I feel this in my soul.
Still better than the open office concept though. It’s like it was designed to be cruel and stupid.
I worked open office on a contract job one time that lasted a week and I could not WAIT to see that place in my rear view mirror.
Open office and bench seating were designed to increase surveillance, so of course they feel awful
For my last open-office gig, it was 100% necessary because every salesperson worked with a junior, and you had to listen to them all the time to teach them.
Bench seating? Are you fucking kidding me? If I went for an interview and I saw that everyone had to sit on benches, I’d be out of there.
Lol I don’t mean literal benches. Bench seating is the worst type of open seating, in which all the desks are aligned in rows that look like benches
Thank goodness for that!
That looks quiet and positively spacious compared to the last open office environment I did time in.
Imagine that same space but 4 people between the column and the window instead of just 2. Then make the space 3x as long. Then reduce the space between the backs of the chairs by 50%.
Even though everyone in the space was doing individual programming / sysadmin work, the space was extremely loud just from a few spontaneous conversations between people working on the same thing together. Everyone wore headphones nearly all the time, only taking them off if they needed to talk / shout to the people near them about something. Often, if you needed to talk with someone sitting 4 desks away, the easiest way to do it was over IM.
God damn did you work in a giant shipping container?
Nope, just a massively overcrowded office building. The ventilation system could barely keep up. But, management made it clear to us that the reason for the open office layout was to encourage collaboration and foster creativity!
the open office layout was to encourage collaboration and foster
Of course! That’s what every call center needs where you go by the script! Collaboration and creativity.
This wasn’t a call center, it was a sysadmin / software development
sweatshopworkspace.
Where I worked, it was just six wooden tables with computers on them. It was awful. They didn’t have room for cubicles, so it was pretty much the only option, but that didn’t make it any less awful.
How anyone gets any work done at all with a single monitor is beyond me, actually no, I know the answer is they don’t.
I’m an IT manager and have advocated for at least dual monitor at every workstation for a decade. Every time we’ve transitioned a department to dual we’ve seen significant productivity jumps well worth the $100 per station it costs.
I have no idea. I barely prefer working from home be the office because my desk at home has 3x 24" 1080 and a 32" 4k. Vs driving 100miles one way to the office to sit at 2 monitors, I can get so much more done at home
It was designed to pack more people into an office plan. The open workspace has been proven to be ineffective, but it makes people more money, therefore it’s everywhere
At least that open office has carpet. I’ve seen open offices with concrete or tile floors and walls. Those kind of offices are hell to be in. If a small group starts talking that sounds bounces around the room and then everyone has to talk louder because they can’t hear each other. And managers are surprised that everyone wears headphones or don’t want to be in the office at all.
I’m starting at new office with that policy. I’m already scoping out the single desks. It’s kind of nice being able to ask people questions, but I’d rather just use webx these days.
That’s actually preferable to open office plans, which are basically work theatre spaces.
Yep, my last job had an open office plan. It was incredibly distracting and I hated that if I needed to scratch myself, everyone could see me.
The constant noise in an open office plan is nervewrecking, and being permanently in view of your supervisors is annoying as hell. i don’t need someone to watch my every move, and if you think you have to watch my every move, i probably don’t want to work for you.
Yeah. The size of this cubicle and not being open plan tells you this picture is from at least a decade ago. It’s so much worse than this now.
Those are still half height cube walls. It is a bit more privacy, but still has noise isolation issues. I miss head height cubes.
“Fast paced environment” on job applications means 60+ hour work weeks
Fast paced means ad-hoc requests, constant changes and no roadmap whatsoever.
Tbh yes it does. I actually like that though.
Sorry, I didn’t want to kink-shame anyone.
Lol
With no attempt to measure or manage an employee’s workload.
Let me translate:
Fast Paced = We rush you to meet a deadline we made to be short on purpose so that you do the work faster by cutting corners.
Exciting Environment = Our clients\boss are assholes and will take out all of their frustrations on you and be a Karen the entire time. Exciting!
