There's plenty of people who like open plan. I think the main issue people have is the idea that open plan is superior, and how companies have adopted the plan without any thought or scrutiny (coming up with all sorts of bullshit reason, to rationalize a decision which is really about trying to save money)
For a startup or small company doing mostly plain development, and especially if it's a tight-nit group that stay up late and have fun like you describe, it's probably great.
For engineers working 9-17, with a family-life, with complex multi-faceted work.. it can be a nightmare.
I prefer sharing an office with 1-3 others. You still get the social interaction, but without too much distraction. It's a pretty good compromise.
> I prefer sharing an office with 1-3 others. You still get the social interaction, but without too much distraction. It's a pretty good compromise.
In the past, I've shared an office with one other, and I've shared an office with three others.
Sharing an office with one other person was great, especially when the desks were arranged so we both had our backs to the wall. I'd gladly do it again.
Sharing an office with three others was a nightmare. It could have been worse: at least I got along with my officemates, but the lack of privacy got to me badly, especially given that the desks were arranged so none of our backs were to a wall (I even faced the window... beautiful view, but the glare got to me).
Have you considered that the team's mood might not actually be as good as you think that it is? It's generally inadvisable to bring up environmental things that are making you unhappy at work, it could mark you as "not a team player" or "not a culture fit". People might be keeping it internal and just waiting it out until they can leave (I'm doing this now, actually).
I've worked with quite a few programmers who absolutely wouldn't bring up things that put others in a bad light.
I worked with a Chinese guy that routinely put up with many of the others making jokes (all nice, IIRC) about his ethnicity. I noticed that he didn't look happy about it, and tried to help, but he refused to do anything about it. He eventually stressed out and quit, and I can't help but think that was at least part of the reason.
Likewise, I've seen it for noise, conversation, and even once someone finally snapped and complained about a co-worker would trim their finger and toe nails at work in his cubicle. He did it for quite a while before someone finally got fed up enough to say something. He shrugged it off and kept doing it, and nobody did anything about it.
So yeah, I agree that many people simply won't do anything about the things that make them unhappy.
I definitely understand that "culture fit" is probably often used as an excuse to wrongfully discriminate against qualified employees. But at the same time, isn't it there some validity to the concept? Is it really wrong for different companies to have different distributions of personality/lifestyle types (e.g. working late vs. starting early, open plan vs. cubicles vs. walled offices)?
>>> I prefer floor plans that cater to the mood of the team, rather than setting out some one-size-fits-all-every-day notion of productivity.
Certainly agree that avoiding a one-size-fits-all attitude is best, but I think that picking something at the granularity of "the team" is part of the problem here.
Likewise, people who answer a bunch of tricky questions with "the team decides."
For a startup or small company doing mostly plain development, and especially if it's a tight-nit group that stay up late and have fun like you describe, it's probably great.
For engineers working 9-17, with a family-life, with complex multi-faceted work.. it can be a nightmare.
I prefer sharing an office with 1-3 others. You still get the social interaction, but without too much distraction. It's a pretty good compromise.