Rats.

@mediocrebot disturbing that the cheese partitions look a lot like company cubicle walls.

@mediocrebot @pmarin
And here I thought it was a waffle!

@Lynnerizer I thought it was a waffle too

@pmarin Fwiw, I was always jealous of the offices that got cubicles. The places I worked bought in to the “open layout” hype. So there was no chance you couldn’t hear and see everything going on around you. You had no chance to keep your back to any wall. It’s hell for anyone with

• distractibility (like ADHD),
• sensitivity to noise (like various things, most obviously certain varieties of autism and anxiety)
• a wish to feel safe (like PTSD or any other history of trauma, or anxiety, or a biology evolved to be wary of lions sneaking up behind you), or
• any desire for privacy of any sort (like being older than 5).

There is plenty of research demonstrating that open office layouts reduce productivity and hamper communication, the opposite of their initial claims.
The problem is that they’re initially much cheaper, and the execs (who obviously get to keep their offices) making the decisions don’t have to live with the consequences. Short-term cost-saving measures almost always win out in the corporate world.

Where was I? Oh yeah, cubicles are not awesome, but they’re better than at least some of the alternatives.
Thank you for attending my TED talk.

@xobzoo Good TED Talk. having seen pictures of the current open office layouts I’d have to agree. I think it made sense in the wild 2000s where most of a Silicon Valley office was sofas and outdoor tables and free juice bars and espresso on-demand. Maybe a spa and hot tub. Also included company BMW and stock options (some of which turned out to be worth a lot and most which did not).

@pmarin Thank you for pointing that out! I’ve been so passionate against my own experience with open layouts that I had forgotten to consider anything worse. I always did get an actual desk-like object and a proper chair.

@xobzoo My very first job (internship) I actually had a real office with walls and a door (but no window to outside). it was next to
the computer equipment floor which I worked on, and across from the graphics lab, so that made sense. (this was in the 1980s)

After that it was all cubicles all the time but with luck or seniority you got to pick one near a window.

@pmarin @xobzoo I ended up leaving one place I worked because they went from.cubicles to open office with no walls. (Well that’s not the only reason. New guy came in, pulled all the walls down. He literally told me he wanted me to spy on one of my coworkers… I said no way and found a new job).

@OnionSoup @pmarin @xobzoo Cubicles suck. In a way they’re worse than an open office: they give the illusion of privacy.

@pmarin @xobzoo current job when building got renovated, some consultant dweeb thought that IT should have an open office concept. The rest of the building got cubes. We got tables with zero privacy and it was incredibly noisy due to all the desk meetings. Then the pandemic, while everyone was “temporarily” working from home, they remodeled our area and we got cubes. Now we are permanently working from home and they are selling our building.

Second stupid office situation… I was hired as a contractor by a large virus protection company that starts with M and ends in E. They outsourced their QA to India and let all US employees go. But yet they had a crm implementation due and the India team wasn’t ready. Instead of hiring back the US employees, they brought me and about 10 others in to test it. They had a completely empty floor of cubes. But they also had a policy that contractors do not get cubes. Instead, they set up tables and desktops in a server room. All the servers were still in there too. It was so fucking noisy and 50 degrees. In the middle of july, I’m working in an overcoat and earplugs. That was 20 years ago and I still boycott them because of those three months of frozen hell.

@pmarin @xobzoo
Even prisoners get a window! Jus sayen…

@ironcheftoni @pmarin @xobzoo In my 42 years as a SW engineer, I spent all of my time after the first 7 or 8 years either with a window or window-adjacent (where I could look out my cube doorway to a window across the hall). I guess I was lucky (but after the first bit, seniority might have also factored in).

@xobzoo Is “Expectation Failed” really a code? I could see that applying to a lot of things in life….

EDIT like when you hope an IRK will be better than the last one.

@xobzoo Well I made it to 408 which I understand to be a “Request Timeout” error. I did NOT request a time out on my face click count!!!

My current record is 7. Sigh