Really stupid idea. To those who argue that this environment facilitates cooperation, you obviously never worked in such office. Firstly, you could technically speak just to your immediate neighbors. If you need to speak to someone else - you can't. There is no space even to stand next to someone to talk. Secondly, you can't really talk to your neighbor either. Because of the open space, you are too conscious not to bother/distract the rest of the co-workers. Thirdly, this picture does not provide the whole picture. WHere is my coffee mug? My books? My jacket and jogging attire? Most likely, just like other offices, they will have lockers. So, every day, you need to get your stuff from your locker and then put it back at the end of the day. Yuck!
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Some Apple Park Employees Said to Be Dissatisfied With Open Office Design
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they haven't even moved/lived yet, so they dont know how it will be. I guess they wanted to leave before.
Btw, it’s clear that John Gruber is not a fan of open workspaces and his reporting on Apple Park has been pretty biased. I’m not surprised some employees who are unhappy would leak it to him. But I have a feeling this story is totally overblown, like everything is with Apple.
I worked in one for two years. The noise wasn't that bad since they pumped in white noise.
Turns out the white noise made me dizzy at times and made things seem really strange. Like a floaty dream or something.
I have for all my career. Really good for communication and collaboration.
Guess what, people could focus before the invention of the cubicle. People could focus before the invention of noise-cancelling earphones.
The new generation is really lame when they pretend that they need to work in a vacuum to get anything done.
I am no fan of open office spaces, but seeing as I don't think Gruber has ever worked in a corporate office, it's tough for him to lecture on this. I know he worked at Bare Bones Software, but until you've worked in a huge cube farm...
Jason Snell -- former EIC of IDG-- has criticized these plans before. Since he has worked in one, I trust what he is saying. Even if it's the same thing as what Gruber is saying, he's had to live in one.
Before invention of of cubicles people had real offices (rooms). Not all organizations could afford it hence some people had it worse. Communication and collaboration is important and requires different environment. Coding and working on complex algorithms, data structures etc. requires another environments and the two have very different requirements.
There are projects (for example, trivial web sites) where the complexity is very low. These projects may survive (and actually do pretty well) with just collaboration environment.
Yeah, it probably is an incredible place to be. But it might not be such a great place to write code 60 hours a week. Assuming they're allowed, I suspect engineers that don't do well with the open space will start working from home. Which isn't necessarily good for Apple either.
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So because your work environment sucks, everyone else is whining? The high salaries are exactly the reason Apple should provide the best environment they can. If offices keep employees happy and productivity even a little higher, they're a financial win for the company.
There's loads of evidence that states that open offices DO NOT increased creativity or productivity. Closed, personal offices do. They reduce noice, give a private space to think without interruption and crucially - people are not constantly comparing their own work to others in the same space(ship).
Yep, this sounds similar to my experience. People start building makeshift walls out of boxes, standalone dividers, or anything else that's workable. Pretty soon it starts to look like a shanty town.
So, I'm almost 51. It's actually usually "the kids" who do a better job in open office than us geezers.
The nature of work has changed a lot over my life. An architectural firm had some weird-ass cubicles that were made of wood and where sort of an open workspace. This was in the 90s.
It's not so much that people need to be coddled, but especially at Apple, the concept of a 40-hour week is pretty much gone. Places generally expect long hours. Apple's coders work long hours especially this time of the year with the two OS releases.
The problem with open offices isn't so much the cram people in like sardines, but a lot of companies that do this do it just for the cost savings and don't put any of the amenities that make these spaces livable: Small rooms you can make a phone call in private, or break out spaces a few people can huddle around. If Apple's plan has that where someone trying to work out a problem can grab a co-worker and a laptop and sit someplace without bothering their neighbors make the open office plan work.
We have clients who are designers and programmers and they have open plan offices. Everyone just wears headphones and gets on with their work.
