Cubicles a Giant Mistake 374
J to the D writes "Apparently even the designer of the cubicle believes now that they are a bad idea." From the article: "After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box."
My personal opinion... (Score:5, Interesting)
It wouldn't be hard at all to give current cubicles full-sized walls and doors. I think it would greatly improve productivity. Think of how many times you've had to listen to people talking two feet away from you while you're trying to concentrate.
One of the main barriers to adoption is the fact that you can't oversee your staff like you can in a cubicle farm or open office. But then again, if you have to constantly watch them, do you really want them as employees?
cubicles, open offices (Score:3, Interesting)
Back to the present, I have now a full time and a part time job. In the part time job my place is in a cubicle, sort of, 3 workplaces in a box, about 2m high "walls" between boxes. I only took it, because I only have to spend max. 2 days/week there, and I can also work remotely at times.
And I know I'm not alone with this. FYI, I'm not a bad team player, still, I need my place where I can do my part alone. And yes, music.
Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
In Peopleware, Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister observe that work better in offices with windows. When this is pointed out, management usually says "sure, but it's impossible to give everyone a room with a window."
DeMarco and Lister's reply is that in fact every hotel in the world manages to do this.
Re:Stuff that Matters... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:From the perspective of a new cube monkey... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think I see a market opportunity here. I'll hook a spare line from my desk phone to a RADIUS server and maybe some sort of electronic lock. Anyone who wants in my door must call me first on their cell phone and enter their code. I could probably even set times of day for more or less limited access. I could probably even verify by caller ID. A simple phone number pasted to the door would probably be sufficient to instruct visitors. I could link it to our office's remote access server to keep the passwords synched.
A man can dream, I guess...
Re:Can we kill the paging system as well? (Score:1, Interesting)
I didn't realize what a difference the paging system made until my division moved to another location. The main office's paging system was, well, abused. Incessant "So-and-so, please dial 1234... So-and-so, please dial 1234," all day, every day. (The fact that the receptionist had a whiny voice didn't help.) Then we ran out of space in the main office building, and my division was moved across town. Since there were multiple tenants, the paging system was for security only, and they almost never used it. Soon, we forgot what it was like to have Ceiling-Mounted Thought Disruptors operating constantly. Between that and the turnover, we were shocked by how bad the paging system was when we moved back to the home office. It only took two weeks of complaints from our division for the system to be reduced to critical use only.
That may be the greatest contribution we've made to the company.
Re:Windows (Score:1, Interesting)
Doesn't it depend... (Score:3, Interesting)
Cubicles inhibit brain growth (Score:5, Interesting)
corner offices for everybody (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you meant it as a joke, but it is actually possible to get light on two sides of every room. See Joel's bionic office [joelonsoftware.com].
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)
Course, we don't use cubes either, just a wide open floor with desks.
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's nice in theory. In practice, the people most dedicated to The Flow (tm), are the antisocial, uncooperative nitwits who hole themselves up in their offices for 8+ hours each day, only to turn out piles of un-reviewed, un-documented, poorly-specified crap (whether code or otherwise).
With no exceptions, the best tech workers I know are balanced, social people who prefer not to hole up in their offices. The best coding environment I ever worked in was a room of 6 developers, separated by bookshelves, with small break-out rooms available for truly private conversations. Of course, you do actually have to like your coworkers for a setup like that to work, but I digress....
Yupp I knew it. I am weird. (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate seeing anybody else, leave me to my own world and I can space-out and do the job better. I wish I was in a cube at my current job. (4-man open bullpen/closet with 2 desks, 2 PC's and 2 phones.) A cube would be an UPGRADE!
*I only like the cubes that allow me to see the 'door' when sitting. Nothing is worse then sitting in a cube and not seeing people standing behind you. (yes I have a mirror taped to my monitor, I tell people it's because I enjoy the company.)
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:4, Interesting)
It's going pretty well and I can pretty much stay in the flow no matter what. Although I do worry about the fire alarms. Next I'm going to try a recliner.
Ideally I'd like to dump the keyboard and mouse, but I can't think how.
I'm much better at getting through work, although my wierdness factor is just gone up an order of magnitude.
