Apple Staffers Reportedly Rebelling against Open Office Plan at New $5 Billion HQ

Pringle said:
A lot of the issues management at my office has with WFH is worker jealousy. Absolutely nobody is allowed to do it, simply because "if one person is allowed, everyone will want to do it." It's horseshit.
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Kind of how it is at my work. It's not totally rigid, but that's the general attitude. We are a company of blanket policies that apply to everyone, even though 40-50% of staff shouldn't apply to it. It's ridiculous. However, in my case, they also treat us extremely well in payment, benefits, etc. so it all balances out into a decent situation with a few things that I really like, and a few things I really don't like. The good outweighs the bad enough to be worth it though. We have offices though, with doors. :D I share an office with one guy who'e pretty cool, and I actually volunteered because I have the biggest office in the building. If it was smaller, I wouldn't have offered. :D (We have a lot of buildings, and some industrial areas, so to clarify: it's the biggest office in a building of six offices... hehehe)
 
OldGator said:
Open spaces are also a security nightmare.
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At my company, security is handled by the Safety Committee, of which I'm a part.
It's not taken seriously, and that's a shame should the unfortunate ever happen.

I'm interrupted constantly while doing order fulfillment or document review, by tasks that are my REAL job, supporting customers. Can take a good amount of time to get back into 'that zone' where productivity is not hindered.
Even though I multi-task exceptionally well and have an insane attention to detail, productivity still suffers from interruptions, it's just the way it is.

I also share a fairly large office (has it's own bathroom!) with a co-worker and we get along great IMO and aren't 'too distracting' to the other, but when he talks his voice is loud and throws about 12 feet to my mic, where I have had customers complain about background noise.
Their solution was to purchase headsets....which ended up having a better mic and to the best of my knowledge, no technology to reduce said background noise! Whoops.
 
viper_0307 said:
Management tries to sell it as improving collaboration; it is a cost cutting as 20% may usually work from home, depending on the day of the week. We have "neighborhoods", desks are not assigned, and we store our stuff in lockers. Each desk is setup with two x 24" monitors, wireless mouse and keyboard, and a WYSE terminal; I bring my own keyboard. It is annoying when everyone is on a conference call, get the stereo and surround sound effect. Fortunately, I still have the option to sit in a lab alone.

My thoughts are exact, f--- this, f--- that, etc...
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My employer is planning to transition the IT staff to this exact arrangement in a couple of years. They call it "Workplace 2.0"

Coming from my current setup of an 8x8 cubicle with 6 foot walls completely to myself, this sounds like one of the 7 circles of Hell.
 
deton8 said:
My employer is planning to transition the IT staff to this exact arrangement in a couple of years. They call it "Workplace 2.0"

Coming from my current setup of an 8x8 cubicle with 6 foot walls completely to myself, this sounds like one of the 7 circles of Hell.
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Step One: Raise your monitors.
Step Two: Stack shit on your desk, or buy a plant or something.
Step Three: Establish a choked off path to your desks, to filter people in where you want them to approach you from. (If possible. It was for us when this happened at an old job, but may not be for you...)
Step Four: You're IT, put stacks of unsightly switches, routers, opened up PCs, and tools everywhere, and then maybe they'll decide to move you out of sight again. :D

Workplace 2.15
 
Open concept needs to die already, it is showing more and more to not improve anything but the amount of sick people in and office and lower productivity.
 
Hypergreatthing said:
I think this open space idea is the management's idea that privacy = people slacking off. Obviously the solution is to reduce privacy to keep people honest.
I'm really not sure who in these open spaces besides managers enjoy this setup. It seems as if most computer jobs that require concentration suffer from the many distractions that these setups.
I also feel personally that these set ups are meant to dehumanize people and make it seem as if they're in a sea of replaceable cogs.
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In a past life I designed office space. Cubes/open plans are purely a cost cutting measure, mostly driven by the costs of adjusting the mechanicals and sprinkler systems.
 
c_porter said:
In a past life I designed office space. Cubes/open plans are purely a cost cutting measure, mostly driven by the costs of adjusting the mechanicals and sprinkler systems.
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So apple, one of the richest companies in the world who's spending somewhere like 5 billion for their new headquarters, who has articles like this: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/09/commentary-apples-new-spaceship-spares-no-expense/ is pushing for an open office space purely for cost cutting?

Something doesn't jive together.
 
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Armenius said:
Notice how the executives and other leadership are exempt.

Also: bench seating? Are they fucking serious? What is this, an office space or a school cafeteria?
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It's a dilution of the merits of the perceived value that apple places on their employees. They are cattle churning out product. Who gives a fuck if they are comfortable and can think on problems. Because the idea of collaboration and the rest of the groupthink nazi's of Silicone Valley have been preaching this nonsense for so long that it's become dogma and frankly, a cult. This is a culmination of all of the buzz-hype that has been burning and churning in SV for decades and guess what? Your employees are saying no. Ooops.
 
