for workers in "open" floorplans: do any of you not hate it?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Sometimes the age/design of the office building is a factor too. When I worked at a large satellite TV provider, a lot of the office space that we had was broken up into offices that couldn’t really be occupied by more than two people at once. Historically, we’d been an aeronautics/electronics company and I think there was some crossover in concept from academic settings, where faculty and researches often have private offices, albeit very small ones for juniors staff. Unless you were on the rungs of management, you usually got either your own interior office or else you shared a window office with another person.

In any event, I can’t imagine that any sensible employer is going to cut up existing walls. Or do they actually do this?

[Aside]
A few times I was on the floor where all the top execs of the electronics company had once worked, mostly private window offices, each one with an admin assistant station in front. Once I picked up a sticky note pad of the type where you pull off the top sheet and stick it on a file or letter to tell somebody what to do with it. In addition to a space where you could write out a few lines of verbal instructions, there were a dozen or more checkboxes for choices like,

[ul]
[li] Come see me[/li][li] Reply[/li][li] Respond, showing me your response first[/li][li] Respond, showing me your response after[/li][li] File[/li][li] Set up meeting…[/li][/ul]

There were many, many more options. I wish I could find an image of this thing to link to, because it was really quite fascinating that these options had to spelled out on the slip.

[/Aside]

62

[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus;18841603 there were a dozen or more checkboxes for choices like,

[ul]

[li] Come see me[/li][li] Reply[/li][li] Respond, showing me your response first[/li][li] Respond, showing me your response after[/li][li] File[/li][li] Set up meeting…[/li][/ul]

There were many, many more options. I wish I could find an image of this thing to link to, because it was really quite fascinating that these options had to spelled out on the slip.

[/Aside]
[/QUOTE]

This used to be pretty common, a generation or two ago. (think of Mad Men tv show.)
The form usually had a title something like “while you were out:”

I don’t think there were dozens of options, but there were 4 or 5 lines saying thngs like:
“called at” (fill in the blank with the time)
“requests a meeting”
“returned your call”

The idea , I assume, was not that so many options “had to be spelled out”. It’s just easier to make a check mark in the box than to write out a message .
[/end of hijack]

63

First time in my life, I have an office with a door. I have always had an open area. I love my office. I hope I don’t have to lose it.

64

Same reason why my government’s yearly polls re. my one-person company ask about interdepartmental collaboration (instantaneous, bubba) or why back when I worked in a factory we once got a letter from Corporate HR saying that we all needed to hire more African-Americans and women (were the South Africans ok, being African-African? Was it wrong for Han Chinese to be almost 100% of our Shangai factory workers? We shall never know). It is appropriate someplace else, therefore it must be fine here, right? Right?

Uh, no… not right at all. Things that work in the US do not work in France (and the howling of the worker’s reps before it’s even implemented is likely to be a hint), things that work in India don’t go down so well in Canada. But a lot of those management decisions are done by people who think workers are some sort of little beads: perfectly identical except for their color. Cubicles go down like lead bricks in most of Europe, but a lot of US people like them. Remote works fine if people are any good at communicating (I love being able to play whatever music I fancy without headphones… do you guys think Dresden Dolls would be appropriate for my office?), not so good if their best skill is hiding from those they’re supposed to collaborate with.

65

Thread TL/DR.

2 years ago my company went from large cubicles with high cubicle walls (5’ 6" high) to an open floor plan. For project teams and development teams it can facilitate collaboration, and people can overhear conversations and chime in as necessary. Workers must be respectful and courteous, and watch their voice loudness. Personal phone calls should be at a very soft volume, or take it to a small focus room.

I sit in an area that houses 14 employees and you quickly pick up peoples’ quirks and tics. One gal constantly clears her throat like she’s getting ready to hawk up a loogie to spit it like Jack Dawson showed Rose in that movie scene on the deck of the Titanic, but of course this gal doesn’t spit out the loogie. So when her hawking stops, silence follows and you’re thinking to yourself, shit, she’s swallowing that shit - that’s a little gross. Look, on a sports team in the club house, or in the Marine Corps when we’re in the field, if someone did that it wouldn’t be so bad, but in a white collar environment it is out of place. Uncouth.

And then there’s this prima donna of a guy who sits in the same area. He and I sit back-to-back, about 6 feet apart. Close proximity. His voice is naturally loud; he has to process information verbally, talking to the air like when reading his emails; and he thinks the world revolves around him so that whatever he’s working on at that very moment is the most important issue facing the company, so naturally everyone should be interested in what he is doing, shouldn’t they? He talks out loud to nobody in particular. A self-centered princess of a guy, a true work of art. One especially bad aspect of his behavior is that halfway through talking aloud to himself he’d expect that I was (1) interested in what he was babbling on about, and (2) that I would be listening and following along - he’d finish his babbling out loud with a (to me), “Isn’t that right, Billy Joe Jim Bob?” (Remember, he and I sit back-to-back, 6’ apart) I just want to slap the guy silly.

Open floorplans can be a fucking pain in the ass (yeah I’m a little angry) and neighbors must be courteous.

When I really need to focus, sometimes I’d go to a focus room. Or if I stayed at my desk I always keep two things handy: a pair of in-the-ear earplugs, either the rubber or the foam insert kind, and also a pair of shooting headset over-the-ears hearing protectors, the passive kind like these: Amazon.com.

The latter may look a little dorky, especially in my white collar software development setting, but it is effective. And it is like my own personal and visible DO NOT DISTURB sign. If someone really needs to talk to me they can tap my shoulder or stand where I can easily see them. Sometimes there are loud multi-people discussions happening close by - these can be super annoying. At such times I can use both the ear plugs and the headset together. A

Sorry for the long-ish post! Speaking of TL/DR…