Re:My personal opinion... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a technical problem, but it's a logistical nightmare. Any partition that spans from the floor to the ceiling is classified as a wall by most building codes, and would need to be constructed as such, and pass relevant inspections. While the cost for cheap walls might rival the costs of a floor-to-ceiling cubicle, cubicles are defined as furnitre, and may be devalued after only 7 years. Buildings can't be devalued for 40 years. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I think it has to do with tax write-offs. (It also seems strange that you can devalue a building when real estate almost always increases in value, but that's another matter).
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:1, Interesting)
What products, exactly? Some of us might be interested in trying this out.
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:3, Interesting)
When did I say they could? My point is that offices are better. Period. Whether a company can afford them is a completely different issue. I happen to work for a tech company on a site in a smaller Canadian city where office space is relatively cheap. Consequently, we all have two-person offices (with windows, no less). Is this unusual? Probably. Is it incredibly awesome? Definitely! 'course, it helps that there are management-types in the company who have actually coded, and thus understand the value of a quiet, distraction-free environment.
Re:Now wait just a minute... (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:Oh dear god no (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course it works the other way as well - if you really needed a break at the point where the water-cooler toppled, what better excuse could you have?
Perhaps you've never worked in a well-planned open-plan environment? I'm used to offices with sufficient space, lots of noise-absorbent material, and laid out so that you never have more than 10-15 people in direct sight.
This [findarticles.com] article is a bit wanky, but makes some interesting points towards the end about the effectiveness of the environment (BA's headquarters at Waterside, a building I've worked at) being dependent on the motivation of the management team. This article [knowledgeboard.com] is an interesting review of how office layout can affect your team's effectiveness. Both well worth a read.
Cheers, Mike
The optimum environment is a hallway of offices. (Score:2, Interesting)
Other tips:
(1) use an internal instant messaging system but make sure you can block IMs when you're busy so they don't distract you.
(2) if you're like me and like to read e-mail the instant it arrives...just close your e-mail client when you need to get something done.
(3) give window offices to productive employees. Consider rotating offices every 2 months or something, so everyone gets a window some of the time.
(4) Supply couches (or other comfortable furniture) for people's offices. Certainly your project or team leaders (or whoever's office you usually end up in for small planning meetings etc) needs to have one.
(5) make sure there's a lounge area near the offices (ideally its at one end of the hallway). It should have large windows with quality blinds on them. Couches and a coffee table or two. At least one REALLY LARGE whiteboard for design discussions.
Cubicles really do suck. They are the worst of all worlds. Your best chance for achieving flow state, or for pair programming productively with a partner without distracting other people, is in an office where you can close your door.
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny you should put it that way, because it sounds like your job is your crack. Lock the door, draw the shades, get out the works, and make the world go away for several hours.
When I need to work without distractions, I don't work at my desk where everyone knows where to find me. I've got another place in the building where I can do that (and no, it's not on the toilet). If that's what your job requires all the time, you don't need an office; you need a box in the basement.
Battery Programmers (Score:1, Interesting)
When a programmer got bored often they would casually lob some object of distraction over the top in an attempt to annoy their fellow developer. It often worked.
After years of battery life we had had enough and decided to try life without partitions. We removed them and, to the amazement and pleasure of our manager, found that we started to talk openly about work and that productivity and quality actually went up.
We still lobbed objects at each other when we were bored but hit each other in the face much less often (we could see our targets) and didn't usually do it when there was a full cup of coffee to knock over (bad form, that).
The partitions were never used again except for one day when we watched the CEO, Company Secretary and CIO walked into the computer room and wander around looking carefully into every nook and cranny. This puzzled us until after they were gone when the IT Manager let slip that there was a bomb scare which they weren't telling anyone about. The bomb was supposedly in the computer room. We got the partitions back out of storage and stacked them in front of the glass walls and then stacked boxes of paper as well. The bomb scare was a hoax so unfortunately I can't tell you how well partitions work as anti-explosion shielding devices.
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:5, Interesting)
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocus [wikipedia.org]
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:4, Interesting)
The larger office is my public office. It used to be a conference room but is now packed with book shelves, a several tables and desks, and a number of computers. Any more, I spend about three fourths of my workday in it.
