Scary New Office

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, the company I work for just moved its corporate headquarters across town. In keeping with the company’s declared need to be “radical,” they made some, um, interesting choices in designing the new office.

They got rid of cubes. Instead of cubes, everyone below VP level gets two small desk-like things (one of which is more of a fully-adjustable computer workstation), a rolling two-drawer file, and two towers with adjustable shelves. There are no walls between the office spaces, so when I look up from my monitor, I’m facing three other people who share my local area. From where I sit, and I do mean while I’m sitting, I can see desks all of the way across the enormous warehouse of a building.

Without walls, you can imagine how noisy it gets. Well, the solution for that is to pump in white noise to drown out all the chatter. On top of that they played pop music (U2, Mariah, Dire Straits, the Beatles, etc.) all day long over a pretty darn good quality PA system. Oh, they stopped the music to have a little pep rally over the PA system where the CEO welcomed us to the new building and told us how the new radical office would enable us to work in radical ways. Radical.

Of course, the new office location is well away from any variety of lunch spots. The building will have a cafeteria, but it won’t be open for a couple of weeks yet. Oh, and there is a rule against hot food at our desks, so I guess it’s eat out all the time until the cafeteria opens. There also is no filtered or bottled water, so all we got is tap. There were also no cups to be had in the building, but a trip to Carl’s Jr. fixed that for me.

There are a number of rules that were provided us in a little fold-out flyer that was left on each of our desks. One of the rules is against re-arranging our furniture, which I broke before even reading the flyer. Another rule is against complaining. We may offer suggestions, but complaining is right out.

I’m seriously wondering just how effective I can be in this situation. It really is not conducive to concentrating on my work. There is nothing but constant distraction from people moving around, music playing, and other noise. I’ll give it a try (it’s better than the rumors had it out to be), but it certainly is not endearing me to the company. I had already begun a job search, ad this is doing nothing to forstall it.

Anyone else have unusual office situations? Share!

-JOhn.

2

Oh, no! The dreaded open office plan! My company uses this, and it is truly a nightmare for me. Not only can everyone see everything I’m doing, which makes me nervous even though I’m not doing anything wrong, but I can hear everyone else’s conversations and they can hear mine. This means that 1) I feel constrained from making any personal calls at work, even the benign “Honey, I’m going to be home in about an hour so maybe you want to put dinner on” sort, and 2) nobody ever talks to each other. There is no workplace camaraderie. Nobody EVER TALKS. Because you don’t want everyone else to overhear your conversation. It sucks so much.

I recently got transferred to a new building (my company is sort of renting me out to another company, long story) and I have my very own office now. I am so much more productive, it is ridiculous. The open office plan is just awful. I feel for you. Truly, I do.

3

Boy, I pity you. This is surely a form of workplace terror. Psychological brutality that feeds on the most fundamental tenet of working, ingrained in everyone who’s ever been employed: Always Look Busy. Now with nowhere to hide, you are open for scrutiny every minute you’re at work.

Man, that would suck. In my own office I’m not particularly shielded, but at least I have a door that the boss must open before he sees me. And that half-second it takes for him to open the door is plenty of time for me to put my pen to the paper, or grab the calculator or anything else besides staring at the wall. [sub](which I do sometimes)[/sub]

4

We don’t get bottled water either but the open floor plan sucks. My wife worked at a brokerage for a bit with an open floor plan. The ringing phones drove her up the wall. (She made the news letter)

I would bring a bech ball and start batting it around like befor a concert.

5

I’m curious about this part. What could the rumors possibly have said that would make that look good by comparison? The image that pops to mind is of fat slave driver guys in leather wandering around cracking bullwhips, and one of them beating on a tympani drum to keep everyone in rhythm.

6

Imagine the rubber band fights, though.

Oh, yes, it could be worse. It sounds like their desks are arranged in clusters, rather than rows. At least with the desks in clusters you have the chance of developing a microcommunity–just pretend it’s a cop show or something, and you can be friends with the people in your group. If you were all in rows, it’d be like a really strict grade school, only with telephones.

