Cubicles

I work in a technical support company. We have not what you would call cubicles but I guess you could call them devided desks. The desks are corner desks (if you put four together they would make a square leaving a hole in the center). Each are devided by waved 2-3.5 foot deviders. This way you can see those immediately to the left and right of you but not directly infront (accross) from you. Keeps a little privacy but is very open. I would prefer a full out cubicle however, I guess it would be the next step to an office. Just a ownership/privacy thing for me... "This is my space, I organize/clean/maintain it"

To be honest a cubicle does have advantages, especially for those of us that have already used up our wall space and still need to pin things up. Then again the lack of walls makes it easier to burst into spontanous bullshit debate with each other over actual programming work :P

I'm an IT manager at a small company and actually have my own office. However the accounting dept. where my mother works has cubicles. Basically, cubicles give you a personal space of your own (which can be confining at times) but still allow conversation to occur between people without actually having to get up to talk to them.

I wish I had a cubicle. Then I could slack off more because my boss can't look right across the desk at me!

I don't work well with people hanging over me. A little "private space" I can drill away in sounds more appealing than an open office space to me. I've never worked in either though.

When I worked at Intel my cubicle was basically in a vast see of cubicles. It was a standard layout, just gigantic grid of little rooms. I'd have to say that I disliked it greatly, I am a very social person, and I work best in a cooperative setting. Having to walk over to your coworkers cubicle takes a lot of time, and it seems that the standard basically became sending e-mails acorss the office instead of ever talkign to people. Also, since it was such a massive sea of cubicles, it was veeeerrrrrrry quiet. I felt like talking to someone out loud was out of place and generally felt like the environment was isolating.

I've been mulling this idea over for a while in my head, and I think that the best team setting would be where everyone in each "team (<10 people?) can see each other, talk to each other, etc. Basically, whenever someone runs up against a wall they can just pose the problem to everyone and get a solution that much faster. The team should be made up of people working on the same thing too, so your team basically becomes a brain trust.

Give each team a "Macro Cubicle", a large area where they all work together. Put desks on the outside wall so that people can work a little more alone if they want to, and then have a conference table like arrangement in the center for people working in groups. If you want to switch from one "mode" to the other, just get up and move from the table to your desk, or vise versa. It should also be encouraged to communicate, so that no one feels that they have to solve all the problems on their own and you truly get that "brain trust" effect.

I dont know why everyone doesnt like cubicles. Maybe its cause i'm not much of a social person, i dunno. I like my cubicle..it's like an office except not. I dunno...

Crop dusting leads to prarie dogging, remember that.

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Original post by intrest86 When I worked at Intel my cubicle was basically in a vast see of cubicles. It was a standard layout, just gigantic grid of little rooms. I'd have to say that I disliked it greatly, I am a very social person, and I work best in a cooperative setting. Having to walk over to your coworkers cubicle takes a lot of time, and it seems that the standard basically became sending e-mails acorss the office instead of ever talkign to people. Also, since it was such a massive sea of cubicles, it was veeeerrrrrrry quiet. I felt like talking to someone out loud was out of place and generally felt like the environment was isolating. I've been mulling this idea over for a while in my head, and I think that the best team setting would be where everyone in each "team (<10 people?) can see each other, talk to each other, etc. Basically, whenever someone runs up against a wall they can just pose the problem to everyone and get a solution that much faster. The team should be made up of people working on the same thing too, so your team basically becomes a brain trust. Give each team a "Macro Cubicle", a large area where they all work together. Put desks on the outside wall so that people can work a little more alone if they want to, and then have a conference table like arrangement in the center for people working in groups. If you want to switch from one "mode" to the other, just get up and move from the table to your desk, or vise versa. It should also be encouraged to communicate, so that no one feels that they have to solve all the problems on their own and you truly get that "brain trust" effect.

That would be good when the setting and the managers approve of this. In my technical support experience they consider that a "sneaker escalation" and it was looked down upon, even to the extent of the verbal-written-suspension-termination path. The managers figure if you're getting out of your seat to ask another technical support rep of "your level" then you're wasting customer and company time when you could be going to the level above you (tier 2/customer relations..etc) and resolving the issue much faster/more efficient (even though sometimes all you need is a yes/no from a reliable resource/co-worker)

I havn't worked in a cubicle yet. However I get most of my cynical outlook of 'Cubesville' from the timeless satire of Dilbert. This being my only link to cubicles, please don't consider me an expert in the field, but i don't like the sound of them.

