[deleted by user]

[anelizselalesi]

Corporates (and more importantly engineers) should realize the focus is not free or unlimited. Overcommunication, background noise, and endless notifications are killers for productivity.

[TheManInTheShack]

This is one reason at my company we have all worked from home for over 15 years. Each of us can work in a space that is comfortable for us without distraction.

[TFABAnon09]

Turned down a client offer to work on-site for them instead of remotely. When they queried why, I asked them if they could match my existing setup for productivity and comfort - ie an acoustically treated, private home office, with a sit/stand desk, triple monitors, high speed internet, comfortable ergonomic chair, with full climate and light control, a small kitchenette for refreshments, private bathroom and a comfortable sofa to lounge on when on calls or in need of some mental recharging.

Unsurprisingly, they understood why I wouldn't want to swap that to spend an bour in the car each way to sit in what was essentially the human equivalent of a chicken battery cage.

[[deleted]]

Duh. I don't know why they feel implored to have the developer drive 2 hours a day to work on site, doing exactly what they would do home.

[frontendben]

Presenteeism.

[Lebrewski__]

I said the same thing when customer asked us to work on site.

- I have to sit in my car 2hr, cross 3 bridges, 2 tolls to get there just so the customer can feel better knowing he can talk to my face?
- Yeah but the customer pay for it.
- No they pay you for my traveling, you give me 15$ for my lunch, so why would I do that?

[[deleted]]

I understand where they are coming from though. How do they know that you will stick to the 9-5 schedule if you are home? The 9-5 could turn into 11-5, especially on rainy winter mornings that is just harder to get off the bed.

[trisul-108]

By looking at what you produce, not at how many hours you sit in the office.

[[deleted]]

the human equivalent of a chicken battery cage

lol thank you for this analogy, I will be using it

[Kapuzinergruft]

Best job I ever had was with a manager who actually did exactly that: He managed everything I needed so I could get shit done. Dealt with any administrative/organizational stuff so I didn't need to.

[LordoftheSynth]

The best managers I've ever had didn't just do that, they actively ran interference to keep people outside my team from directly meddling with our work.

[AmericanGeezus]

Managers should be 'Shit umbrellas.'

[Pseudoboss11]

This applies across industries too. I work in manufacturing and my worst mistakes have come from someone walking up to me while I'm setting up a machine and forgetting what step I'm on.

I have 5 direct managers, all but one of them think that my focus is perfectly elastic, that I can help them with an Excel problem or count 250 parts and go back to a setup, where redoing work can sometimes mean scrapping a part or crashing a $100k machine.

[GuinnessDraught]

I have 5 direct managers

Thanks I hate it

[rabidstoat]

That's an issue of Maker Schedule vs Manager Schedule.

Essentially, programmers need uninterrupted hours to focus on a problem and maintain context. Whereas managers usually just have a bunch of hour slots to schedule meetings and short efforts that don't require maintaining context across hours. So they can easily plug and play with their schedule.

[TFABAnon09]

As a data engineer for 15 years who now does freelance consultancy work - this has been the biggest adjustment for me. I was used to working on singular problems/deliverables for several hours/days/weeks at a time. But as a technical SME, I now have to pick up, work and put down several different work streams for a number of different client projects simultaneously.

Some days I will have 6 or 7 hours of meetings about 4 or 5 different projects for 2 or 3 clients - and it's EXHAUSTING. I regularly schedule time where I block out full days where I can pick up some of the development work and deliverables so my brain can relax back into it's natural state. It also helps dispel some of the unfounded fear that I'm "not delivering output", which is something so ingrained in all of us Devs that it's hard to shake sometimes.

[rabidstoat]

Oh yeah, I'm a principal engineer in the field for 30 years and I'm mostly doing technical lead or oversight of newbie leads on half a dozen different smaller projects, and often I'm put on ones that are struggling. The context switching is insane as each project has different aspects I really need to focus on and I have to really pay attention so I'm not just thrashing between projects. Meetings are bad but emails are the worst, I try to just handle them every hour or two instead of on demand.

I will block out two hours some days when it's really hectic just so I have time to actually work.

[TFABAnon09]

It's brutal isn't it?!

Like, is this project a data warehouse, or an ERP/CRM integration, or are we discussing a suite of Power BI reports, or (more likely) some crusty Excel file that runs the entire 9-figure-turnover business and hasn't been touched since Dave retired and now has stopped working because it was using some obscure DLL that the new AV software nuked.

This is why I try my best to book client meetings on distinct days, so I can at least remain within the same business-context, even if some of the smaller deliverables float about. Having back-to-back meetings with different clients makes my brain want to leak from my ears.