Lol this is gold. Fucking HR people are the new Real estate agents. All the bullshit they put in a fucking job advertisement. Friendly and fun environment, Learning and development with opportunity to grow lol.
“Friendly and fun” = we force you to celebrate everyone’s birthdays, engagements, baby haverings, etc and so forth with cake and mandatory card signage and possibly gift/money givery.
“Learning and development” = you’ll be forced to participate in mind numbingly stupid seminars, self directed online courses, and/or online presentations.
“With opportunity to grow” = grow mold as you fester in the wretched job.
I manage a produce section at a grocery store and spend all day on my feet with no real personal workspace to unwind, other than a small shared office often occupied by talkative old women. I honestly love my job, am respected by my employer and I’m pretty well compensated (Canada), but even a desk in a cubicle looks kind of cozy to me. Just having a space for your things, a plant or two, a photo of your wife and kid. Not gonna lie, I kind of wish I had a small office and/or cubicle to retreat to. Even if it was just for the paperwork parts of my day.
At least everything is wireless, including the monitor
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The most brutally fast-paced work environment I’ve ever had looked almost exactly like this
Just double the monitors and make it an open office concept, and it’s a dead ringer.
I hated cubicles until I discovered open offices, then I just plainly hated offices:
hated water-cooler conversations,
hated the smell of reheated meals,
the unending birthdays of people I spoke to once a year,
the parties and outings that are secretly interviews,
the idle people that are always looking for killing time chatting,
the busy people looking for a nasty rumor to climb higher,
I hated commuting and hated having to stay longer just so everyone thinks I’m working hard,But above all, I hated the middle managers that want to both be your friend, your boss and the person that will fire you to cover a fuck up.
I think the picture is missing several people from upper management hovering behind the chair?
In my specific case that almost never happened. Logistics role, so super busy and intense, but you’re very much left to your own devices
I kind of miss the atmosphere now that I’m in a very different role, tbh. I do not miss the pressure tho.
What they sometimes mean by “fast paced” is “we are going to have you doing many things that are not in your job description.” Basically, you’ll be doing the jobs of 3-4 people and some of those jobs will pose a significant risk to your health and safety.
I get that for most people, this is a nightmare. But for me, having lots of varied tasks is fun.
It’s why I took a job at a tiny city with 11 employees in City Hall. Nominally, I’m a permit processor, but I oversee the permitting process, GIS, coordinating third-party services, and more. Yesterday I made a map for the police, processed permits, drove across town to fix a manhole cover that came loose (we don’t actually have a public work department), took pictures for the city attorney of a mansion being illegally built and screwing up city utilities, and fixed a broken printer.
Yes, I’m stupid busy, but I enjoy the variety. I’m also paid more than double what most permit techs are, and have my hands in development, public works, finance, administration, and more. All of which will be useful later in my career when I want to move into city management at a larger town.
Leslie Knope???
Oh shit, you’re right! We found Leslie Knope!!
As an ADHD person, your job sounds amazing.
There’s a million squirrels and I love it.
That’s corporate talk for “We don’t hire enough staff, and we blame you for that!”
For me, it was a matter of how much I liked my coworkers. Technically I had a small office but we all (except HR and group exec) worked from open cubes, had plenty of huddle rooms, and those of us assigned offices left them free for all to use as huddle rooms or group call rooms.
It was just a good atmosphere. Hybrid model. Ping pong an hour a day, which near everyone participated in. And tea time we all took very seriously.
Covid and acquisition, in no particular order, made that office go away. I’m remote now, and have been for years. I would go back there in a heartbeat.
Random rant. But miss that crew. We still meet for a beer once in a while, though I’m no longer working there and a lot of us moved out of state. Virtual happy hour is actually fun when you like the people on there.
Not sure about the excitement but take a look at your inbox and calendar for the fast-paced part.
I thing fast is happening with a single 20” monitor
Every time my last boss said, “this should be fun!” I knew I was in for something incredibly, mind-numbingly tedious.
Looking at this shuts my brain off @.@ Bleh!
Happy friday
