"It's official: Open-Plan Offices Are Now the Dumbest Management Fad of All Time"

afterburnt

mhardy6647 wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

@mhardy6647 I don't know bullethead but I think I like him.

most of his interesting content at AA gets deleted after a day or so...

Must be a good dude

steveinaz

Funny part is, being down in the warehouse my office is bigger than the Commanding Generals office. hehe. Take that, elites!

verb

lightman1 wrote: »

I drive my office around....

I actually do a lot of work in the car. I have to travel a lot, mostly around town to visit suppliers, etc., even on campus. With wifi in the car, I can do a lot of work (not driving of course) like video conferencing, VPN into the work network, etc.

And working from home is becoming more and more common. On Friday's the Mrs and I try to work from home.

The world's a changing, for sure.

mhardy6647

verb wrote: »

lightman1 wrote: »

I drive my office around....

I actually do a lot of work in the car. I have to travel a lot, mostly around town to visit suppliers, etc., even on campus. With wifi in the car, I can do a lot of work (not driving of course) like video conferencing, VPN into the work network, etc.

And working from home is becoming more and more common. On Friday's the Mrs and I try to work from home.

The world's a changing, for sure.

Our son-in-law, a public defender, does a fair amount of work out of his vehicle, too (e.g., he spends a fair amount of time en route to and at the county jail )... I got him one of these in an attempt to improve his mobile office.

https://www.duluthtrading.com/cab-commander-2.0-36204.html?dwvar_36204_color=DEV#q=cab+commander&lang=default&start=2

kevhed72

So I have a cubicle, next to a guy in another cube who is never there. There is a third cube empty from when a peer was never replaced. I think the other remaining guy may retire. If that happens, I am bringing in my tools to work and creating the company's largest cubicle. The cube walls will also be expanded up to the ceiling and Im taking over the entire wall of windows. This way....I will never have to interact or acknowledge anyone in the facility!
With this much space...I think a proper 2 channel system will be in order!

afterburnt

mhardy6647 wrote: »

verb wrote: »

lightman1 wrote: »

I drive my office around....

I actually do a lot of work in the car. I have to travel a lot, mostly around town to visit suppliers, etc., even on campus. With wifi in the car, I can do a lot of work (not driving of course) like video conferencing, VPN into the work network, etc.

And working from home is becoming more and more common. On Friday's the Mrs and I try to work from home.

The world's a changing, for sure.

Our son-in-law, a public defender, does a fair amount of work out of his vehicle, too (e.g., he spends a fair amount of time en route to and at the county jail )... I got him one of these in an attempt to improve his mobile office.

https://www.duluthtrading.com/cab-commander-2.0-36204.html?dwvar_36204_color=DEV#q=cab+commander&lang=default&start=2

What's the "Crud Buster" stuff, I think I need it?

mhardy6647

https://www.duluthtrading.com/crud-buster-waterless-wipes-000102529.html

Who ya gonna call?

verb

One of the interesting things about an open floor plan is the general awareness of being disruptive to others around you.

The dorito crunching, soup slurping, loud talking on the phone, other obnoxious behavior, is exposed for all to see. No longer can you hide behind the cubicle walls, and think that nobody notices.

I had a guy on the other side of my cube who would always have phone conversations on speakerphone. Even it was just him! I actually talked to him several times, got an apology, things would settle down for a bit, but then start up again.

In an open floor plan, that type of behavior is exposed, and literally not acceptable.

I've seen newbies to an open floor plan get tapped on the shoulder, and pointed toward the conference room or phone zone, if they were thought to be too loud.

BlueFox

I bet an MBA came up with the open floor plan layout. How would you like to have dbryant next to you? LOL

verb

Everyone wants to be like Google.

tonyb

GlennDog wrote: »

mhardy6647 wrote: »

The only irony is that it took someone's hard-won grant money to determine this.

The once wide spread common sense is nowadays rare as a unicorn

Indeed....almost at tragic levels too.

I think this open floor plan idea was so that the supervisors could keep an eye on everyone. Now, they want to eliminate desks as we know them for those stand up models. Can't have you getting fat sitting down all day ya know, healthcare costs money, loss of productivity, time off.

In this respect, I think the Europeans kick our rear ends. They offer up shorter work weeks and give out vacation time like candy. Keeps them from going postal I guess. What do we offer ? Long hours, Bud light and bad weed, fast food and terrible coffee ?

mhardy6647

I think that implementation cost (which is next to nothing -- an empty space and some tables and chairs; heck nowadays "they" don't even need ethernet drops!) is the primary driver, with visibility to management being secondary.

steveinaz

Believe it or not, when I was in 4th grade (1971'ish?) I went to a brand new "Open concept" school--public school system mind you. It was called Granemann elementary. It was kind of stupid. All carpet, no chairs, no desks, it was suppose to make you feel more like you were at home. We had 2 large "pods." The first pod was 1st thru 3rd graders. Think LARGE circle type affair, no walls between classes. Pod 2 was 4th thru 6th graders. Since you didn't have a desk, there was this large roll-around, and each student had a drawer with their name on it.

