Funny enough I didn't get a private office but we got walls built for a private office when the sales guy joined because he was disturbing everyone. If my non developer coworkers realized how disturbing it is to be in flow writing code to have someone tap your shoulder and start discussing a totally unrelated issue to what you've been coding.

My place of employment is similar to yours, I've moved myself up the ladder in order to start isolating and enabling my dev team the peace and quiet they need to be most productive.

What if, while you code, you think out loud, like really out loud... louder than you would talk in conversation? Perhaps if YOU bothered EVERYONE then maybe they'd put you in a private office? It's worth a try while you are looking for other opportunities...

i.e. "LET ME THINK HERE... IF VARIABLE V EQUALS ENUM ACTIVE THEN CALL DOHICKY ELSE DO NOTHING... WAIT IS THAT RIGHT?! NO NO NO LET ME RETHINK THIS?! I BET IF I REFACTOR THIS CODE I CAN..." All day long...if they tell you to be quiet tell them to "shut up" you're trying to think and they are ruining your thought processes and they risk causing you to slow down and/or enter errors and bugs into the code... "what do you mean me talking and noise in general is disturbing to you and your work? How they hell do you think I feel?!?!?" :)

That kind of passive aggressiveness will make your coworkers hate you and could get you fired because they know you don't have to do that.

Apparently that passive aggressiveness already exists in his work place thanks to his bosses and co-workers... but some how you all fault him and say he can't share that same love?

I was thinking more about other situations. I thought the salesman was isolated to an office because he has to talk on the phone, constantly, to customers and it was interrupting the developers. I've heard similar situations with startups and their CEOs. If I did that in my open space office, my coworkers would just get irritated and eventually I'll be talked about it by my manager.

In fact, in my current work environment, when we moved offices there was a "central" open area with a view half built cube walls. Originally our telephone support were going to sit there and the Dev team was going to get placed in an enclosed shared Dev "war room". Support squeaked and the timid dev team got stuck out in the open.

Supposedly since Support is on the phone, they would interrupt everyone (everyone else int he vicinity is sales and they each have private offices) since they talk aloud on the phone. Why's this bad? Because breaking deep thought vs. some noise in the background (which still also exists because of the leakage they have on the phone in a single enclosed room) is much much more unproductive. Worse, the Sales team often forgets to shut their doors so sound leaks out into the open area or between sales calls they congregate a few at a time and have loud conversations disrupting the dev team. Worst of all is if they are in their offices, quietly doing paperwork with their doors open then decide to yell to talk to another salesperson in another office.

I often get up and shut Sales office doors, and constantly have to hush people up. My timid dev team doesn't because, well they are timid and don't want to rock the boat and add friction to inter office relationships. (I can hear, I agree. I need to encourage my dev team to speak up more, perhaps I'm sheltering them too much.)

unfortunately in environments like the one the OP mentions, the squeaky wheel is usually the one that gets the grease. So, while attached to the trailer (company) you're best to squeak loudly while you look for a better vehicle to get onboard with.

But if you are planning to leave, what harm will it really do? When you have pocket aces, bet and play them!

EDIT: Maybe you'll inadvertently help the next guy. Yeah they might not care much for you but maybe, just maybe, something will click and the folks will realize... yeah I guess disturbing him was stupid on our part. If not and they don't get it... who gives a crap about people that don't give a crap about you!?

That's not playing a good hand, that's being a dick simply because you can probably get away with it. Don't be a dick.

I sometimes am forced to do this at work. Just to get people to shut up from chit-chatting/small-talking very loudly. But then, I work in a cost-cutting, off-shored, cubicle farm.

Often, when we are pairing at work, the person driving is thinking out loud or the pair are in discussion with 8 other pairs in their row of tables.

If you only you could talk to them?

Seriously, most of these problems are due to lack of communication, set up a ticketing system, teach people how to use it.

Be a grumpy bastard. Someone taps me on the shoulder, I'm grumpy the first time, I growl the second time and if there is a third time I'll shout at them. Hasn't come to the shouting yet (although one guy got pretty close, but I just glared at him last time he approached and he grasped it).

Also, ask if you can work from home since your office environment is bullshit for writing code.

Work from home was turned down pretty quickly though I'm not sure if that would have addressed the root problem. I think the root issue is they need a developer who just does tech support for the other 10 non tech people. And then a developer who can actually build shit quietly.

If my whole job was to do tech support all day there would be no problem. Of course it wouldn't be fun and I'd prolly end up leaving, the present situation hasn't been much better and I'm on my way out.

Now that I am leaving soon my boss is very interested for advice on how to attract tech talent. A part of me just wants to send him a link to this thread :)

"A part of me just wants to send him a link to this thread :)"

That's probably the single best thing you could do for him, if he is serious about wanting to attract (and retain!) good technology people.

Re: working from home

Been there, done that. The only difference is that they call me on the phone instead of coming up to my desk.

I'll frequently work from home in the morning or evening if I want to get stuff done; no coworkers there. Or if I need to concentrate, I'll leave my office and go find a massage chair or cozy nook and curl up with my laptop, or even go to a different building and work alongside a team where nobody knows who I am.

Only thing I miss is my 3 24" monitors.

So how well does Linux support that setup? Or you're using OSX at Google?

Linux supports 2 with no problem. I'm using a second computer and synergy for the 3rd.

I think there's a definite benefit to team offices, but the team needs to be focused on the same project.

Wear some sort of ridiculous Productivity Hat with a door on it somewhere and an 'Occupied' sign.