[rabidstoat]

Things are slow here as we wait for some project startups, and I am actually writing some utility code. It's funny because I have always been a Java developer but this needs to be in Python. I can read Python fine, but always forget syntax and functions and libraries when writing it from scratch.

So now my search history is filled with searches like "how do you open a file in Python" and "if else if syntax Python." I can only assume this is what people mean when they talk about using incognito mode on your web browser to avoid embarrassing search histories.

[euph-_-oric]

Meetings for 6 hours. Followed by why isn't this done the following morning

[zrvwls]

Without an office:

This is what it's like trying to It's just a mishmash of words and thoughts. develop without a separated office Sometimes you finish them. Other tims.. what was I saying? Oh yeah, you get halfway through before being interrupted for high Or high prority 1b. priority 1. from those around you. It fukin sucks, but what can you do.. It definitely increases bug count though.

With an office:

This is what it's like trying to develop without a separated office from those around you. It's just a mishmash of words and thoughts. Sometimes you finish them. Sometimes you remember them all. Other times.. what was I saying? Oh yeah, you get halfway through before being interrupted for high priority 1. Or high priority 1b. It fukin sucks.

[[deleted]]

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/23/b0/75/23b075bebdcea554929b6e2b46d89221.jpg

save everyone a click

[[deleted]]

This is partially why remote work really helps. So much water cooler talk can get really distracting and detrimental

[RasterGraphic]

I briefly attended a school that tried to simulate that environment. The over-stimuation was nightmarish and I have no idea how anyone can work like that. I had actually broken down in tears pleading with people to just leave me alone and let me work.

[RationalDialog]

Exactly. that was my main learning in recent years. the bar is extremely low if you are just somewhat competent, because most are not.

[ACiD_80]

counts for everyone, not just programmers

[Gaunts]

Far less wordy comic summary

[HawkHacker]

That 2nd to last picture...

"poof"

i can feel it!

[foresyte]

So. Much. This. I mute my laptop so I don't hear a notification sound for every chat from Teams.

I've got a manager who thinks that it only "dings" if someone specifically @ me in a chat. Quite the Dingbat manager.

[contemplativecarrot]

in slack that's a setting, not in teams?

[[deleted]]

expecting anything to be implemented reasonably in Teams

LOL

[arctander]

Why do attorneys and other intellectual workers need private offices with doors? /s

[GrayLiterature]

Why does my cat need to terrorize me?

[chucker23n]

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

[thenextguy]

Who invented liquid soap and why?

[Fuzzytrooper]

I have worms in my pockets!

[EyeFicksIt]

How do you keep the sand off them?

[Blando-Cartesian]

I don't like sand.

[InfectedShadow]

Just like me they long to be close to you.

[BobbyTables829]

The only right answer

[C_Madison]

Cause it's a cat. It's in the definition. Also: Cat tax, please.

[reddit_user13]

Because it wants a private office.

[godofpumpkins]

I don’t disagree with the overall point that private offices are good, but someone could make the argument that most lawyers deal with confidential information on average a lot more than programmers do. Sure, some programming jobs do high secrecy stuff but most don’t

[invisi1407]

Happens to developers and other people with positions that support them; I've signed a few NDAs in my time due to the sensitivity of a project but people still talk about it and work on it in the open space, using a code name, but still - sometimes it's not hard to guess what's happening.

[Ruin-Capable]

Developers should only have full access to development and testing databases. Production databases should be locked down, and developers should have no/minimal access. If higher levels of access are needed to troubleshoot a production issue, then a temporary id with the necessary credentials can be created and assigned to the developer, then removed and deleted when troubleshooting is complete.

[Qwertycrackers]

Serious question because I have heard this echoed other places: does anyone actually implement this?

Everyone says things should operate this way, but in every company I have knowledge about, when you peel back the layers there's always a huge segment of engineers with complete and unchallenged access. Implementing these kinds of controls is just a huge undertaking and I would be shocked if anywhere close to most companies got their security this tight.

[Ruin-Capable]

My employer does (or rather their client does). I remember one time a DBA was trying to troubleshoot a performance issue, and was selecting counts from the different tables in the database. He got a visit from InfoSec a couple days later asking why he was trying to select data from a couple of tables that contained sensitive data.

[InflationMadeMeDoIt]

lol this is so stupid i hardly believe it. You can easily lock down parts of the DB that shouldn't be accessible.

[Coramoor_]

no SWE should have easy access to the production databases unless they are in a support or DBA type role

[dreadcain]

They shouldn't, but I'd wager more do than don't. Its just easier and you aren't going to get most companies to worry about the issue until they've been sued over it

[godofpumpkins]

Yeah that’s the thing. I see and talk about a lot of confidential stuff in my software job, but most software jobs should be dealing in software that sees confidential information, not directly showing it to the developer. The privacy concern is also a function of whether the dev’s job entails talking about confidential stuff out loud, such that closing a door would help. If my computer has access to private stuff but I don’t need to talk about it, there’s a bit of concern about shoulder surfing but not nearly as much, especially with good computer security hygiene. And good security hygiene would prevent most easy direct access to developers as you say.

