This will force me to retire FOR SURE

[MRG]

I would not existed, or functioned well. I've had open areas with teammates(one to three) mainly project or firefighting activities. Those were OK, mainly because of the nature of the w*rk.

I'm ADD and I had been told that Megacorp would have to make reasonable accommodations, but I never pushed it. I moved out of a private office to a pretty nice cube my last 18 months. Now those poor folks are all open.

I had my own boundaries and when they were crossed I was gone. Seriously don't make yourself ill over the situation.

[respond2u]

I much prefer open floor to cubicles. At least that way I can see who's making the noise and throw something at them. Either way, sound reducing headphones were valuable...

[Winemaker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Freedom I can't deal with open office environments either. We at least have large cubical spaces with tall walls so I don't have to watch my coworkers pick their noses, hear them fart, etc. The loud voices & noise gets to me sometimes though.

I would get a whoopee cushion, nail clipper, radio and cell phone that has several annoying ringtones, and BE that person! And I would call my cellphone during the day, changing the tone once or thrice a day. If you don't get segregated after the first week, you ain't trying hard enough.

[Ronstar]

The ceiling of my office collapsed due to a roof leak, and I had to spend a year in a cube while the office was renovated. Not a bad experience, but I was working only 2 days a week at that point. Then we moved to a new office. Still had a cube working 1 day a week. It wasn't too bad there either.

Maybe try the cube for a while and see how it goes. Then complain if it doesn't work.

[Car-Guy]

My X company was moving more and more towards the "open office" concept in most departments a few years before I retired. I kept hearing it was being done to gain better collaboration, team synergies, etc. (BS ) How do you gain better collaboration and team synergies when they plan to send you to training to learn to work and talk quietly in such an environment. Anyway, I'd probably be accused of "harassment" when I was whispering in some cute girls ear.

Anyway, that was going to be my "new" excuse to ER, however they kept delaying and delaying the transition to the open concept so I final gave in and retired "just because I could".

I had told my boss the last two years before I retired, that I would not work in such an environment (I wasn't going to even let them try to teach this old dog such new tricks)

[ABQ2015]

Not having a walled office has been one of my biggest gripes about work. Fortunately my cubicle has 5 feet high walls and is about 7x10 (including file cabinets and over heads). Management has been promising us a new and "better" building but funding and construction keeps getting delayed. The cubicles will be smaller per GSA guidelines. Also, the designers had the brilliant idea of only 3 feet high walls but that got quickly squashed by the employee input committee. I don't have to worry anyway since the schedule has now been stretched out until 2020 and I will be long gone.

[CardsFan]

This seems to be the new (old?) trend. I've seen photos from the 60's of engineering offices with the "open floor plan". One old timer talked about having 1 phone, hanging on a column in the middle.

The only time I had a similar arrangement was working at a construction site out of a trailer. Since you were only at your desk 1-2 hours a day, no big deal. All day, every day, would drive me bonkers.

I really don't see how anyone thinks this is more efficient in a professional environment. But I guess I didn't get a degree HR for a reason. After all, every square foot can have a hard cost attached to it. Efficiency, accuracy, not so much.

[candrew]

An option perhaps?

https://youtu.be/SkP9DKnOgn0

[check6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by madsquopper For whatever reason, I can't STAND being able to be seen while I'm working at something, whether it's at real work...Larry

I know what you mean Larry and I hate it. My company requires my copilot to watch my every move.

[growing_older]

I've been part time in a private (small) office when most of my coworkers are in open floor plan desks. There are a lot of things I don't care about. Bigger or smaller office. Near or far from the center of all the action. Nice furniture or old beat up stuff. But my boss knows that I will give notice if he puts me in an open floor plan. I'm back to working full-time for some projects for the last few years of OMY, but I still have my private office.

I suppose the alternative would be to propose a full-time work from home. It's interesting which issues are the line in the sand. I'll take on projects no one else wants or cannot do, but I'll walk away if they take my office. (Well, I'll probably fight it and look for accommodation first, but it matters more than the job, so I'll leave before I sit in the open plan.)

We did have two people who recently moved into open plan from offices in a big space shuffle. They both resigned within the week. And then we have an exec who likes to sit in the open plan right near his private office, which he still reserves for only him, even as he slums it with engineers in the open plan. To each their own.

