I just want a fucking office. I don't want to listen to my coworker with volume control issues. I don't want to hear every last word wrung out on a video chat. I don't want to hear every loud presentation. I want four goddamn walls and a door and a minute alone with my thoughts.
I'm begging; no, PLEADING for it. I promise, you can have as much of my labor and productivity as you want if you just give me some fucking peace and quiet.
What if we had mandatory “flexible living space” arrangements for the executives behind this? You know, Millennials aren’t into houses, cars, having children, or owning stuff these days anyway. Isn’t it so much better to have the flexibility and freedom of choice to decide each night whether you will sleep under a bridge, in a tent camp, or on a park bench? Think of the synergistic efficiencies. The idea of each person having a fixed apartment is so outmoded.<p>If an employer has so much contempt for you that they don’t think you even rate a permanent slot on a workbench, kick them in the shins and run far, far away.
How much money do these new office layouts save?<p>Office space in Santa Clara County is about $34/sq. ft./year, though it's been increasing at a rate of 16% per year. The article says offices have, on average, about 150 sq. ft. per person. So that's $5100 per year per worker. It was about 225 sq. ft. in 2010, so an extra $2550 per year.<p>The average software engineer salary in the area is about $125k per year. (The actual cost is more, because of benefits and taxes.) So these new offices only cost 4% of the salary, compared to 6%.
I've tried the "roving" lifestyle and I have to say, dual monitors are hugely helpful when developing. We took a downgrade by losing offices for open spaces. I hope we don't take another downgrade by losing our desks too.
Having tiny rooms to get peace and quiet for head-down work time is important but most people don’t need to use them often. For 20 years I have worked from a home office, except now I work in an open style office at Capital One and a few years ago I also worked in an open office at Google.<p>My way of dealing with open offices is to start work very early in the morning so I always get a large block of time for quiet head-down work each day. It also helps to roam around, find a quiet place to sit for a while, and not always work at my desk.
In the first photo, the 'isolation room' kind of looks like an 'office'. I suppose the difference is that it doesn't belong to a particular worker?<p>I got claustrophobia chills from the phone booth model.