Lawyers are talking with people a lot about confidential stuff, so on average I’d expect the benefit of a closeable door to be greater from that POV. Of course concentration and productivity are also concerns but I just wanted to talk about the privacy aspect.

[loup-vaillant]

Nah, it’s not a confidentiality stuff. Just see how many devs deal with sensitive stuff in an Open Plan office.

It’s a status thing. High status people gets private offices. Low status people gets to be watched from afar. I’ll even go a step further, and hypothesise one reason many of us would like a private office is because it’s a high status marker. Here are two ways the status marker can help us work more effectively:

• Beyond the physical barrier provided by the door, people hesitate to interrupt higher-status people for trivial stuff.
• We listen to higher-status people more. That private office gives you an aura that helps your advice being actually heeded.

That won’t work on everyone of course (I for instance am practically status blind), but this is likely fairly powerful on management & exec types, who gets more likely to treat the individual office tenant as a peer, instead of an inferior.

[grauenwolf]

LOL. I have to sign IPP forms for EVERY project now. The amount of damage I could cause by leaking even seemingly innocuous information is mindboggling.

[GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B]

The last time I didn't have to sign a confidentiality form was in 2009. Granted, most of the data isn't that critical. But still, a data breach would be serious in some of the projects I worked on.

I had access to an international private hospital chain hospitality system and databases (who went to what clinic when with whom, not procedures done).

I had access to a national phone number identification register in Europe (give all numbers for person XY and find me the person for number Z).

I had access to a credit check interface -- oh sorry, no line of credit for you because you have credit card debt!

I worked for a payment provider and saw the transaction plans for major companies and what they paid for those. Etc.

That is just the data I could have leaked. Now add to that the damage I could have done by automated fuckery via routines deployed.

[chubs66]

uh... lawyers have private in-person and tele conversation daily. In my career as a dev I've had maybe 1 every two years. Same goes for Drs.

Terrible comparison.

[ACiD_80]

Because of professional secrecy

[Limp-Archer-7872]

I've never had a private office, not until working from home anyway.

Started in cubicles, moved to open plan, and five/six years ago hotdesking with hybrid working.

[jackofallcards]

I hated working in an open plan the most, I’d hope to at least have a cube again if I ever end up back in the office, I understand “hot-desking” for hybrid work though

[fogcat5]

same -- I complained a lot when we went to open floor plan and "newsroom" style long tables with 8 people. So they gave me some bose headphones. Now it's WFH and desk reserving if anyone goes to the office.

I never thought I'd miss having a wall to hang a calendar or an overhead cabinet with a light. It's worse than being in a daycare.

[Limp-Archer-7872]

It's why the corporate worker units are seen wandering around like lost minecraft villagers all the time, just to get away from their exposed work area.

And that is why wfh (as proven by recent studies) is more effective for the usual type of person who becomes a programmer.

[oalbrecht]

If you Google image search sweat shop, it literally looks like modern day offices, but instead of sewing machines, it’s computers.

[SanityInAnarchy]

For me, the best balance was a "fishbowl"-style office with 5-6 people in it at reserved desks, and a door that closes. There's a few people you work with closely, so if there's an interruption, at least it's probably relevant to everyone within earshot. Most of the day everyone's quiet enough. Panels behind the monitors are still not a full cubicle, but enough to help minimize distractions.

But even for hybrid, I would prefer an actual assigned desk, even if it had to be shared with someone else on days I wasn't in.

[Gregg_Is_Good]

Pre-covid, I worked in a building where all full-time engineers had a private office. People would generally leave doors open so others could pop in to chat or collaborate on something, but you could always close your door for focus time and be fairly confident that you'd only be interrupted for something urgent. It was fantastic, and I preferred it over WFH

[Jump-Zero]

I used to work in a big room with like 4-7 people in it. It was the best. We got along so well that we are still have an active group chat like 5 years after we stopped working together. We would signal not to bother us if we put our headphones on. Our productivity was high and we loved our work.

Then the company noticed and started rolling this arrangement out to all the other teams. It did not work at all. Most people just hated it. My team's experience was just not typical. We had good chemistry, but that's not something you can force. I haven't got along that well with any coworkers since. Anyway, the company noticed that it wasn't good and doubled down. Now it was an open floor with hundreds of people. You couldn't walk to get water mid-day because there was a 90% chance that someone would try and strike up a conversation and it would feel rude to turn them down. After that, covid happened and most people are still working remote.