Yep science has proven that open offices actually lower productivity. I understand why Ive pushed for it - it works for his small focused team. Making open offices across the whole company is mind-blowingly stupid.
During a new episode of The Talk Show on Daring Fireball, John Gruber touched on the topic of the open floor plans that Apple has implemented within its new campus, Apple Park. Unlike office spaces at One Infinite Loop and other Apple-owned buildings -- which give most employees their own office -- Apple Park sports a large open floor plan with long tables for programmers, engineers, and other employees to work at.
Apple Park's open office spaces have been highlighted in numerous profiles on the campus, most recently by The Wall Street Journal in July, and now Gruber has reported that he's received emails from numerous Apple employees who are particularly dissatisfied with the design (via Silicon Valley Business Journal).
Standing desks within one of Apple Park's open offices
One source is said to have been with the company for 18 years. They emailed Gruber, telling him that they're working on something that is "going to blow people's minds when we ship," but before that happens their team is transitioning to Apple Park. Gruber noted that the email was very level-headed and had a "perfect Apple sensibility," but the source nevertheless said that if they don't like the Apple Park workspaces, they're likely to leave the company after the product ships.
Gruber said he got a "couple of similar emails," with employees stating that they won't outright quit before they move to Apple Park, but if it's as bad as they think it's going to be then they will consider leaving Apple. During the podcast, Gruber and special guest Glenn Fleishman pointed out numerous disadvantages to an open work space, particularly for coders and programmers who aren't used to a lot of foot traffic and noise in their vicinity while they work.
Gruber went on to mention Apple vice president Johny Srouji as one of the employees dissatisfied with the Apple Park office spaces. Srouji was allegedly so against the changes that Apple "built his team their own building" outside of the main spaceship building.
The idea that open work spaces at Apple Park could potentially "irk" employees goes back to some of the original profiles on the building. Last year, Bloomberg explained that there will be "few traditional offices" at Apple Park, and management will have to be at a vice president level or above to get their own formal office space, although there is reportedly potential for employees below this level to be eligible. During the company's presentations to the Cupertino city council, Apple's viewpoint indicated an open floor plan is "conducive to collaboration between teams."
In other Apple Park news, some Snapchat users have recently noticed that a handful of construction workers and visitors at the campus have been taking enough snaps to accumulate into a Snapchat Story of its own. If you're on the app, you can search "Apple Park" from the main screen to find the Story. The new "Snap Map" also shows an increase in picture-taking activity at Apple Park.
Apple Park opened to the first round of employees over the summer, and the campus will eventually house close to 12,000 workers. Over the past few years, drone footage has consistently documented construction on the site, originally referred to as Apple Campus 2, with more recent updates focusing on the advancements made to the area's landscaping and the Steve Jobs Theater.
Article Link: Some Apple Park Employees Said to Be Dissatisfied With Open Office Design
Headphones aren't a great solution either. A lot of people in my office wear them, and typically the only way to get their attention is to tap them on the shoulder which scares the beejezus out of them.
I remember HP in the 90's when they went to this kind of scheme at one of their design sites. Suddenly, every engineer was asking for all kinds of test gear at their desk for the project they were working on. The bigger the box the better. That gear got piled on the tables (and used just enough to keep the dust off) to create the most expensive walls ever.
I thought it was hilarious. But this was in the test equipment division in Colorado.
Needless to say, the open plan didn't last, and the company suddenly had a lot surplus test equipment.
Apple is proving that no bad idea is ever lost forever.
I thought it was hilarious. But this was in the test equipment division in Colorado.
Needless to say, the open plan didn't last, and the company suddenly had a lot surplus test equipment.
Apple is proving that no bad idea is ever lost forever.
you can't please everyone... not even everyone at Apple. Dies this mean less people at Apple over a 'design' change they hate ?
If it dis-pleases then i see why people would probably quit over this.... After all, u would do the same if your boss got to you that badly.