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Hypergreatthing said:
So apple, one of the richest companies in the world who's spending somewhere like 5 billion for their new headquarters, who has articles like this: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/09/commentary-apples-new-spaceship-spares-no-expense/ is pushing for an open office space purely for cost cutting?

Something doesn't jive together.
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Yes. They are already getting pushback from shareholders over the current costs. Open plans often allocate ~3 times less individual space per employee than a closed plan. Apple wants to put 12,000 people in their new facility. That's a lot of scratch saved just in square footage. The open plan also greatly simplifies HVAC, telecom, lighting, fire code/ADA acceptance, and access to natural light.

Despite all that, it makes financial sense almost never. The exception is when you need the extra occupancy because the alternative is new real estate. If the marginal cost of one new employee is suddenly "salary+a new building" you do what you gotta do to fit them in until a new site makes sense.

There's people, mostly furniture vendors, who try to make it sound like there are collaboration benefits to open plans - and there are for a limited subset of jobs, but the spaces are never designed right to bring out those benefits. These explanations are just post-hoc sales pitches to justify things executives already wanted to do for financial reasons.

Basically, the people making the decisions are the ones who least need time "in the zone" because their jobs almost entirely involve talking to people. So, they consistently underestimate the negative impacts on personnel costs and focus on what to them appears to be obvious savings with little to no downside. It's the office space version of outsourcing your IT to India.

edit: FWIW, from my work I determined that the absolute best office space is the "cloister". A team/dept/logical unit would have dedicated space with private offices ringing a central common area with one or more meeting tables or whatever is needed for collaboration. There would be one path out of the cloister to the common halls/spaces used by other teams. It provides privacy and quiet for everyone but allows easy breakout meetings, impromptu path-crossing collaboration, and gives a great sense of "team" to the space. It's really very homey. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to stack a building that way because it's not a great design for accomodating team size changes.
 
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open office works for those who work on spread sheet.... where i work is open office with no assigned desk, people should move around and leave no personal belong on the desk, but 90% of people (especially me) just anchoring down... i need my cubical, i have parts and test equipment ... open office sux
 
c_porter said:
edit: FWIW, from my work I determined that the absolute best office space is the "cloister". A team/dept/logical unit would have dedicated space with private offices ringing a central common area with one or more meeting tables or whatever is needed for collaboration. There would be one path out of the cloister to the common halls/spaces used by other teams. It provides privacy and quiet for everyone but allows easy breakout meetings, impromptu path-crossing collaboration, and gives a great sense of "team" to the space. It's really very homey. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to stack a building that way because it's not a great design for accomodating team size changes.
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If I'm understanding what's being said. Mini-open plans. Like an office area big enough for 20 or less people. Then just make more of them until you have enough of these mini-open floor plans for all your employees. That would make sense to me.

I'm on our server admin teams. I'd be nice to have like a square office with desks lining the wall. Everyone has their own desk, but you can easily do a 180 degree turn in your chair and have an impromptu meeting on the fly. Also one open spot on the wall to have a white board, if we need to white board something out.

I guess it'd be more like making each room a meeting room, but instead of having that one big table in the middle. Keep it open, while lining the walls with desks.
 
krotch said:
If I'm understanding what's being said. Mini-open plans. Like an office area big enough for 20 or less people. Then just make more of them until you have enough of these mini-open floor plans for all your employees. That would make sense to me.

I'm on our server admin teams. I'd be nice to have like a square office with desks lining the wall. Everyone has their own desk, but you can easily do a 180 degree turn in your chair and have an impromptu meeting on the fly. Also one open spot on the wall to have a white board, if we need to white board something out.

I guess it'd be more like making each room a meeting room, but instead of having that one big table in the middle. Keep it open, while lining the walls with desks.
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Personally, I could deal with something like that, but would prefer to be facing toward the middle. Can't stand people being behind me. First thing I do when I get into a new office, is rotate my desk, so I view the door.
 
J3RK said:
Personally, I could deal with something like that, but would prefer to be facing toward the middle. Can't stand people being behind me. First thing I do when I get into a new office, is rotate my desk, so I view the door.
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Could also cubicle it up, with all the desks facing in one direction. Then everyone can just turn to the right or left and have that impromptu meeting.
 
I'm very glad I don't have to face this open concept crap. If I did, I'd have to make a game of it. I'd pick one employee, and wherever he chose to sit one day, I'd get in before him and sit there the next day. I'd do that no matter where he goes, day after day. I'd wait until he cracks, then I'd pick another employee.

Yes, it's the little things that keep me amused.
 
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