The smaller, private office is very quiet. It is well insulated and has no telephone. It has a large comfortable easy chair pushed up to a desk with a couple of computers and a monitor. It also has a CD player and small speakers, but I hardly turn it on. Everyone knows to bother me there only if it is really important.
I can usually accomplish more software development work in two uninterrupted hours in the private office than I can in 8 hours in the public office.
All it takes is one or two interruptions in that two hours and my productivity drops to about the same as in the public office.
shared offices? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, if you are easily distracted, have trouble getting into a mental/emotional state where you can work and think clearly, and once in "the zone" you are hyperfocused on your goal, then you may have ADD. It might be associated with hyperactivity, or with inattention/phasing out. In my case, it's associated with an astonishingly small amount of mental RAM and extreme sluggishness in the morning before my first dose of (no I don't believe in Xenu) drugs.
If you're a coffee addict or smoker, and you feel large amounts of these stimulants help you to function normally (and when you try to come off them you just CAN'T), that's more evidence that ADD may be responsible. Ask your doctor for a referral to a (good) psychiatrist!
By the way, ADD can be successfully managed with a lot less drugs and a lot more yoga, and it has been associated with people like Einstein who clearly had a "nerd personality" but definitely not ASD. So it's not a delinquency/criminal illness and it's not mental retardation and it's DEFINITELY not an excuse for lazy people to get high! (I am a Buddhist and I hate drugs - I won't even take strong herbs without a doctor's orders.) Actually, there's often a genetic cause and usually related to the ASD gene (but with a different expression in brain function).
Bring on the pink Hello Kitty labcoat for use in all those laser labs where my sparkly things are banned!
xx
Rocket
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:3, Interesting)
Forget cubicles, go for telecommuting (Score:4, Interesting)
In the modern world of email, instant-messaging as well as things like VOIP/voice chat and video confrencing, there is no reason that you couldnt have, say, developers working from home.
No need to spend money even on cubes or open-plan office space.
Have meeting rooms for those times when a face-to-face meeting is the only way to get things done and other alternatives wont work.
Management can see how much work is being done by looking at how much code employees commit to the reository. Or by looking at how many of their assigned bugs or features or tasks they complete and sign off on (including how long it takes them to do each one).
Advantages of working from home as I see it:
1.No need to commute to work (saves money and time as well as saving the environment)
2.Saves the company money in that they dont need to spend as much on cubes/offices/space, electricity etc etc etc.
3.Allows workers to work a little more flexibly (in that as long as they are working the right number of hours, they dont necessarily need to be 9-5 mon-fri). Want to go to the movies? Work late other nights that week and take friday afternoon off.
Living with school-age kids? Start work when they are off at school, work through until they come home, then do stuff with the kids until bed-time and spend a couple hours working after the kids are in bed to make up for the hours you didnt work in the afternoon.
Need to go to the bank to sort something out? Go to the bank and make up the work later that day.
4.Allows workers to work in what they might consider a better environment (Want to have your music playing? No problems. Dont want to wear a tie? No problems.)
Re:Just Another Tool (Score:3, Interesting)
Many young Jedi wannabees claim that absolute privacy and silence is needed because they grew up without being forced to obtain an attention span, preferring instant gratification at need - they grow up to be adults lacking a vital skill.
A little slow, ain't he? (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of Dilbert... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the 80's, I worked for a Major Software Company that is now little more than a brand name for a larger company. We had recently moved into a brand new building carefully designed for developers (i.e., adequate power and network connectivity, server areas), which happened to implement a strong preference for private offices (although some space was left open for potential cubicle space.
Enter a new CTO, who expresses a disdain for private offices, and embarks on a plan to double- and triple-up people in the former private offices, and pack cubicles into any available open space (including underneath open stair cases). Morale drops.
Almost immediately said CTO takes over the largest conference room on our floor, which can seat 20 comfortably and pack in 40 or more for a big meeting, and which happens to have a river view, as his private office! And then knocks down a wall and takes over the adjoining former single office as well! Morale tanks.
You can't make this stuff up.
Re:I do one better... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to avoid the huge honking X overhead, forward your squid proxy port instead:
ssh -C -L 3128:localhost:3128 your_home_machine sleep 28800
At work, configure a localhost:3128 as your proxy.
It will still be slower than if you went through your employer's proxy, but not quite as slow as forwarding X.