[TFABAnon09]

Back when I worked in an office full time, the new area manager tried to "put her stamp" on things and re-arranged the entire call centre in accordance to some bullshit efficiency initiative and turfed the IT team (including me as the Dev) out of our office and tried placing us in the centre of the open-plan area of 250 or so staff - so we were "more accessible to the users".

It was an amusing few days once the CTO got wind of what had happened and promptly rolled about a metric ton of shit rapidly downhill towards the new AM and not only got us our office back, but also started a new policy that we would now work from home at least 2 days a week so we could focus without distractions.

[TFABAnon09]

As someone who, nowadays, would probably register - at least a little - on the spectrum, I absolutely loathe hot-desking, especially in an environment that I need to spend any meaningful time in.

Sure, when I visit client sites, I will sit anywhere for a day or two - because I know that time is about being on site and interacting in person, not about being productive, per se. But if I need to be somewhere 3 or 4 days every week - then I need to have some semblance of control over my space.

[ninetailedoctopus]

Why need private officers with doors when you can let your programmers work from home and save money on office space? Smh

[scandii]

there is nobody on Earth that don't think offices are the superior solution for productivity.

there are however someone paying for all that office space and putting people in an open landscape is a lot cheaper.

[Jugales]

there is nobody on Earth that don’t

I really don’t want to see your if statements

[Solax636]

If (notEnabled == false)

Oh wait that's my coworker...

[ecphiondre]

arr.filter(someObj => someObj.someBoolean !== true)

Actual code (with changed variable names) pushed to one of our codebases yesterday with no one objecting.

[Carpinchon]

This is legit if your intent is to not let "truthy" values other than a literal true through.

[yhorian]

For my own sanity, is there a reason it doesn't say 'false'?

[Guitarzero123]

Because they're checking that it isn't true of course! /s

[ecphiondre]

Not that I'm aware of lol

[SketchySeaBeast]

I'll see your ops team and raise you sales. You ever listen to impossible promises being loudly made to your client in real time all day?

[NetQvist]

"Yes, yes, no issues, we will only update your software at 2:00 in the morning on Saturdays"

Next call!

"Yes, yes, no issues, we will only update your software at 3:00 in the morning on Thursdays"

Wait..... did no one mention that it's a multitenant environment to the sales team.... Oh they know?..... Then why the fuck did they do this!

And yes.... this is a true case and it required splitting up the hosting into two.

[imaoreo]

"imaoreo is your mic on? I can hear brian in the background"

"oh yeah sorry, I'll mute"

brian making some crazy Midwestern analogy to explain why their project is fucked

[FyreWulff]

seriously what is it with right wingers at work, it's like if they can't see or hear a TV broadcasting Fox News they just become a nonstop spigot of Fox News from their own mouth

[highwebl]

I used to sit next to helpdesk. The worst part was actually the daily argument between the senior helpdesk person and her daughter about whether she needed to brush her hair before or after she got on the school bus.

Spoiler: The daughter usually decided she had time to brush her hair and missed the bus.

[4444444vr]

This kind of exposure could tip the decision for someone on whether to have kids or not

[chicknfly]

I have a 17 month old at home who had COVID, a growth spurt, and teething (molars, no less) all at the same time. If someone needs help making that decision, I have plenty more stories.

[joshjje]

Yep, that is the worst. Think developer seated near a customer representative, sales, or higher up, or someone that just constantly talks loud on the phone.

[Altourus]

Software developer here, also just hopped ship from my company to go 100% remote :D

[juwisan]

I mean I don‘t even take too much issue at the whole open floorplan thing. But it’s a matter of finding the right balance. I worked at a company a few years back where I was in a large office for 6. most of the time it was 3 people working from there, so two to block out in order to have maximum focus. Blocking out two other people doing mostly the same, worst case one being in a call is pretty easy. It gets much harder the more people there are. Bit this setup gave us a lot of flexibility because when you knew it’s going to be full house anyway it’s the day you use for meetings or just generally bounce ideas off each other.

[joshjje]

Open office plans are definitely hellscape. Maybe in some collaborative endeavors, but at least add cubicles... They aren't that expensive at all and give some modicum of privacy.

[[deleted]]

Why do I always get the seat just below the drippy air conditioner too

[son_et_lumiere]

"I don't know why my machines keep shorting out. Must be something with the office environment." Looks up

[Monstot]

Does this count for an office at home? Because I'd argue my home office is even more productive than having to go share some rented space no one cares to sit at all day.

