Some Apple Employees May Quit Over New ‘Open’ Office Plan

San Jose Mercury News ^ | August 17, 2017 | Gene Marks

[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.

[CodeToad]

“It was like trying to work at a cocktail party.”

That is the perfect one-liner for open offices! Consider it stolen.

I used to say it is like trying to work at a rock concert.

[Harpotoo]

Raleigh.

[roadcat]

They told me that Joe had had a heart attack, and been carted off a half hour ago.

Ouch, sorry to hear of your co-worker's distress. I know the stress that can happen around the office. One Friday I was going over code with a manager and bid goodbye in the evening; we had been working closely for a week on some mainframe system coding. Monday I came in and was told he died of a heart attack, found on the weekend in his easy chair; he was only 47 years old. We worked in an open office environment. We would code clist programs that would interrupt someone else's dumb terminal with a joke and watch the receiving worker's reaction. (Clists are IBM mainframe terminal code.)

[Albion Wilde]

People process information differently, and personalities range between extroversion and introversion, as the Meyers-Briggs typology brings out. I would go out of my mind in an open plan, because I'm an "I" (introvert). Surely many very cerebral people are, and surely many work in knowledge, information and systems fields. It's where I spent the bulk of my work life, and I thrived on having my own space where I could shut the door.