Oh boy, two desks facing each other with low walls.

Here's what that's like:

You're looking at your monitor and in your peripheral vision, just above your monitor, is someone looking at their monitor. You're basically looking at each other.

They answer their mobile with their head phones on.

"Hey"

It looks like they're looking at you and you never saw their subtle click on the inline toggle below your view.

"What's up?"

Person on mobile points to their earbud to indicate they're not talking to you.

Later the same person gets an email that pisses them off and exclaims, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

It looks like they're scowling at you.

"Huh?"

"Nothing, sorry."

All day. Everyday. Fun times!

Let's not forget the constant awkward fleeting moments of eye contact with someone you barely know and don't wish to talk to.

Why do you "barely know" the person across from you?? What, no team building budget?

Haha. In my particular case I was at the boundary of two departments. To make things worse, turnover was high.

Hmm, I wonder why?

the quick semi-smile meant to acknowledge the other person without starting a conversation that just makes things more awkward...

Looks like the ministry of information in a sci fi dystopia.

Or a large airport business lounge.

Honestly, given that it's an open floor plan, it looks nice to me.

John Gruber, the blogger mentioned in the article, thought the same thing:

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/07/27/video-footage-f...

WOW, Holy Shit! Nothing about that office space looks remotely warm or inviting. Was this really the plan for that new campus all along???

Where are the white boards to write notes on?

I guarantee in a matter of months engineers will cover all those clear glass walls with posters and other things to block out all the obnoxious sunlight that will be coming in to blind them on their screens.

Other nit-picks, will Apple no longer all engineers the option to pick their own chairs? Those in the photos look like generic shitty conference room chairs and not ones I'd want to spend all day on.

Also, are those not sit/stand desks?

I don't get the complaints, that looks very cozy even if you have to share with what looks like a total of 4 engineers per room which is a reasonable number for collaboration. The second picture makes it look greater than 4, however.

Assuming the cubicles are walled off, it'll just feel like a college library meeting room.

Ok, just at a glance:

1. No separators -- you see everyone, everyone sees you. All the time.

2. No separators between neighboring desks, thus every flinch your colleague next to you makes distracts you.

3. No shelves and drawers. Where do you put all your papers, books?

4. At least based on the pictures, reflections of light, coming from every single angle.

5. The tables are way too small. There is just no space for multiple monitors to be put at a reasonable distance, which fucks up the eyes really fast.

6. One person gets sick and sneezes, everyone gets sick.

I basically had to put up with that every day in the college library. I don't mind glass offices until I get the itch to pick my nose. I get that the optimal environment for programming work is at home or in a private office, but they did what they could at what appears to be an economical compromise. I agree with the desk space, there doesn't appear to be any room for an external monitor at all.

Pick your nose and pick it boldy. Catch someone watching you pick your nose? Just pull out a booger and start examining it. Make them feel uncomfortable for staring at you doing a perfectly normal thing.

The thing about the college library is everyone knows that you're supposed to be quiet there. Open offices, I find, are much more akin to the dormitory cafeteria than the library.

I hate that if I want quiet I can't have my monitors, keyboard, or mouse. And if I want those I'm sitting directly next to the loud and noisy office cafeteria between my very loud teammates.

This is _after_ I asked for a quiet location and they told me "it doesn't matter cause you never sit at your desk anyways" even though everytime they move me I find _one_ quiet spot and sit in it until the next move. But even if I sit there _every day for months_, apparently "I don't sit at my desk".

Combine that with a "no WFH" policy, commuter trains that have been declared to be in a "state of emergency" by our Governor Cuomo, and a no reimbursement for headphones policy and it's no shocker our retention rate is absolutely abysmal.

I just do not understand who thought to themselves "well, we're gonna have to hire a bunch of very talented people who need to abstract extremelt complex data flows day after day, so I suggest we put them in the middle of a _fucking zoo_".

I find myself constantly exhausted by days end as my brain copes with constantly trying to churn out work while being inundated by constant distractions and blasting music.

How about the people who come up behind you and shake your chair while you're in the middle of things to get your attention when you _don't even know they're behind you????_

Or the people who see someone with their headphones on and just walk up and start chatting away, because why could what I was focusing on be important, it's just a quick question, what's it matter if I get jarred out of my workflow?

Open offices are an absolute fucking travesty. I will never work in one again after this job.

Compare that to when I work from home, I get more done, I don't feel bad about resting for twenty minutes and coming back refreshed, my ears don't hurt, I'm not exhausted.

What a shit show.

Edit: I very rarely swear in my hacker news posts, but the amount of stress and misery and grief these layouts gives me, some one who just absolutely loves engineering complex software solutions... it kills me.

Remember being in college, up late night, working on some project, and you look up and four hours had gone by without you noticing? Remember that flow? That rapture? That concentration?

Now ask all your open office colleagues how many of them ritually experience that same solace, that same unbelievable connection with the work and problem you're solving. Why in gods name would you hire people who could experience that and rip it all away from them? Why would you make it impossible to get there?

What a joke. Now I love my large private cube even more, lol.

Surely they will put monitors or machines in there, so there will be separators.

I have worked in a similar situation, you DID get used to it quite quickly.

Cozy? Looks more like a morgue to me.

Looks like an Apple store. Bet it's going to be as noisy as one.

The WSJ story says the offices are soundproof:

>A section of workspace in the circular, Norman Foster–designed building is finally move-in-ready: sliding-glass doors on the soundproof offices, a giant European white oak collaboration table, adjustable-height desks, and floors with aluminum-covered hinged panels, hiding cables and wires, and brushed-steel grating for air diffusion.

>The first prototype was ready in the summer of 2010, with pictures of trees on either end of the central area to evoke the landscaping and proximity to the outdoors. Jobs himself set the precise dimensions of the openings from one end of the central area to the other. The team quickly discovered that early versions of the small offices on each side of the central area were noisy—sound bounced off the flat wood walls. Foster’s architects suggested perforating the walls with millions of tiny holes and lining them with an absorbent material. In the completed section of workspace, Ive snaps his fingers to demonstrate the warm sound it creates.

That would be nice if people had private offices but it looks like a dozen or so to each enclosed area.

Sounds like (pun intended) that they've made it more like a concert hall. Instead of white noise with all the reflections you get to hear everyone in your jail block, er, work area nice and clearly.

I personally find that hearing a clear conversation beside me to be a bigger distraction as I tend to "lock on" to it instead of thinking of the problem at hand. So your damned either way, loud but more noise like or quieter but more distracting.

Those desks on the renders don't look like standing desks, but rather height adjustable desks.

Here in Australia all new offices are equipping standing desks for OH&S laws and workspace regulation compliances.

These are actually way nicer than I expected. I've seen much more distracting open office layouts.