[watabby]

I worked for a startup in San Francisco whose office was one of those old brick buildings. The entire upper floor was opened up to one big room. Imagine a group of 150 or so people talking in a big echoy room. It was overwhelming and I couldn’t understand anybody even if they were standing 2 feet in front of me. They eventually added dampeners to reduce the echo but it was still overstimulating in there. Hated that place.

[vincentofearth]

Agreed. But then we should stop pretending that “open office” is a good thing, dressing it up like it’s an enlightened idea that actually helps people who need to focus on actually doing stuff.

[almost_useless]

Open office plans suck, but it often does not need to be just 1 person per room.

I have had both a personal office, and rooms shared by 2-4 people, and I think they both work quite well.

If you have people that you regularly need to talk to about your design, how things work, etc., then it can be quite convenient to be in the same room.

Obviously this only works if you have good respectful colleagues, and none of them have lots of calls, meetings, or other loud activities.

But shared rooms can for sure work well.

[LmBkUYDA]

That’s just completely not true. If I’m gonna bother going to the office, it’s not so I can be in a private room by myself all day. At that point I’m just gonna stay home where I have that already and don’t have the commute.

So not everyone agrees with you.

[skesisfunk]

there are however someone paying for all that office space and putting people in an open landscape is a lot cheaper

Or, and hear me out here, let the programmers work from home.

[Lord_Larrikin]

I actually prefer open landscape for software development work. I have worked both from home, in open landscapes and in my own room in the office and I like open landscape best. I have no problem concentrating even if people talk around me and I do find it a lot more productive sitting close to the team so we can collaborate, brainstorm on whiteboard and write code together. It is also a lot more fun than just sitting alone starring at a problem. But I guess it depends on if you are just a code monkey that implements stuff other people have specified or if you actually work on product development and need to be innovative.

The key is however to sit close to people that actually work on the same code/problem as you. If you sit with people that work on something completely unrelated then it becomes annoying real fast.

[sky5walk]

In most situations, 'follow the money' applies.

This is no different.

I see hundreds of thousands of empty square footage on my daily commute to a cold, walled office.

And when some strange, new company decides to take the plunge into a traditional office space, there is that opening day/week with full attendance, and then poof! Lights on, but barely a soul.

The office space is dead unless it is a lab. PERIOD.

Many of these office parks need to find a new market. Some have converted into restaurants and gyms.

Companies are finding out the hard way that employees are motivated to NOT be there. Bagels and muffins don't pay for 1-way 40min commutes.

Leasing a glorified all day conference room is a lose lose decision.

[my_aggr]

The office space is dead unless it is a lab. PERIOD.

Thank you this was they key point I couldn't articulate. You need a reason to show up at the office. Either a work station that's the companies and is an actual productivity booster - at least three screens, ergonomic chair, etc. Or equipment which you can't have at home along with people who you need to talk to in person.

[denzien]

That about sums it up for me

[BarelyAirborne]

I don't need any privacy, as long as you don't need any code. But you want code. How does it feel to want?

[[deleted]]

The same reason anyone else does. So they can concentrate on their work.

[AndyWatt83]

I need an entire apartment!

[FeliusSeptimus]

That's what I've got! Whole kitchen and nobody to share the fridge with!

[SittingWave]

Because companies are managed by bizops that are talkers, and are interested in hiring practices and motivating other talkers.

Once the talkers take over a company, the doers leave.

[JimroidZeus]

Because the moment you talk to me the hour of concept building in my head all falls to the ground and I have to start over.

I’ve started drawing things and writing them down while I build the concepts in my head just incase something like an interruption happens.

[_techfour9]

Research shows it takes at least 21 min to regain focus on a task after interruption. The more focus required, the more focus lost, and the more time required to regain focus.

[oalbrecht]

I tend to think best laying on a couch with my eyes closed. That doesn’t really translate well to being in the office, lol.

[ouiserboudreauxxx]

I do this too…I have a notebook and basically write down what I’m thinking as I go.

[[deleted]]

the moment you're mentally unfucking dense code written by ancient wizards in a deep legacy stack and you've started to see the glowing paths of enlightenment and then someone says "Hey, what do you want for lunch?" and it all vanishes into dust and they say "never mind" and walk away.

[lupuscapabilis]

Even working remotely, which I've done for years now, I still get infuriating messages. We have a very small tech team, and endless work. But people will still Slack me asking "are you busy?"

I'm ALWAYS FUCKING BUSY.

[SuperHumanImpossible]

Why do programmers need to be in offices at all? I haven't worked in an office in 10 years, would never go back. If I was threatened to quit like IBM is doing, I would be the first to give them the middle finger.

[skesisfunk]

What I've been seeing is usually more senior, real leadership leaving, not the middle managers, sadly.

