I would really encourage you to move on the interviewing as soon as you can. I was in your position, desperately unhappy with the working conditions, and now I'm in a small quiet office with 4 to 5 other people and I have never been happier in my work.

In the meantime, get yourself a set of Bose Quiet Comfort 35s. An absolutely life changing piece of equipment for me at least. If nothing else you will comfortable enjoy the movies on the next flight you catch instead of having to crank the volume to the maximum to barely hear it over the constant background roar of the engines.

> get yourself a set of Bose Quiet Comfort 35s

That's only if you like to listen to music while you work. If you just want quiet, get yourself a pair of the earmuffs that the airport ground crews wear out on the tarmac. I had a coworker who wore those and the only real downside was that he'd get horribly startled when people were trying to get his attention because they'd have to come up and touch him on the shoulder. Even basically yelling in the vicinity of his ears, he'd have no idea people were right behind him.

that's if you can tolerate having hot earmuffs pressing on your head all day, which I cannot. It hurts and gives me earache.

That depends on the model for me, some work good others do not. But I don't know about daily use I've only worn them for two days max.

As CTO had limited impact on floorplan, bought $350 Bose for everyone in tech, got in trouble with CFO but wasn't fired ;-)

I have some, and I don't listen to music 90% of the time. Just the noise cancelling on is extremely effective.

I have an older noise-cancelling model, the QC 15s, and they do a decent job at noise cancelling even without music. I listen to https://www.brain.fm/ (paid, but lifetime license is cheap) at a low volume to drown out any remaining noise. It's consistent background "white" noise that drowns out even the loudest co-workers. Wear them for 6-10 hours / day, best productivity investment I've ever made.

Can't you just use a pair of noise-canceling cans without piping audio through them? Is there a drawback to turning on the noise-canceling feature without coming through the speakers? It won't be completely quiet (on basic models), but it is probably comfortably quiet for most.

Perhaps suggest he strategically places a mirror on his desk.

rainymood.com (and equivalents) is perfect if you just want something to swamp out your surroundings without being a distraction.

Bose headphones spy on listeners: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bose-lawsuit-idUSKBN17L2B...

The app does, not the headphones itself.

Only the new ones. I have the previous model (Quiet Comfort 25), and they're really nice and dumb. Only a 3.5 jack and a battery compartment, no other interfaces.

It's a good reminder for those "I prefer BT to wired headphones"

No, it's not. BT used with the standard protocols is fine. It's a reminder not to install stupid "apps" when there's absolutely no need for them.

Are they robust enough for everyday use? The Sony equivalent is plagued with problems I've read in reviews.

Yes.

Cheers

Yes.

Thanks

> And how much does it cost to have your entire engineering team audibly and visually distracted and annoyed 100% of the time?

No one has any idea, because that isnt a cost which is tracked by the accounting department...

therefore it has zero cost, right?

Right?

> So again, the costs don't show up on your balance sheet, and every person on your team could fucking hate this open office shit and work at half capacity, and you would never have any idea.

If only the managers could... I don't know... manage ? And pay attention to what's going on in their company?

Nah... a good percentage of managers I've worked for spend 75% of their time doing management politics / make-work. Getting things done is a low, low, priority.

> keeping engineers crowded together like livestock in stables serves as a visual indicator of the inherent superiority of their managers

Bad management and a sign the company is toxic.

True, but still very common in this industry.

That 1/3rd stuff is my life exactly. I've basically stopped trying to get serious work done at the office - it's for meetings and that's it. The rest I have to wait until nighttime when I'm nowhere near peak performance and my productivity overall is easily 1/3 less than it would be if I could work in the office

I don't understand how it can be so expensive, I can rent a serviced office for two people locally for £400/month. This is without the economies of scale of an organisation.

This is the part that makes the least sense to me, too. They talk about cost in terms that don't even take into account the reason for wanting offices.

You don't want offices because of feng shui, you want them because of the positive impact they're going to have on productivity / retention / talent acquisition. And yet their rationalizations rarely include anything but real estate costs.

I just don't get it. If a private office would improve an engineer's productivity by 5%, that's over $1k/month in payroll savings they could put toward their 8x8 square with a door.

Now consider that the actual improvement to productivity vs open offices is probably more like 20%, and that an 8x8 square with a door in commercial zoning isn't even close to 1k/month, and that you're also improving your ability to attract and retain top talent.

But don't worry, we have plenty of room for nap pods and massage chairs.

It seems that they have not yet determined that having a secondary off-site with private offices and meeting spaces is worth the investment.

It'd be about £400/month where I am as well, and I'm guessing you're not in London/Cambridge/Oxford.

Also since you're in the UK don't forget about rates (local property taxes that businesses pay in the UK). Once you're beyond a certain size this tax will jump from £50 a month to over £1000.

In London it's more like 600-700 for good quality places in a co-working space (Wework or similar), up to 1k+ for particularly central locations. But then if you can afford the salaries here, the 300-400/month increase per team member compared to a desk in a co-working space doesn't need to cause a particularly big performance bump to be worth it.

Not far outside Oxford.

I did have an office in Oxford for £200/month although this was ten years ago and it was a bit of a dump.

You're painting open offices in a completely negative light without seeing that they also have upsides.

I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible. What's more, a lot of engineers actually voiced a preference for open space plans over individual offices.

Cubicles are on the table as an acceptable compromise but given the growth at which we're hiring and growing, it's just not physically feasible.

I don't understand how nobody here can compromise. Build quiet spaces into your office floorplan and eat the cost up front. If you can't afford to provide a place to work quietly for those that want it you can't afford space in that office building. Or you can't afford that number of employees. It's getting ridiculous, If you're going to keep saying it's expensive take the cost from somewhere else, like payroll. Provide a great workspace for your employees and in return you'll get great work. Poor planning upfront is going to cost you so much more on the back end.

The issue is that people who prefer open offices can make use of open areas, while people who need closed spaces actually need them in order to work.

One is a preference, the other is an outright necessity.

You have not mentioned any upsides of open offices for the percentage of the workforce which require isolation. Please, give their needs equal weight and consideration.

> I'm in the same position as the CTO above and giving everyone a private office in my company is not even remotely close to being financially feasible.

Yet somehow most organizations can swing this for management.