There in their own little world, but scaring them is only half the fun
If it dis-pleases then i see why people would probably quit over this.... After all, u would do the same if your boss got to you that badly.
There in their own little world, but scaring them is only half the fun
Precisely this. We had a guy at our mid-sized IT firm's office who fancied himself a drummer. and by drummer i mean fifth-rate strip-mall starter-kit blackout-drunk-by-stage-time fill-in drummer, who was more than happy to start banging on the floor and desk many, many times a day. His manager was a confrontation-avoidant failure of a supervisor who refused to do more than occasionally ask him to "ease off a bit" and things got so bad we had to get the CEO involved to get him to tell his employee to stop distracting literally everyone in the office with his terrible desk drumming.
Ive read several articles over the years that have found, as i recall, something like 15-20% of the population simply cannot tolerate working in open offices because of how distracting they are. I find myself in that category. To me its like trying to concentrate in a busy train station. The only time Ive found myself able to tolerate them is the rare cases when they piped in white noise to drown out the din. That wasnt so bad.
Part of me wants to tell any Apple employee how fortunate they are to be where they are. "Get some perspective", so to speak.
Another part of me knows that the open work environment doesn't work well for everyone, and is downright terrible for some people, especially those working in specific, highly technical fields that require supremely intense concentration for extended periods of time.
People with ADD have existed for a long time, and have had to work in whatever environments are presented to them. I am one of those people. As such, I simply know that distractions are much easier to come by along with any benefits of collaboration that may ALSO exist with such an open work environment.
As one who needs to focus for long periods of time, I am constantly challenged by interruptions/disruptions that prevent completion of certain tasks that, by definition, require intense time/focus/concentration to complete. These disruptions are so debilitating and destructive to morale, they can easily cause even the most seasoned, loyal employees to doubt their ability to succeed in such an environment.
To solve... clear, early, and frequent communication about the pros/cons of the environment are critical. Examples of disruption to critical tasks would help. I would HOPE that is underway at Apple Park. Then again, Apple Park is so insanely great that all true employees must love it!
Another part of me knows that the open work environment doesn't work well for everyone, and is downright terrible for some people, especially those working in specific, highly technical fields that require supremely intense concentration for extended periods of time.
People with ADD have existed for a long time, and have had to work in whatever environments are presented to them. I am one of those people. As such, I simply know that distractions are much easier to come by along with any benefits of collaboration that may ALSO exist with such an open work environment.
As one who needs to focus for long periods of time, I am constantly challenged by interruptions/disruptions that prevent completion of certain tasks that, by definition, require intense time/focus/concentration to complete. These disruptions are so debilitating and destructive to morale, they can easily cause even the most seasoned, loyal employees to doubt their ability to succeed in such an environment.
To solve... clear, early, and frequent communication about the pros/cons of the environment are critical. Examples of disruption to critical tasks would help. I would HOPE that is underway at Apple Park. Then again, Apple Park is so insanely great that all true employees must love it!
for me, having worked in all kinds of environments, Ive found the best results come from small open rooms with 4-6 people in each, adjacent to each other with shared common areas. This is the best mix of "open" collaboration space but also small-scale enough that there arent a significant amount of distractions from being around so many people. Additionally, in the larger open office plans, i think its a necessity to pump in some kind of background noise, otherwise it becomes too much like a public space, like a train station etc as I mentioned, and this is for me at least probably the most distracting environment.
I don't mean the random cough or sneeze, but those who do it habitually. Nervous coughing, frequent throat clearing, those who sniffle for hours instead of just blowing their nose. You know what I mean.
I think the missing link here is:
Apple won't put salespeople next to coders, etc. Teams will probably be in open areas, with conference rooms with whiteboards available per team.
I think each floor will have sections for teams walled off from other sections.
Sarcasm, sheesh.
I love my work, the environment comes with the job. Tens of thousands of people get to work because of my work. My $325 per hour billing rate works for me too…