7

Open plan offices… oh, yes. Nobody at my cheapskate outfit is going to splash out on cubicle walls; my crazed Australian boss can actually see me typing this. (It’s OK, he’s too hopped up on adrenaline for things to register, it’s hard enough for me to get his attention when I actually need it.)

At least I’m no longer under the Antarctic blast of the air conditioning. Actually, air conditioning is a thing of the past, we’ve moved out of the building that had it - back to the original company HQ, a converted slaughterhouse next to a pig farm, described by our MD as “the spiritual home of our company”.

Hey, it could be worse. At least it’s a converted slaughterhouse…

8

We have an open office, but it’s a big office and there’s only two of us now. We’re going to move in a refrigerator and stereo to kill some of the open spaces.

There is a large, flat table complex that informally separates our work areas, but serves no useful purpose other than to lay our coffee cups or lunch on. We have adapted it into a tasteful paper football stadium complete with makeshift goalposts for field goals and PATs.

9

I think the open or shared office works when numbers are small. We have three people working out of a 15 X 30 room and manage to get things done.

I’m fortunate that I once I get focused on doing something I can tune out all the background distractions and I have a co-worker who just has to answer every phone call so that doesn’t bug me either.

I don’t know if I could work in a space with any more people than this. I’m not that sociable.

10

I’ve looked everywhere for a cite and can’t find it yet…but I swear I read an article in a social psych journal that said that the fact that you’re constantly being watched in an open office leads to very high levels of stress.

I think the title contained the words “visual monitoring,” if anybody out there has access to PsychInfo…

11

I note the people who make the decisions - the VPs - are the ones with walls, so they’ll never appreciate/understand/experience this small, living Hell (of course). :rolleyes:

Esprix

12

Some of the rumors included:

  • The “white noise” generaters sounded like heavy rain on a tin roof
  • Rumers stated that there would be no lockable storage for files. This is especially problematic for those of us who manage other people. Thankfully, while not abundant, there is sufficent lockable file storage space.
  • I heard that I was going to be sitting at the end of the building (true) and that the only access to the building was going to be via the lobby, on the far end of the building.
  • Rumor also had it that there would be no dining facility. There is very little in the way of food available in the local area. Unfortunately, this one is half true. There is a cafeteria (no idea what it will serve), but it won’t be open until two or three weeks from now.

Finally, the fact that the office furniture they got was high quality makes up for the lack of it to a certain degree.

Fun, fun.

-JOhn.

13

And how’s the inter-office method of communication [sub]cough cough talking in the non-existent hallways cough cough[/sub] going for you?

Esprix

14

I found a site that talks about stress at work, and work setting is one of the top stressors (along with feelings of powerlessness and lack of a clear job description). So, I would say you’re right to be uneasy about this new setting. It sure doesn’t sound very human-friendly.

15

My god. I thought for a minute you worked for my company. Then I was sure Steve Wright did. I have an Australian boss and Antarctic air conditioning too. We have thigh-high “petting zoo” style cubicles. I hate hate hate it. I am easily visually distracted, so this style of cube is possibly the worst environment I could be in. Our only “white noise” come from an incredibly inefficient air conditions system. My co-workers have to raise their voices to talk over it, and they all leave their cell phones in their desk drawers all day where they echo and rattle against the metal liked chained beasts. I hate them. We’re in the middle of restaurant nowhere, so they bring in lunch every day. It would be a perk, except it means we NEVER LEAVE THE OFFICE. No fresh air or sunshine for you. No privacy to discuss what to do with “Bob” who is a moron. No place to complain about management.
I have 67 days left until I am fully vested and can leave this horrible, stressful, hateful place.

16

Great site featherlou…I just emailed the sight to my boss. I am kinda hoping to get the job description I have been waiting for for almost two years now! :rolleyes

Maybe I shouldn’t complain… I have a corner office, with two huge, excellent for growing plants, windows. I don’t have to share my space…just my candy jar.