such conditions create stresses that many people address by eating. Since, if your are not always at your station, you're a considered a slacker, constant eating combined with a lack of movement is an obesity generator, which was evident by just looking around me. And this was at an HMO by the way, where case managers would call members up to counsel them on healthy living!. The case mangers were also the heaviest smokers.
76
My experience has been that the collaboration, team building and brainstorming dependant on in-person, spontaneous interaction outweighs the concentration a worker has in isolation. This was particularly true when I worked at digital media startup law.com, where change in the way we operated entered new frontiers on a real time basis. So perhaps the best approach is to have a combination on both: working in a collaborative office environment regularly, but having the option of working from home, let's say, one day per week.
3
@Stuart Falk What management needs to understand is that not everyone spends their workday collaborating. Some people have jobs where the vast majority of their time is spent completing tasks. Some people have jobs where they need to focus intensely and make sure they get things done properly.
There's only so much collaboration (and team building? I bet you make employees go on retreats and do trust falls.) people are able to do when everyone has on noise canceling headphones so they can think.
16
Thank God someone finally spoke up. I find it very difficult to concentrate in a bullpen office. I also find it infantilizing. Dedicated adult professionals can be trusted with a door.
182
Bottom line is the CFO can go to the board and the stock market and say: "I saved $X per sq ft of office space by converting cubicals/offices to open office. There is no other reason for it Every study has shown that people are less productive and get sick more often
131
Agreed. I like my door and I like my window. Thanks.
60
Please tell this to management in BigTech. They keep insisting on open office environments, despite push-back from employees and the availability of ample studies to the contrary. At some point they have to realize that they are probably losing a lot more in productivity and employee satisfaction than they are gaining by saving rent. Open office seems like a classic penny-wise pound-foolish move.
146
My BigTech employer is remodeling from cubicles to open offices under the guise that it helps recruiting young employees. In the meantime my group had to buy everyone noise cancelling headphones, and there has been an increase in working from home.
13
I saw the dramatic change a few years ago, when a team I worked with, transitioned from old fashioned cubes to an open space. I used to like working with that team when visited them-lots of work brainstorming and clarifications as well as chit chat over cube walls. A few months later, when I visited them in their "open collaborative" space, it was dead silence. Everyone had retreated behind headphones. Monitors sported privacy screens and folks had resorted to instant messaging someone sitting three desks away
146
So true. The open office is a nightmare. In ours, the managing partner who demanded this setup works primarily from home. His desk and surrounding area are piled high and he can't face clearing it out AND he finds the noisy interactions of his employees to be distracting. When in the office, he stays away from his own desk and commandeers the conference room or the kitchen area to get work done. Hypocrisy, thy name is managing partner.
212
An office with a glass door is ideal: quiet but available.
But open offices have to be actively managed: People need to be trained to be quiet, to know how and when to interrupt others, and to respect everyone's process.
Even so, there is no avoiding the constant realization that you are being observed. This sense of being measured is core to our identity formation, and it is caustic to anyone with anxiety (22% of us) or with reason to be anxious (the rest of us).
Further, it actually introduces more inequality. On the one hand, the quiet and corner spots are highly sought-after. On the other, the best way to push out an employee is to put him under the HVAC blower, or, God forbid, next to the always-open kitchen where people are free to blow off steam and binge-eat to alleviate anxiety.
Myself I sometimes want to go back to overt authority instead of dealing with open floors and culture statements.
96