ARRRGH! Noisy open plan office....

[chriscboy]

Hi everyone,

I am a developer that works in a rather noisy open plan office and I was wondering what other peoples experience of this is. I have a small development team consisting of myself, who does software development for the company, 1 support/crystal person and 1 hardware/software person who looks after the network and pc's.

We are seated in the corner of the open plan office, which can hold 20 people. We are surrounded by 6 admin staff (two behind me and 4 to the left). At the other end of the office (the 'quiet' end, where our server room is) the sales and marketing are situated, who are out of the office a lot of the time. In between that we have 6 hot-desks for the consultants in our company.

Now I am having trouble dealing with the noise and so are the rest of my team. Although there are no noisy printers around us, the noise level of conversation, people speaking loudly on mobile phones, and the admin staff binding documents, is very loud indeed. I cannot hear myself think and it is very difficult to program in this environment (esp. I am learing .NET AND developing solutions at the same time).

Am I being to fussy?, or is it not reasonable to ask the management team to allow us to move where sales and marketing are at the quiet end of the office. We used to be situated there (hence the server room being near by) but we got moved to where we are because the admin staff complained "sales and marketing are too noisy".

Now the admin team, consultants and sales and marketing are making more noise and the situation is slowly getting worse. I would say 3 hours a day are quiet and the rest are noisy.

I do have the choice of working from home, but I also have people management resonsibilities, so I believe I should always be available for them in the office. I can't win!!

Your comments and votes of sympathy please!!

 

[BJCooperIT]

Definitely can relate and you have my sympathy. My current contract is an open office plan. The window wall has management staff in offices who regularly hold "open door" noisy meetings. In the open area there are about 30 developers & 20 customer support techs. The separator walls are only about 3.5 feet high. Most of the desks are clustered so that four people literally face each other:
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To make it worse, I sit right next to the office printer. No conversation is private, anyone can look over your shoulder, and team meetings are held throughout the day at someone's desk instead of the conference rooms. The support folks are on the phone most of the day so the noise is pretty constant. And don't even get me started on the conversations about traffic, kids, pets, cars, and sports! All in all, it is like working in an airport terminal without the annoying PA announcements.

I do not think you are being unreasonable to want a productive working environment. That is best done in a relatively quiet environment where there are few distractions. Do we put our children in basketball stadiums and expect them to learn math or write essays? No. We give them a quiet place, like a library, where they can concentrate.

I have finally started wearing headphones to listen to CDs in self defense. My problem now is the folks who come up behind my chair and start talking to me without letting me know they are there, but it is better than the alternative.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)
My website: Emu Products Plus

 

[BocaBurger]

Put a rear view mirror on your screen.
Wear noise cancelling headphones and have company pay for them.


BocaBurger
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The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[njwcad]

I am heavily involved in work space management / office planning. Most companies, especially those not in low rent accommodation, have moved to an open plan environment. Open plan workstations offer at lest 70% denser occupancy densities over cellular offices as well as offering more flexibility.

All office space should be properly designed with separate enclosed print / copy areas, break out areas for informal meetings and quite rooms for confidential discussions, conference calls, or when people need a bit of head space.

With a bit of thought an open plan environment should be a more pleasant place to work then stuck in an office all day.

I have also seen my fair share of noisy, poorly lit and ill designed open plan offices too!

Pete.

 

[eyeswideclosed]

Same problem here, it wouldn't be so bad but all the socializing is out of control, people want to gossip and bs all day instead of working, and still get paid well, then they wonder why so many companies are looking at outsourcing, which is a mistake imo, but I bet all those devs in bangalore who make 5$ and hour aren't walking around gossiping, Americans are spoiled and need to get back to a better work ethic if we are to stem this tide.

 

[Dollie]

Coming from a "spoiled American", I would say that unfortunately, until most offices in spoiled America are redesigned, we're stuck with cubicles that are poorly designed. Sarcasm aside, however, having a headset seems to be the way to go, unless you want a Cone of Silence from Maxwell Smart.

White noise speakers were recently installed in our office ceiling, and it really DOES make a difference. We're installing more throughout the office. Even with the white noise, having your own Ipod definitely makes things easier when you really need to tune out others in the office.

You may also see if you can move into the unused conference room since conferences are usually at someone's desk. You never know, you might get to move out of Gopherville/Cubeville and into a very quiet area to work!

You have my sympathies. I'm dreading the two new office people that will be working on the phone 90% of the time and will be seated next to me.

Anyone know where Ipod's are on sale?

 

[chriscboy]

Thanks for your comments. Today has been reasonably peaceful (esp. now that it is 17:36!!), but you never know what tommorow is going to bring.

Your open plan office does not even have dividers between the desks!

Dollie:
The idea about white noise speakers is interesting. What are they and how do they work?

BocaBurger:
Where can I get some of these speakers from?

 

[BocaBurger]

Bose makes one. (Headphones).



BocaBurger
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The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[Dollie]

The speakers were installed in our drop-ceiling, and are controlled by a light switch so they can be turned on and off. To me, it almost sounds like air conditioning noise.

Searching the internet for noise cancelling/white noise speakers will lead you on the right path!