Ugh open floor plan office style bummin' me out
 

There are nice points about workin' where I do, but the open floor plan really crushes me.

For a while I had it against cube farms... now I realize, luxury! Now i'm in a big open office with three other workstations on the long desk I sit at. If I sneeze everybody knows... come in late or leave early or take five minutes extra lunch... have personal calls or even just browse the Cellar to try to get my mind at ease, everybody knows.

My manager has an office and the door's open and he can look directly at me any time. It freaks me out, coming from the narcissist, because the narcissist was always constantly judging. People aren't constantly judging here, but the instinctive gut reaction still kicks in, and I'm left anxious at the end of every day.

Half the office knows when I take a shit and how long it took! But they say a lot of tech offices have gone to this approach... I can't imagine being a programmer in an office like this. Every second there's an interruption.

Y'all have to deal with any of this?

That would drive me mental.

Buy a bucket truck and a chain saw. No one will get within 100 feet of ya.

I'm against it. i don't like being watched over when I work. I complain about not having a window in my office, but it's better than what you describe. The salesmen here share a galley style office with two rows of divided desks, and the noise and distraction are counterproductive.

I don't like how our showroom is set up like a restaurant either. I don't think it's conducive to speaking about financial arrangements or credit reports. There should be offices ringing the place like it used to be, where the salesman could have his computer and phone, and a welcoming place for a guest to sit. As it is, they are constantly having to go to the desk or their office for this and that, leaving the customer alone to cool off.

Why are open floor plans a thing even?

Company has to hire less snipers that way. ;)

About 25-30 people in my office, there are short walls demarking where your desk ends and your neighbor begins, but they are shorter than a monitor, below shoulder height sitting down. They are paired so I am sitting face to face with the guy opposite me.

I am lucky in that I can escape and go the labs and have more privacy and see different walls.

Nobody likes it, some are loud talkers on the phone, people chat etc.

No way could I work like that.

I pretty much have my own office. With no windows. Right next to the garbage chute. I think I would hate open plan, but I dream of breathing occasionally. That stuff is really rank now it's warmed up, and the fug from it seems to settle in my lair.

Should probably go back to chucking the hobo corpses down the basement stairs

Cube farm...

To me, this situation is so usual. It's not nearly ideal, but you necessarily have to deal with it.

It kinda sucks sometimes.

Yeah. I'm going from a private office to a shared office next month. The firm is going to more of an open office floor plan. I don't have any details yet because they are being secretive about it. That alone tells you they know it will be unpopular.

They know it's going to suck for you. As lawyers will do, they'll file motions to put off telling the suckiness as long as possible. ;)

You can try putting some tape on the floor ...

Box of tissues, cough drops and a shawl, then practice sneezing and coughing. Eyebrow pencil spots a effective too.

Mine is like this, but the demarcation walls are taller. You can look over them but you'd have to sit quite straight up and lift your head. I would hate it to be fully open plan without those dividers.

I had to make this change a couple months ago. I'm still learning how to be productive again.

Mr. Clod's office has been like this for probably 10 years, across different companies, so it's definitely the growing trend. He's on very chill terms with his current boss, who has admitted that years of management studies nationwide have concluded that workers are vastly more productive this way. No one likes it, but they all get over it. It's like when the RIAA started going after Napster et. al. and everyone screamed that it would never work and would kill the music industry etc... And now everyone just buys their MP3s and doesn't think twice about it. Sometimes everyone hates a thing but it's still the most effective choice.

Part of the deal is having "private conversation" booths available for when they're needed, but most companies have figured out that people just take their cellphones outside when that happens. The other part is simply workers figuring out that no one is judging, or even really paying attention, lest they be judged themselves. Absolutely no one is thinking about shit coming out of your body, or the speed at which it does so. If anything, the guy with the boldness to just do what he needs is appreciated because it gives everyone else permission and precedent. Like when a parent sees another with a screaming kid, their first thought is, "thank god, it happens to other people too."

Rrrrrrright; so if the bosses also participate in the open floor plan, and sit out in plain view with everyone else, it's fine, otherwise we know it's the standard elitist hypocrisy. Why shouldn't THEIR productivity rise too?

We had to have an open door policy instigated to force my then cow-orker now minion to put her phucking fone away. Didn't work. Turns out she texts mindlessly like some pick their nose. Problem is, she phucks up her work because she's not paying full attention to it. Open office door made no difference though, because she wasn't paying attention. Her position was eliminated before she could be fired tho', so then she became my p/t minion ...and so my problem :( whinewhinewhine. But the point being, the open door didn't help. Our bosses propped htheiris door open too, though. it wasn't an elitist thing.

In my private office, I keep the door open all the time unless I'm meeting with someone about a sensitive topic. Those a rare. Having walls and an open door is just fine by me.

But having no walls between me and my cow orker in a small office probably will not be when I'm thrown into that situation in a couple weeks. How will I make phone calls? Even work ones? I can turn my monitor so I can still Cellar, but she's going to clearly hear my side of every phone conversation. And I'll hear hers. Ugh.

For the past decade or so have always worked in a large clinic workroom with computer stations every couple of feet, no divisions. In WV we shared with a bunch of GI people who put up a big sign labeling the workroom 'The Poop Deck'. One of the profs had a voice like a foghorn - annoying, but he could also be entertaining. People doing clinic work are either with a patient or with each other. I suppose it may explain why I hyperfocus, but it doesn't bug me.

I hate it. The guy to my right falls asleep, picks his nose, face, etc. It's distracting and disgusting. Only one guy in an office of hundreds has an office, so all the higher ups are in the same situation. I like the semblance of some privacy. If I want to eat at my desk and food falls out of my mouth, it's not just me seeing it.

I prefer cubes regardless of all the cube farm jokes.