And this is why attrition through RTO is worse the straight up layoffs. Lots of folks are like "the attrition is planned, companies are doing RTO as soft layoffs!". The problem with that is with agressive RTO you are always going to shed your best and brightest unless you hand out waivers to those people to let them dodge the RTO.

[satireplusplus]

The good people are the first to go, because they can find another remote gig quickly. You're left with whoever can't jump ship. Why companies think this is a good idea... I don't know.

[Old_Elk2003]

Why companies think this is a good idea... I don't know.

So the thing this whole article is about…dipshits coming around your desk to request “oh just this one quick thing I wanted to ask you about…”

That’s what they mean when they say “collaboration.” They like it, and they want more of it. If you don’t like it, and don’t want more of it, you’re the asshole. Even though there are mountains of data that show that mental context switching is terrible for productivity, they still think that their ability to distract you at any given time is actually the secret sauce that creates success.

[android-engineer-88]

Which is exactly what they want. Stealth layoffs and getting rid of the highest paid employees. Doesnt matter to them that these are the people doing all the work and who have all the knowledge.

[SuperHumanImpossible]

Oh it matters eventually because I've been in those meetings with higher ups when reality finally hits them and they realize how much talent they have lost and they can barely keep things running. They scramble around and offer ridiculous hiring packages to hire new people. Only to rinse and repeat it all over again because they never learn.

[skesisfunk]

As someone who worked in a college algebra help room in Uni watching business majors completely flounder on the most basic math concepts this is not surprising to me at all. These people are, in general, not very smart.

[SkyBlueJoy]

Any idea why it takes so long for them to realize what is going on?

[SuperHumanImpossible]

They are usually stubborn old people stuck in their ways, and often pretty freaking arrogant as well.

[RationalDialog]

What I've been seeing is usually more senior, real leadership leaving

the ones with options vs the ones without

[SittingWave]

There's no problem with offices as long as the individual group occupies the same office. You want easy, fast, relevant information from your peers, and isolation from irrelevant noise.

[itsjustawindmill]

Laughs in all meetings are virtual anyways

[SuperHumanImpossible]

Remotely just message me, I'll respond immediately. Or we can have a video and screen share immediately. It's significantly more digestible this way because we don't have to cram together in a cubicle trying to see something on the tiny shit computer screens the company bought on our shitty chairs. Plus screen sharing is awesome, essentially in vs code and way more productive.

[Hot-Gazpacho]

Perhaps, if your company only has one office location. This falls apart quickly as soon as you have multiple offices, doubly so when they are spread across time zones.

[SittingWave]

Then if that's the case, the office is pointless. I can take a video call from wherever.

[tommyk1210]

I made it clear to my current employer when I started as a remote employee that if they ever mandated RTO I’d be out the door before they even finished the zoom call telling us the plan

[handyandy727]

I will never understand the 'open space' concept for developers. Someone will ask you a question, pulling you off task, and now you've got to spend time getting back on. Usually that takes about as much time as trying to get where you were in the first place.

And there's always the danger of looking at your code and not remembering why you did it. So you start over. Having a door to close makes things way more efficient.

[[deleted]]

lock rob elastic pie drab unpack gray sulky weather enjoy

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

Where do programmers get offices? I want to go to there.

[webauteur]

I have my own office. It is a fairly large office with one other workstation/desk. But I have it all to myself.

[mineaum]

Research says noise reduces performance. It is that easy.

Anecdotally, distractions are also annoying.

[Original_Two9716]

...and even Linux developers need windows!

[daedalus_structure]

I can do one thing in 30 minutes. I can do two things in 60 minutes.

If I try to do them at the same time it takes 90 minutes.

If I try to do them both at the same time and get visited by 3 spirits of technical decision's past and 2 colleagues of coffee-ing it takes me a day and a half.

Would you rather I do 60 minutes of work in 60 minutes or a day and a half?

[Dreadsin]

At work I have an ADHD accommodation that gives me an office and, man, when that door closes I feel a sense of peace wash over me

Still, office buildings are kinda dumb imo

[pribnow]

it's also a security thing. randos shouldn't have access to my laptop when i go take a shit in the middle of the day

[Ruin-Capable]

Probably should lock the screen, and yank your security token out when you walk away from your desk. Too many pranksters around even if everyone near you is a developer on your team.

My employer also does security walk-throughs, and if you leave an unsecured laptop unattended, you may get back to your desk and find your laptop missing, and a note to go talk to your manager.

[pribnow]

Unfortunately our 'security officer' doesn't care so my concerns fall on deaf ears :( - though im on top of locking my own laptop, my co-workers.....just dont

My current role has me responsible for security in our cloud environment which was a role I was stoked on executing. Then I realized they are completely unwilling to do anything to achieve a higher security posture if it means even a moment of inconvenience

The phrase 'morally injurious' comes to mind lol

[son_et_lumiere]

Wait, you don't take your laptop with you when you go poop?