[Golden sunsets]

DS is a software engineer manager. He knows nothing else than working in open spaces, not even any half walls. He feels it is a collaborative necessity. For a period of time he worked in an open office environment where there wasn't even any assigned seating. There were meeting rooms where groups met or where conference calls were held. Heck in one former company the space was shared by other companies. There is no paper in the SE industry, so work tools consist of the laptop and headphones that go where he goes, so no dedicated space is needed. This is the new reality for the millennial generation.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

[FIREmenow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden sunsets DS is a software engineer manager. He knows nothing else than working in open spaces, not even any half walls. He feels it is a collaborative necessity. For a period of time he worked in an open office environment where there wasn't even any assigned seating. There were meeting rooms where groups met or where conference calls were held. Heck in one former company the space was shared by other companies. There is no paper in the SE industry, so work tools consist of the laptop and headphones that go where he goes, so no dedicated space is needed. This is the new reality for the millennial generation. Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

Unfortunately, I have been involved in a bunch of projects that had SCRUM SW elements. I have yet to see one go smoothly.

Scary thing is that this chaotic SW development process is what will be used to create the stuff that drives you around in your car at 70mph and flies your George Jetson craft in the next 20 years!

YIKES!

[pb4uski]

I had a really nice big office in the next to last job that I had.... probably ~12'x20' with an L shaped workspace in one corner, a rectangular table and chairs for meetings, big white board, couch and chair in another corner... it was a sweet office. Only complaint was that the walls were not floor to ceiling... they were perhaps 8' high but open above that.

In the last job I had I had a small office, barely room for 2.... luckily I was hardly ever in the office... and towards the end I didn't have an office and would occasionally spend time in the open cubicles... didn't bother me a bit... in fact, I quite liked the activity and banter with the younger staff.

[Big_Hitter]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pb4uski I had a really nice big office in the next to last job that I had.... probably ~12'x20' with an L shaped workspace in one corner, a rectangular table and chairs for meetings, big white board, couch and chair in another corner... it was a sweet office. Only complaint was that the walls were not floor to ceiling... they were perhaps 8' high but open above that. In the last job I had I had a small office, barely room for 2.... luckily I was hardly ever in the office... and towards the end I didn't have an office and would occasionally spend time in the open cubicles... didn't bother me a bit... in fact, I quite liked the activity and banter with the younger staff.

megas have been really cutting back on office space

current mega not so much but we are structured differently

prior mega only consultants at the top of the food chain got offices, and most of those were interior - only big shots got offices with windows. Some principals got bumped to cubes after I left.

in the late 90s early 2000s, my office in Houston was so big (it was a "3" or "4" window office I can't remember) I could actually hide in it and it had a great view (well for Houston)

[ERD50]

It's funny, that even as I was reading this, I had forgotten that when I started at MegaCorp, an open floor plan was the norm (mid 70's).

Big open office (maybe 30' by 150'?), desks generally 2 across, maybe a group of 4, or whatever was needed to fit the space to allow for some file cabinets, walkways, etc. IIRC, the lowest level managers had low, soft-wall cubicles, but maybe just more space, more file cabinets, and no desk alongside. Oh, and the adjacent two desks shared a single (corded of course) phone.

Somehow, we managed.

-ERD50

[ERD50]

Ahhh, google image search "office layout 1970's":











-ERD50

[jetpack]

We went from cubes to a even more open office layout at my last job. Guy behind me clipped his nails every day at his desk! The other guys argued in some foreign language. Certainly helped my decision to leave a lot easier.

[harley]

When I first started in Megacorp, the guy behind me (my mentor, supposedly) smoked his pipe in his cube. This was about 5 or so years before they made the smokers smoke in a designated conference room. Then a few years later they were out on the sidewalk. But the smoke was so thick I could barely see my coding paper and flowchart template. I never complained officially, since I was so used to smoke, and at least pipe tobacco smelled better than cigarette smoke.

What really got me was a woman that sat near me who was on the phone all day. She had an incredibly annoying voice, and she used always used the speaker phone. More than half of the calls were personal. When I asked her (politely at first) to use her handset and/or tone down her voice, she said she would but never did. I eventually cut the speakerphone wire one night when I was work at night. She never got it fixed while I was still there, and things were much better.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by harley she used always used the speaker phone.

Reminded me of a woman I w*rked with long ago. She never answered her phone, letting everything go to voice mail. Then she listened to them all on the speaker for her first hour every morning. Full volume, and it drove everyone in the office crazy. Same person also insisted on printing every single email she ever received, even if it was a single sentence, or even just "OK." She then filed them all in folders, constantly getting additional file cabinets for them.

Yes, those were the days!

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister Reminded me of a woman I w*rked with long ago. She never answered her phone, letting everything go to voice mail. Then she listened to them all on the speaker for her first hour every morning. Full volume, and it drove everyone in the office crazy. Same person also insisted on printing every single email she ever received, even if it was a single sentence, or even just "OK." She then filed them all in folders, constantly getting additional file cabinets for them. Yes, those were the days!

Thanks for reminding me, that guy with the radio who got his own office, also listened to his voice mails on speaker and so loud, that after he was moved to an office, you could still hear the voice mails being played.
It had to be loud so he could hear it over the radio