Oh no doubt, the managers in his company do it too. Literally no one has an office, as far as I know.

Pretty much every office I've worked in has been open plan - I can only think of one which wasn't. And even then, it had the monitor sized dividers described. Everyone else used them for important phone numbers/ work info etc. I used mine for postcards or works of art I particularly liked, cartoons cut from Private Eye and a different poem every month.

Open plan offices were worse when it was legal to smoke at your desk.
I sat opposite a chain-smoker for about six months - it was hell.
That and sitting next to a woman planning her wedding. Hmmm, wonder why I left that job?
(actually it was because I got a better paid one closer to home, but I was only looking because of the work environment)

I'm in the waiting room. Not only in view of my cow orkers, but all the patients, as well

Only a couple of very senior people in engineering have offices, and then they are glass walled, so you can still see, it just stops you overhearing them.

I once worked in an open plan office that was far too big for the number of people occupying it.
The manager created his own little space in one corner by surrounding his domain with several tall acoustic screens with a hessian type fabric finish.
It was known, and not without good reason, as the 'padded cell'.

I just saw plans for my new space. Ugh. It's worse than I thought, but not as bad as it could be. I'm losing my privacy. I'll be losing about 2/3 of the square footage that I had. Losing my guest chair. I'm losing about the equivalent of 25 boxes worth of file storage space.

What I'll have: An L shaped desk with 2 shallow drawers and 1 deep drawer, a narrow set of shelves, a solid wall behind me and a solid wall to one side, an open space in front of me above the little ledge above my desk, and a glass partial partition wall to the other side. It's a cozy 4 person office with the desks pointed towards the center of the room and the cow orker backs to the solid walls. That's the one saving grace. Nobody can see my computer screen, even if everyone can see me. Absolutely no sound isolation.

develop an annoying vocal tic, you'll soon get sound isolation?

cock!

glatt, you've reached third base. It's an achievement but you can't go back so the only option is home. Unless you get caught off base, whether you score or not is mostly dependent on others. Good luck. :thumb:

Welcome to the Panopticon!

Update, I've discovered it's not the open floorplan, it's me!

I'm depressed wherever I work, I just look to blame various things so that I can externalize it.

Er, I don't expect any kind of response to that. It is true but sometimes you just gotta howl somewhere and this was the place to do it this time.

Well if you have to howl, be courteous and do it in the garage, or the Cellar.
Blaming it on work would seem logical, when you lose the ability to blame your lodgings, or significant other.

My office mate put in her notice today, sorry to see her g.... I've got the place to mah self!

Well, this gives me pause. I was really hoping my soul crushing depression was born out of being broke and unemployed, and would lift when I found work.

You're scaring the passengers.

No, it won't automatically lift, but sure makes it a hell of a lot easier to fight.

Just saw an artist's rendering of my new "office." That will be me over on the left, as seen from the desk of one of the other people in this 4 person room.
Attachment 55773

I completely lose my privacy, but at least my back is to a wall. Friday was my 25 year anniversary at this place. I've had a private office for 22 of those years. Not huge, but 10' by 12'. Decent size. No windows.

At least I have a job, right? That's what people are saying these days.

12.5" sit on glass divider? Sounds painful. :(

This is where you post cute family photos, children's drawings, humorous signs, all up and down the glass until they can't see you anymore.

or something like this:

A row of bushy houseplants along the desk should help square things away.

The broken glass thing is awesome. I'm sorry now that I won't be there on April Fools yet.

Plus. strategically placed motivational messages on stiff card could increase the height by about 6 inches

Nice, something about how awesome open floor plans are.

How open floor plans spur creativity. ;)

You should devise a clip on roll up window that you could roll up when you want privacy. Maybe get one of those suction cup mounted shades for those hang over mornings.

A giant white board with a bunch of flow chart nonsense on it that people will be too embarrassed to ask about.

Benefits:
1. You no longer need to wonder about your cow orkers' work ethics and if they really work harder/better/faster/more efficiently than you.

2. erm

Start wearing a sombrero and just tilt your head when you want privacy.

Use chalk markers to create a points chart on the glass partition with one column for each cow orker. Add points at random without saying anything.

There's a solution you probably used when you were much younger and have since forgot about. You'll need a blanket and a flashlight...

Not everyone likes cubicles either...

I've been in this shared office of four for two weeks at this point.

I can say, without hesitation, that I"m interrupted far more often than I was. People stop by to chat with us, and we chat with one another. It goes in fits and spurts, but the natural flow of things is that when you are pushing through a short project, and you get through, then you want to relax a little and chat for a while. But maybe the other person isn't at the same point in their work flow. No matter! They can just pause what they are doing and be social for a while. And of course, the reverse is true too. You can pause and chat politely too, even if you are in the middle of something.

We've been focused a lot on punch list items related to moving in to the space in general. Not just this office, but other rooms. So I don't have a sense of how well the normal business is getting done because we are already distracted by that.

Here's a selfie while my cow orkers are focused.
Attachment 56154
Could be much worse. Nobody can see what's on my computer screen. And I went from a single 19 inch monitor to dual 22 inch ones.

It's Jake from State Farm!

I have an office with a door, and somedays, I can't get 5 minutes in a row without someone needing something. Really annoying if I'm drilled down into layers of formulae in excel. Or trying to put together a funding package for a complex deal.... But mostly, it makes the day go by faster. Have you noticed that effect yet? I've read that productivity increases when work is done in 50 minute spurts with 10 minute breaks between.

And how are you adjusting to this at this point, Tony? Is it getting better or worse?

He can't practice the bass in the office anymore. :lol:

It's still killing me. But whaddya gonna do? I'm trying to adapt in different ways. I take fake bathroom breaks with my phone and stuff.