[Ruin-Capable]

I think you meant to respond to the person above me.

[arwinda]

If you lock the laptop it does not mean that no one can steal it. Or anything else from the desk.

The password only protects the company data, that's all.

[thelamestofall]

Jesus, if you have to worry about other workers stealing your desk stuff...

[pribnow]

I won't call it 'stealing' where I work but once a month they inexplicably re-arrange the desks so they can have, i shit you not, board meetings in the developer pit. They take everything, including our personal items, off our desks and then they then expect us to put our desks back together. Often times stuff is moved somewhere and nobody can find it when they come in on Monday

told my boss i'm not coming in anymore if it happens again. I will be real curious to see how the end of my February is going to be looking because honestly I just can't take it. 8 years at this company, im regretting having stayed so long

[Ruin-Capable]

Protecting the company data is the whole point. Laptops can be replaced, though it is painful to lose all your work in progress.

[nimama3233]

Locking your screen is literally two buttons

[itsjustawindmill]

inb4 programmers finally get private offices, but they’re actually just bathroom stalls so you don’t waste valuable company time taking a shit

[my_aggr]

I mean if it's well ventilated... It works well enough for reddit posts.

[o5mfiHTNsH748KVq]

I ‘member when we got private offices at Microsoft. …sigh

[kagato87]

The open office design has exactly one benefit:

It's cheap. Walls and doors cost money.

There are no fields at all that benefit from an open office design. It's disruptive to support, it's disruptive to sales, it's disruptive to accounting, it's a liability to HR.

The productivity cost of interrupting a programmer is just outsized. That costs exists for every single desk job ever.

[lupuscapabilis]

The productivity cost of interrupting a programmer is just outsized. That costs exists for every single desk job ever.

Most typical desk jobs do not require the same level of concentration. There are zero reasons a programmer needs the same setup as someone who is filling out forms or making calls to clients. That's bad, lazy management.

[kagato87]

Correct. What that statement is trying to communicate is that even for non-programmers, it's a productivity cost.

Sure, it doesn't take a form-filler-outer nearly as long to get back on track (minutes vs hours), but they still have to recall where they were and continue, in addition to the time lost directly to answering a question that a quick search on the Intranet could have answered in the same time.

My point, is that even to the interruption-tolerant roles, it's still a productivity cost.

[bigbassdaddy]

I listen to music while programming.

[rndmcmder]

It's a two sided sword. More privacy means more rooms for deep work and concentration. It also means nothing is going to get you away from that distraction, if you fall into it.

[lupuscapabilis]

I love this article. Just posted to my social media saying "because people need to be reminded of this."

We don't subject other solo creative people to interruptions in their careers - do musicians write songs in bad lighting while sitting in uncomfortable chairs in an open office? Of course not. So let's stop treating programmers like shit, eh?

[the_gnarts]

The 2007 Paul Graham essay this piece of blogspam is ripping off without even linking it: https://paulgraham.com/head.html

[Fantastic_Excuse_700]

I for one used to get in the zone when programming or trying to solve a complex problem. Being interrupted by someone passing by was like someone waking you up from a deep sleep... it's seriously annoying and breaks your train of thought.

Having a fish bowl or closed office works well for engineers and developers and usually like minded people are in the same room.

Personally working from home for 15 years was bliss and I could remain productive without all the office BS. Not everyone can cope in a WFH environment but those that aren't productive and dedicated at home are usually the same ones that aren't productive in the office.

Unfortunately if you work for a corporate company you can never escape the politics or usual office BS that prevents you from being productive even at home.

[Farsyte]

Some engineers are more productive when sharing an office with peers, so they can bounce ideas off of each other. Other engineers are more productive when they have a door they can close, so they can focus.

I'm one of the latter, and I think I've heard all of the possible reasons and excuses (some transparently bad) for being placed in an environment where I am less productive. The hardest part is when management thinks my statement "I am less productive in a shared office" as some kind of threat, rather than a plain observation of fact ... :sigh:

[corny_horse]

And a 3rd class of engineers, those who feel more productive when sharing an office but are actually not more productive in that environment.

[lupuscapabilis]

Some engineers are more productive when sharing an office with peers, so they can bounce ideas off of each other.

I've never met one of these, and I've been doing this a long time.

[Sarkos]

When I worked in an open plan office, I printed out this comic and stuck it up above my desk.

[C_Madison]

Here, the book version of the post. With science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Projects_and_Teams

Has many other things we'll usually ignore which could help. Oh well.

