Posted on 08/17/2017 9:38:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Construction at Apple Park, the tech giant’s new “spaceship” headquarters in Cupertino, is projected to be completed by the end of this year. The $5 billion campus is to be a state-of-the-art facility, boasting the latest in energy efficiencies, green technologies, a 100,000 square foot fitness center,an orchard, a meadow and a pond. Some 12,000 Apple employees are moving into the 175-acre campus over the next six months. But unfortunately some of them aren’t as excited as you’d think they’d be.
Why? Blame the new open office floor plan design.
If you’re an Apple employee this is a big change. Up until now you’ve been used to having your own office space. But the new Apple Park will change all that. The programmers, engineers, developers and other employees who work there will be rubbing elbows with each other over long tables that they’ll be sharing in the company’s new open space environment. And some are not thrilled.
Jon Gruber, a podcaster and blogger that follows the company is reported to have received emails from employees who threatened to leave the company if the workplaces aren’t suitable. “Judging from the private feedback I’ve gotten from some Apple employees, I’m 100 percent certain there’s going to be some degree of attrition based on the open floor plans,” he said in this Macrumors report.
Open office designs have been popular with many companies over the past few years. But they’ve also been controversial.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
“Don’t know how anyone can WRITE code when you have a dozen people around you chatting and breathing down your neck... “
I remember going into my cubicle farm on a Saturday to get some work done. A few others were there, and a pair of people were talking it up 50 to 100 feet from me.
That was it...not a damn thing accomplished that required concentration...impossible.
Have any of you read the book “The Circle”? It’s a novel about a giant tech company in the near future. Their campus is the latest in “open” design, not only in the innovative total glass of walls, ceilings and even floors, but “open” in many other ways as well. I hear they have made a movie (starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks), but be sure and read the book first if you want the full story. Here is the movie trailer .... https://youtu.be/ZkzpcfY9JAo
They rolled this open workspace crap out at my workplace.
I’m holding onto my office with both hands.
I was hired by IBM in the 80s to be a systems engineer. Our office had an open floor plan.
It was impossible to concentrate while reading, with coworkers talking on the phone & with each other. On the phone I had to cover my other ear to have a conversation. There was absolutely no way to have a private conversation in that room. Coworkers would often interrupt each other with jokes & conversation. Many of us would find an empty room to do paper work or read technical documentation - hiding from the noise. Meetings with customers were usually done in the break room.
All in all it was a very unproductive environment to work. I saw no advantage to being surrounded by people who had other priorities & tasks. It was like trying to work at a cocktail party.
Maybe Apple chose that open concept because of the stench of anto-social nerd B.O. was too strong.
Studies have shown that Open Floor plan decreases productivity.
Open office plan = less privacy, less hiding, less goofing off = more accountability and more production. Oh, you can’t do your job because of all the distraction?? There’s the door. Apple may need an excuse to reduce staffing if present Apple sales trends are an indicator.
They’ll be less likely to view porn out in the open? Not that that wouldn’t stop some people.
That’s the theory but it doesn’t work in reality.
Yeah I watched this unfold in the large Company I work for. Upper management gets sold on this shared workspace concept because they squeeze more people per square foot and supposedly save money ... and because they think this is the hip thing to do nowadays, e.g. Google is doing it.
I believe there is another reason and it is tied to political idealogy. Everyone having their own space is more conservative. Everyone using shared spaces is more communal and socialist. I saw where they would have these huge communal spaces that were hardly used.
THat’s how it is at my Son’s job at Citrix. Cool and C O L D!!!!
In Santa Clara?
I worked as a systems engineer and programmer in an open office environment like that, in the 1970s. You get used to it, and chatting with those around you was allowed and friendly. Things were different back then, smoking was allowed, as well as ribald joking and laughter. We got things done. As you moved up the seniority ladder, you moved to better rows behind others and you could look upon the desks of junior workers. We had a bit more space between rows, to allow us to place stacks of printouts and system manuals in short bookcases. In the 1980s it all changed to cubicles and it had a lonely feel to the office.
I worked as a systems engineer and programmer in an open office environment like that, in the 1970s. You get used to it, and chatting with those around you was allowed and friendly. Things were different back then, smoking was allowed, as well as ribald joking and laughter. We got things done. As you moved up the seniority ladder, you moved to better rows behind others and you could look upon the desks of junior workers. We had a bit more space between rows, to allow us to place stacks of printouts and system manuals in short bookcases. In the 1980s it all changed to cubicles and it had a lonely feel to the office.
We’ll all be in our own private Idaho.
They told me that Joe had had a heart attack, and been carted off a half hour ago. I didn’t know whether to feel bad about not being affected by my co-worker’s distress - or good about having been engrossed in what I was doing and not having noticed it.
“Collaborative” design have always resulted in lower quality as employee don’t have time to think and get things right. Instead, it’s a beehive of interruptions about make-work tasks and little engineering or thought.
The women got pissed off with the lack of privacy and left
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