So you’ll find me whining every once in awhile on the “say it here…” thread. Our office moved from a nice space with private offices to a “temporary” office space with mostly cubicles - 6 years ago. UGH. Who ever thought that cubes were a good idea?!
you can hear your office mates talk - personal and otherwise.
vice versa
-you can hear your office mates eat - my own “nails on a chalkboard” but I have had to leave my cube SO MANY times for a 5-10 minute walk because one office mate brings rocks or something (probably carrots) to chew on each day!
everyone feels the need/want/desire to stop by and chat - so easily for them - so annoyingly for you!!!
or people are not talking to you but a group is “water cooler talking” at another cube - so you get to hear them all anyway!
messy offices - need I say more??!
conference calls - it’s a disaster to try to talk on one or host one! I now leave my cube to host these in another area. Not convenient but necessary.
Who else is suffering? Who should we blame!!! Who thought this was a good idea???
We recently moved offices and my biggest fear was that we would end up with an " open office " plan. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but I miss the long ago days when all of the professional staff ( i.e. Me) had private offices.
D’s architect BF is in a research group evaluating whether they are going to be in the future…
Personally, I could not have survived a cubicle or even a shared office. I actually wonder if one reason I picked my
career was the privacy (therapist). I did “share” offices and often did not have my own office and floated but I was always alone in the office of the day.
We have old school cubicle walls where I work. The ones that are like 9 feet high, and thick enough to stop an anti-tank missile. They enclose your space almost entirely and block out a lot of noise… for cubicles they are pretty awesome.
Cubicles sound awful, but I think an open office would make me nuts. I couldn’t stand the idea of no privacy, ever. My S works in one, though, and he says it doesn’t bother him at all.
We are moving to open office in October - now have private office but come October will be in renovated ballroom in an old building - high ceilings - low partitions separating departments, otherwise sitting next to one another at long tables. Sounds utterly horrible. Work for a nonprofit and some of my colleagues are really young and very social - they will love it, but those of us who spend most of our days reading documents, on conference calls or drafting reports are really dreading it….
yes, one big open room - even the kitchen area - my boss is like 15 years younger than me and thinks it’ll be great. He was going to be in the open area as well but we all convinced him it would be ridiculous, so he and two other people get private offices.
There will be small “telephone” rooms where we can go make private calls- a large enclosed conference room, and an enclosed “lounge”. I tried to get the kitchen at least moved to the lounge area so it wouldn’t be smack dab in the middle of our work area but no dice.
Sigh. I can’t listen to music while working but may need to wear the headphones just to keep the sound out. Tho I wonder if that’ll mean I won’t hear my phone ring??
We have an open plan, which they extol as “allowing for collaboration”, that it promotes better interactions between groups, all the jazz they give you. The real reason for cube farms and open offices has nothing to do with productivity, the book “peopleware” a long time ago said there was no research to back that, and since then (that was prob 20 years ago or more), other studies have shown that isn’t true. Peopleware said that the best setup was a team in an office together, where they could work together but also have time where they could shut the door and not get distracted.
The cubes and the open floor plan’s biggest proponents, besides the obvious one (open floor plans pack more people into a given space, at our new building they originally had the rows only about 4 feel apart, which would have been horrible, they ended up with 6’), is that the people who make the cubes and desk setups were the primary people claiming they enhance productivity and the like. It doesn’t bother me all that much, the biggest problem is the open floor plan spaces have too little places where you can meet privately or make a private phone call if you have something sensitive to talk about (work or personal, doesn’t matter), open floor plans are supposed to have a lot of meeting places, but IME they never have enough.
I will cling to my private office with a window and a door with every fiber in my being!
My cousin works in an open concept office and hates it. Noisy - no privacy - colds spead like wildfire. She even described a loud bell that is rung when a large deal is booked! I thought that was absurd - and then I saw the movie The Intern - with the bell ringing! I don’t know how anyone could focus in such an atmosphere.
Now I work all alone and I miss the days of an open office. As an architect some chatting along with the drawing was generally okay. I didn’t interact with clients that much so privacy wasn’t a big deal. In my first office job there were two architects and two draftsmen and we were all in one room. Next one I think there were 12 to 15 of us in all. The bosses had their own rooms and we all had big drawing desks in one big attic room. Later we moved to something set up like an apartment I shared with two other people. The third place I was the only draftsman for a long time, but eventually two more joined me. I never had to listen to people eat because we always ate in a kitchenette/lounge. Usually the whole office at the same time. In Germany we often went out to local restaurants together.
I usually work in our home office that overlooks woods and a field. Last year, though, I took a short-term assignment at an engineering company in downtown Portland. Oh, my gosh, just shoot me! The cubicle walls were high!! I could see over them, since I’m tall, but a woman of average height would just see gray walls all day. I was really happy when they didn’t have any more work for me.
Yes of course ear buds but they don’t drown out all sound - nor do I want to have that absolute noise-cancelling! - yes, you’ve got to be able to hear your phone ring! Can’t use earbuds when you’re on a call either - but you can still hear all the noise around you!
Whomever said they insisted the boss get their own office–why?!? That’s the whole problem with these arrangements–the people who typically make the decision to switch to a cubicle or open office plan don’t actually have to suffer the consequences. They’re the ones with their own private offices. And by the way, the most often-cited reasons for going to this kind of a plan are to “increase collaboration” and “increase productivity.” What a crock. I think the real reasons are usually to save money on office space and to keep an eye on people.
LOL. When I first got my social work license I was having some difficulty finding a good paying position outside the realm of government agencies. I finally found an “in” with the local hospital, a really good job, the right hours, the right pay scale, awesome benefits. I met (interviewed) with the supervisor who had already made it clear the job was mine if I came in and wanted it and then she started showing me around…to a huge room filled with cubicles. I knew right then and there I couldn’t work like that and gave my apologies for wasting her time. Had there been any chance of starting there and working my way out to a “real” office I might have given it a shot but wow, not sure how people do this for 8 hours every day.
On the other hand, I work in a 12x12 office by myself with no window. Sometimes someone suggests a better shared area for me but I’d rather be alone in my windowless office than share close spaces with someone I might not get along with.
Who thought this was a good idea???