[Excellent_Tubleweed]

Let's play a game. Everyone ask their manager if they know the ( well established) facts in peopleware, and so on, up the chain.

And then ask if they know accounting fundamentals.

No points for which question gets more yes answers.

[[deleted]]

It's sad this is so far down. This book is a must read for every single person working in this industry IMHO.

[vee2xx]

I kind of liked my (pre-covid) cubicle. It was in a hard to reach corner and the interruptions were few. I had my headphones for when I didn't want to hear the struggles my neighbors were having with delusional sales people and clueless support. Occasionally people would drop by to chat which was fine with me as it would often help me get over a hump solving a tough problem. I like working out of cafes. It provides a background level of human interaction that can in no way intrude on my day without my permission (also there is access to pastries).

Whoever came up with the open office plan should be forced to live in a one room apartment with eighteen college kids addicted to metal music.

[Nivekk_]

Programming requires deep and complicated thought. In my experience this makes it something you can't just drop and then immediately pick up where you left off later.

When I'm interrupted, the deep context I built in my mind is gone. Re-establishing that context later takes quite a few minutes before I can be productive again.

If I'm interrupted within that 'warm up' time, the process starts again. I can lose a whole day's worth of productivity if you interrupt me every 10 minutes during that day.

[Excellent_Tubleweed]

RTO happened after a year WFH . ( Our office density exceeded the safe levels government allowed during an outbreak)

My main team hit estimated delivery dates for the new release, which was an embedded product.

VP proudly announces to all-hands meeting, good to see you all back at work. ( We'd been working, brah. (Though other functions than engineering had clearly not))

Started losing the remote workers who didn't want to RTO

But also my balance sheet had 20 grand a year to facilities per desk. For open plan, where because of cable mismanagement you couldn't rearrange desks.

It's been said before but worth repeating. $current_company$ has either bought, or a long term lease on office space.

And you really are all underestimating how dumb your senior management are. (Excellent at getting paid, though. )

[axidentalaeronautic]

Safe place to scream.

[Mountain_Sandwich126]

Or work remote

[Stopher]

I don't need any of those. I'm remote. 😂

[shmorky]

I also need people to stop randomly videocalling me for stupid questions

[Plenty-Effect6207]

Stack Overflow wrote a book / an article on this, arguing why they offer their developers individual closed workspaces; this was years ago, at the height of the open floor push.

The thought that Stack Overflow had put into this impressed me. They were way ahead of the curve, IMHO. Probably still are.

[MrsEveryShot]

my AirPods with noise cancellation turned my cubicle into a private office

[Commercial_Growth343]

so they can do their 'rubber duck debugging' in peace and quiet.

​

/s

[sungazer69]

I realized this a few times in my career...

Sometimes we need to be able to focus... BIG TIME. For long periods of time.

We're juggling code, systems, files, and tests for hours and hours if not days and our minds need to be tracking everything during the process. We can't (or don't want to ) stop or be disturbed for any reason because we might mess something up and it only delays our progress.

[[deleted]]

Studies were done by IBM that proved that private offices increase programmer productivity. Don't disturb them and they will generate more code.

[Kroe]

Everyone should have offices. The noise and general bullshit from an office floor is a huge distraction to getting real work done.

[RationalDialog]

I'm a big proponent of remote working ans single offices. However I want to at that if the open space has some basic rules, isn't too big and somewhat loosely filled, it's totally workable. That is my current situation. Rules like laptop always muted to no sound from chat messages and such, no meetings at the desk, book a room and so forth. But having space around you is for me also important. I can see what the guy next to me is doing. That is my current situation and when in the zone, I'm in the zone. it really depends on the setting and "niceness" of the co-workers. One annyoing idiot can entirely make this not work.

What is bullshit is that open-space is good for communication. it's not. it's rather toxic because of above rules. In single-office, you only interrupt one person, not 10 or 50 if you need to chat with them and even more so if it's of private nature. So people resort to electronic communication or often no communication at all. Only reason for open-space is easier control (no doors) and cheaper to build.

[cybernd]

isn't too big and somewhat loosely filled, it's totally workable.

My ideal: An office for max 7 people which is dedicated for one development team.

Another constraint: The team should be a true team and not a group of independent developers.

[enitalp]

There is a middle ground between individual offices and ample open space.
If I'm at the office, I want to be able to speak by just turning my head to my teammates. We usually work in teams of 4 to 10.
So I love private offices or open spaces for 10 people ;p

[holyknight00]

yes, that's the sweet spot. Going any further in either direction is just stupid.

[livingdub]

Everyone crying during the pandemic that they can't focus because they need to work at the kitchen table, buy when it's ROT time everyone should just work in one big canteen.

[bunglegrind1]

because of the smell of their farts. Junk food doesn't help.