I'm kind of disappointed that the 'convertible pod' concept hasn't gained more traction over traditional cubicles. I've seen them in a few places, and they seemed like such a great idea.

A fairly normal looking cubicle setup, except you could raise or lower the upper part of the partition wall, and each pod would have a sliding door. Need quiet to focus on your work or have a call to take? Raise the walls and slide the door closed.

To get around the heat issue, most computers would go into a rack mount type setup in between the stations, and the really nice setup I've seen even had a mini wall mount HVAC so you could have a custom temp. (Or be 'green' if you happened to be the only person in the office at the time, just raise the walls and let the rest of the office go hotter or colder than normal while your little work space stays optimal.)

Kind of a best of both worlds thing.

For me one of the biggest distractions is having people move around behind me. If i can sit with my back to a wall, then I'm very happy with a good pair of noise cancelling headphones and random music.

That made the most coolheaded manager rage after the fourth year in succession with the same stupid questions being asked

Given how large of an impact it can have on people's actual productivity... It really wasn't a stupid question.

Different people work in different ways, and it is kind of management's job to sort things out such that everyone in an office is working effectively.

The "stupid" comment was more going in the direction of "why ask questions when the managment does not want to listen anyway?"... Of course the question per se wasn't stupid at all. It was just stupid to ask for something management will never back down off, ever.

That is how things work here... you don't like it? You find another job. Trying to talk to management is like trying to talk to 5 year olds. They understand what you are saying, what the words mean. But their world and yours is so vastly different, they cannot understand what you are trying to express with these words. It doesn't help when most of these managers still have their own office, or by now at max sit in a small openplan office with other guys of the same rank that most probably are not at their desk 80% of the time. With the manager himself being occupied with meetings and traveling from here to there, that makes THEIR openplan office a very quiet place to work in I guess.

Then most of the guys never tried to write a single line of code. Most of them most probably either followed a management career from the start, or have been off jobs where talking is NOT your most important skill for so long they hardly remember it.

Why do you expect such guys to listen? At a time when management still though we had too much Staff? :)

As for the people wandering around loudly talking on phones: Best 'solution' I've seen is an office that had 'phone pods', semi sound proof phonebooth type things that you could step in. (Some libraries have them.) When a few people failed to take advantage of them and did the 'wander the office while talking and thinking' thing, a few of the engineers disassembled one of the booths so it was in two halves, put it on wheels, and anytime someone did the walk-and-talk and wasn't headed for a booth, then a few of the guys would grab a half and chase after the loud talker till they caught him.

We HAVE phone pods. Most people are decent enough to use them, me included. Some special persons think they don't have to... because its their job to be on phone 24/7? Because they cannot hear how loud they are thanks to their headsets? Because they just don't care? Who knows?

But I like the idea with the mobile pods. Sounds like a solution to make a point without interrupting an important phone call (well, at least the culprit can't claim that you disrupted the call, just his afternoon stroll with the phone) :)

Sadly I think where I work most people wouldn't take it well. Either they would just take it as a joke and ignore it, or they would take it serious. It sometimes does feel like Corporate-Zombie-Land around here.

Since I quit my day-job and went indie, I've now got a tiny office with 4 walls and a door... It's amazing. Why don't normal companies ever give me a door!?

I share ~10m2 / 100ft2 with 2 other people, and if the office itself gets rowdy (we're neighboring the open-plan lunch / kitchen area), we can *gasp* close the door!

Revolutionary.

That sound groundbreaking... did you already apply for a patent for this... d-o-o-r? All we have here are always open fire doors. Can't imagine doors having any other function than being closed during fire drills.

Damn, the forum does it again... I had to doublepost because I cannot add a quote to an existing post without the quoted persons name changing....

Do you just have big tables that everybody sits at? We have half height cubicles arranged in pods by game and our world hasn't imploded. We've found it much easier when design, art, and tech can talk about things on the fly. Much easier to convey intent in person then over an instant messenger nor is there the hassle of trying to find an open room for everybody. Granted it can get a bit noisy from time to time but certainly better then floor to ceiling cubicle walls everywhere. There are a few offices like that in the building and everybody in them always seems depressed.

We make mobile games which is fast and iterative. Being able to quickly communicate is necessary. I could see the point of not looking at people if you were working on multi year projects and a lot of the same thing day in and out. Also, we have been lucky enough that people are smart enough to go somewhere else for phone calls or Skype meetings.

Do you just have big tables that everybody sits at? We have half height cubicles arranged in pods by game and our world hasn't imploded. We've found it much easier when design, art, and tech can talk about things on the fly. Much easier to convey intent in person then over an instant messenger nor is there the hassle of trying to find an open room for everybody. Granted it can get a bit noisy from time to time but certainly better then floor to ceiling cubicle walls everywhere. There are a few offices like that in the building and everybody in them always seems depressed.

We make mobile games which is fast and iterative. Being able to quickly communicate is necessary. I could see the point of not looking at people if you were working on multi year projects and a lot of the same thing day in and out. Also, we have been lucky enough that people are smart enough to go somewhere else for phone calls or Skype meetings.

See, I am pretty sure with the right people working on the right project, openplan offices can work out... certainly helps when its a smaller company where "enforcing rules" is easier, and might not even be needed as everyone knows everyone else.

In a big building of a big company with 1000s of employees, where teams are shifted around among different office rooms and floors, so you end up with a floor of people that have little in common in kind of workload, don't know each other and might actually be from very different lines of work... this is where problems start.

There is a big difference between how a programmer working on a complex problem, and business support loudly talking on the phone with the front desk employees 24/7 perceive office noise.

When you stuff a bunch of people into an openplan office that don't work together, don't know each other and will never really want to get to know each other most probably, an openplan office can never work.

I am pretty sure there are more than enough reasons why openplan offices might also fail for much smaller companies or more sensible placement of teams, but that would be beyond my expierience.

Now I feel your pain. Being stuck in the same space with people who don't have a common goal would be hell.

Noise can be a problem even at my work and you can have visual distractions. Some of the artists have went to some extreme measures to try and make a full cubicle for themselves. Luckily for me I have multiple computers at my desk with multiple monitors so I pretty much have a complete eye level shield from other people.