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Original post by remmargorp That would be good when the setting and the managers approve of this. In my technical support experience they consider that a "sneaker escalation" and it was looked down upon, even to the extent of the verbal-written-suspension-termination path. The managers figure if you're getting out of your seat to ask another technical support rep of "your level" then you're wasting customer and company time when you could be going to the level above you (tier 2/customer relations..etc) and resolving the issue much faster/more efficient (even though sometimes all you need is a yes/no from a reliable resource/co-worker)

I can believe that's true of tech support - you're all supposed to know the stuff equally, so if you don't, your coworkers won't - but in a development setting people are expected to need to work together. intrest86's proposal sounds like an excellent way of running such an environment - each 'working group' having no more than 10 people, their own small kitchen (sink/kettle/fridge), and being responsible for keeping their place tidy. The table in the center is actually kinda unnecessary (though a couple of common tables would be good) - you can just spin around in your chair and join in with the conversation.

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Original post by MotionCoil I havn't worked in a cubicle yet. However I get most of my cynical outlook of 'Cubesville' from the timeless satire of Dilbert. This being my only link to cubicles, please don't consider me an expert in the field, but i don't like the sound of them.

There's that ongoing debate over what's better -- cubicles or an open office.

Cubicles add an element of privacy, of course, but they tend to be inexpensive frames that are all boring (the same).

I suppose if you're lucky (or good), you'll just wind up with an office of your own.

I agree with Superpig.
Having worked in cubicles all my proffesional career, Ive grown accustomed to the setting and actually like it quite a bit. However, theres not much that I have to contrast it against.

In one setting I found myself working in a lab where everyone had a dockingstation for our laptops in a square room, and the docking stations were line up along the walls, circling the room. It was nice because we were able to see everyone and hold conversations without any trouble, and if someone needed assistance they would just speak up and we had all aspects of the software taken care of by different individuals in the room. We called it the "War Room" as we were a sustainment team resolving autogenerated tickets as they came in.

At one point, we tied a string to hang through the whole room, and we would play volley ball during our downtimes.

No matter what, if the work you do is of interest, the cubicle setting is never going to bother you. It allows for conversation, as mostly the walls dont go as high as they do in Office Space.. its never more then a stretch of the neck or simply standing up to make eye contact with whomever is near, while it still provides a nice sense of privacy.

The only thing I doubt would work in Interests suggestions is the added table, as floor space isnt all that abundant usually (depending on the size of the company)

Only on gamedev do we debate the pros and cons of cubicles :D

I would give anything to go back to my half cubicle, I moved from the Technical Support side of our company into a HelpDesk Analyst position, I went from the floor environment (half-cubicles, you could sit and see people to the left and right but not straight ahead, just the way the dividers were designed) which still gave some privacy, to a lab room where for the moment I'm using an eMac on a crappy fold up (like rental/re-union) desk that dips down in the center because there was so much weight that was stored on it, so I have kind of grown accustomed to leaning to my right.

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Original post by MotionCoil Only on gamedev do we debate the pros and cons of cubicles :D

Are you kidding? These sorts of questions about optimal business practices are educatedly guessed by consultants for hundreds of dollars an hour.

Software development office space done right.

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Original post by Oluseyi Software development office space done right.

Cool. I used to walk by that place every day on the way to work and had no idea.

..

Seriously, though, it probably *is* a great thing if you have a nice office, but when the office is outright amazing I ask myself two things:

1) Is all the money this company is spending on their office space not better served paying me (or other developers) more money?

I'm sure it helps when attracting great developers, but what *really* helps attract great developers is spending that money paying those developers great salaries.

2) Am I expected to live here?

That's obviously what the subject of the article is going for in his developers, and is quite often the truth when you look at amazing offices. Here in Dallas, "Ensemble Studios" has an amazing office, full arcade, movie theater, pool tables, fussball, air hockey, board game area, etc., etc. And -- yes -- as you would expect, the developers are indeed expected to live there (and they DO!)

When I was younger, I thought that was all great. Now, I actually look at fully decked out places like that and it sends a shiver down my spine. I think to myself: "Holy shit. They never want me to leave the building. Ever. Do I *really* want to spend my life here?"

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Are you kidding? These sorts of questions about optimal business practices are educatedly guessed by consultants for hundreds of dollars an hour.

What are we all doing just debating it in a forum then? Theres a big wide world out there. With lots of money. :)

I think the concept is it gives the employee privacy from co-workers while allowing the boss to sneak in on them while they "work." Think about it. It's kinda hard to sneak in on someone if they can see you from far away. And, it's even harder if they have an office with a creaky door. If they just got rid of the cubicles, like you said, the managers would have to hide behind office furniture or plants to see what's REALLY going on. And, if they gave every employee an office, they would have to hire someone to go around and spray WD-40 on all of the door hinges. Since everyone knows that management wouldn't waste money on such a luxury, the workers would become suspicious. Consequently, morale would drop, everyone would be too afraid to do their work, and the toxic WD-40 fumes would lower the pace of things.