I found it uncomfortable. I didn't like trying to write in my lap. After 1 year of that place, I was ready for a conventional school.

afterburnt

@steveinaz they did that in my school they knocked down the walls between the classrooms. Evidently, they thought that the kids weren't getting dumb enough in the conventional classrooms.

mhardy6647

steveinaz wrote: »

Believe it or not, when I was in 4th grade (1971'ish?) I went to a brand new "Open concept" school--public school system mind you. It was called Granemann elementary. It was kind of stupid. All carpet, no chairs, no desks, it was suppose to make you feel more like you were at home. We had 2 large "pods." The first pod was 1st thru 3rd graders. Think LARGE circle type affair, no walls between classes. Pod 2 was 4th thru 6th graders. Since you didn't have a desk, there was this large roll-around, and each student had a drawer with their name on it.

I found it uncomfortable. I didn't like trying to write in my lap. After 1 year of that place, I was ready for a conventional school.

I remember thjose -- they were all the rage in MD in the very late 1960s in the public schools.
I, fortunately (from my perspective, and given my personality), managed to avoid them, having gone to private school (not snooty private schools, but private nonetheless).

motorstereo

In the early 60's I lived in a very small town where the entire 5th and 6th grades were in one room and both taught by the same teacher. One particularly gifted young girl in the 5th grade like me was able to listen, learn and even take the 6th grade tests so she was able to skip the 6th grade the next year. So there are some advantages to the open plan to.

steveinaz

I was fortunate that we moved after my 4th grade, and my next school was a traditional set-up.

motorstereo

In my case it was opposite. I came from a traditional 4th grade class where there were many classes and many teachers. Strangely enough I did much better in the open 5th and 6th grade classroom when we moved.

sucks2beme

I saw one of my customers in Austin went to the extreme. Long work surfaces
(double sided) with a 8" frosted glass between you and the guy across.
You had just enough room for your laptop and elbows. Short frosted glass 6"
dividers to your left and right. No assigned seating- just plop down and log
into your phone. Not even a drawer.
Right now I'm in short wall cubes, two to an office. I'm normally out and
about half of each day to different sites across the city.
I couldn't take being there all day every day. Packing people in there is
now the norm. I miss my home office. That and that very short 20 step commute.

tonyb

One of the good things about technology, is that it allows many different professions to work from home now. Cuts down on expensive office space, employees save money and are happier too.

codycatalist

My job had the open space plan. I don't mind it much, I just put on headphones and get to work. I tried the work from home dealio but I can't stay on task and am less efficient.

It can be distracting when people are loud while trying to do some database management but I just turn up the tunes.

maximillian

Next step after this open floor plan with no desks assigned. That can make the floor space even tighter. Seen this in Japan. Come in and choose a desk for the day. Neighbors are almost in arms reach and you need to be super quiet for it to work. Then there's huddle rooms for meetings and phone calls. Yuk.

I have seen an open floor plan that wasn't so bad...in Germany. Long corridor about 40 feet wide. Desks were on each side with a big walkway in the middle. People could then introduce cabinets, plants, other furniture to make makeshift walls. Since people were spaces far apart the noise was minimal. And draconian managers could still see most people at a glance.

steveinaz

codycatalist wrote: »

My job had the open space plan. I don't mind it much, I just put on headphones and get to work.

Headphones mess up my awesome hair.

rooftop59

If I can work on a plane, in a coffee shop, or at a bar, I could work in an open office. The rest of you are just lazy old farts 🤣

Jstas

rooftop59 wrote: »

If I can work on a plane, in a coffee shop, or at a bar, I could work in an open office. The rest of you are just lazy old farts 🤣

You must not work in IT where everyone walks up to your desk and pesters you to try and circumvent the helpdesk system.

You're probably one of those people who does that.

rooftop59

Jstas wrote: »

rooftop59 wrote: »

If I can work on a plane, in a coffee shop, or at a bar, I could work in an open office. The rest of you are just lazy old farts 🤣

You must not work in IT where everyone walks up to your desk and pesters you to try and circumvent the helpdesk system.

You're probably one of those people who does that.

I’m not an idiot. I solve my own IT problems.

verb

maximillian wrote: »

Next step after this open floor plan with no desks assigned.

In fact, that is our new footprint. No assigned desks, meaning no personal items to remain after the day is over.

Wait there's more. They only allocated 80% of desk space, with the assumption that on any given day the remainder of folks will be travelling, out of the office, etc.

Hold's true for me, with my job, cause I travel alot, but it'll be interesting to see how it works out.

rpf65

Sounds like the first hour will be spent personalizing the unassaigned space, and the last hour packing up personal items. Efficiency is becoming a foreign concept.