See hotdesking. An agile work environment lets you avoid this confrontation by picking up and going to sit between two of the sales team.

You nearly had me for a second there. I could almost see that coming out of the mouth of a Scrum evangelist.

Is this a joke or are you being serious? If your sales people do any work, they're incredibly noisy by being on the phone all the time.

I was wondering if the joke was a little too dry, but yes it's a joke. Our workplace recently converted to an "agile workspace" and I have sales people sitting across from me regularly on the phone. :(

You really need to be careful if you are afflicted with a very dry sense of humour. Too often you risk being taken seriously by management and your ideas being implemented.

Another great idea for sabotage. Plausible deniability for awful suggestions.

Another excellent example of why dry humour is so dangerous. Too often you risk your colleagues taking your suggestions seriously and carrying them out.

If I was in HR I'd be keeping a close eye on you.

we need full surveillance on that productivity hazard!

> If your sales people do any work

This might be the joke

...joke- hotdesking is also called out in the article.

Sounds very similar to chili dogging.

I think it was done to save money at some point, and then because so many people do it, it seems like the right thing to do now. Yet everyone who happens to get a chance at an office wants it.

Sometimes it is not done to save money. At my previous workplace we had a new CEO come in 4 years ago.

1st. She trashed talked what was done before.

2nd. she took away any coffee or tea provided for employees to use, saying it cost $10000 a year to provide them.

3rd. Then she got a plan for a complete renovation of the office space, so executive officers had offices in the middle of the building that looked out over what would be open plan offices, so that no-one had the slightest bit of privacy at all. This was not done to fit more people in.

4th. Then a move to a completely different state in the country was being talked about.

I am glad I don't work there any more.

Edit: Formatting.

So was it IBM, as someone says down thread? That's a pretty horrible sequence of behaviors. I wonder how the CEO would describe those choices? Honestly appraising the previous leader for #1? For #2, I remember when steve ballmer removed all office supplies at microsoft except for the first floor in every building, to "save money". It was kind of stupid. #3 does sound like a prison. Basically, why would anyone want to work at a place like that?

No I was working at a, I would say smaller, regulatory agency, I don't want to be any more specific than that. Probably should have mentioned that in the original post, my apologies.

Regarding #3: isn't that how modern prisons are constructed? A central "panopticon" watchtower looking out into the cells.

Well, he is talking about IBM. I guess I can see why you'd confuse the two.

Sorry, I am not talking about IBM. I was actually working at a regulatory agency. I don't want to be any more specific than that. Sorry for the confusion.

It's been well-known since at least the time when Peopleware was first published (so at least several decades) that open-plan office designs don't actually save money. Not even in dense urban areas. Not even over short time periods like 1 year.

In order to believe that they do, you essentially have to have such an unrealistically hyperbolic discount function that you believe marginal productivity of your workers is nearly worthless compared to the up-front costs of the real estate.

I don't want an office. I explicitly say no to one each year. Not to say that many people don't want one, but for me it would be detrimental. Being in an open area lets me overhear things that are useful and removes one barrier to socialising. If I was in an office I would do neither - I'm not the type to hang around the water cooler so being in an open ara combats that some.

I have met people who never had an office, so they thing that open office is great and wound't want an office...

I worked at a place with my own office and at open plan offices and much prefer the latter, but thank you for your condescension.

Okay, well I guess I am corrected, there are people who like open offices. I didn't mean it to be condescending. I have a number of friends who are devs, and they had a similar feeling to me and we made a mistake in assuming that our experience was universal (a common mistake :-)).

Working with a serial desk-napper eh?