What kind of office environment do you work in?

snips86x

snips86x

snips86x

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The environment I work in is quiet...very very quiet and I hate it. Full of Devs and not many support staff (like myself) I find it really disengaging and there's no stimulation! Because of this, I spend my day listening to music, which isn't always a bad thing, but it would be nice to have conversations with actual people once in a while. It doesn't happen :(
 
I work in a pretty open plan office. There are certain people here who are incredibly loud, so there's a massively discernible difference between when they're in the room and when they're not.

I'd like to work with my headphones on all the time really, but I have to discuss a lot of stuff with one of my colleagues so it just isn't practical.

When I'm coding (which isn't very often) I often listen to music because I need to focus and not hear about someone's stupid horse or how they have some special skill etc.
 
When I'm in head office it seems to vary, some days there'll be constant chatter, others it's mostly quiet, depends who's in and if the conversation starters aren't then it's usually quiet. I prefer just being able to get on with my work in silence and I don't have any relationships with my colleagues outside of work whereas many of them there were already friends or family outside of the place, so there's clique groups. I'd make more of an effort if I was there on a regular basis or had an interest in what they talk about but it's mostly just conversations about some Netflix series I haven't seen.
 
Small company as a department of 1, one on maternity, one part time and one empty desk then a handful of others in another office usually out at meetings. I miss office banter :(
 
We've had a change now so I'm in the Dev room and all the people I get on with are in a different room - ******* hate it
 
I have my own office on the top floor of the building (only 3 storey), nice view on to the high street. I have a mini hi-fi setup for music over airplay.
I need to go down to the ground floor for coffee, but that's okay as I like a walk and it gives me a chance to chat to people. It's good coffee too.
 
I work in an open plan room with a middle aged woman and a girl my age (mid 20s), and 2 empty desks. We get on absolutely great, they can give just as much **** as they take but sometimes I realise they've either been talking between themselves or on the phone almost constantly for an hour and I haven't been able to think so I have to tell them to shut up.

Also have the office photocopier in my room so there is people coming in and out all day.

Sometimes I wish I had an office to myself but a lot of the time it's good to be able to have a laugh and/or moan with other people on a similar wavelength.

Don't really see any of them outside of work unless work events/networking. Used to go out for drinks with my old boss fairly regularly but not the new one.
 
I rarely go to our head office but it's open plan and mostly a good vibe. Day to day work in car dealerships and have different relationship with each so some let me use single offices or desks and some like today stick me in a locker room!
 
Rossi~ said:
I have my own office on the top floor of the building (only 3 storey), nice view on to the high street. I have a mini hi-fi setup for music over airplay.
I need to go down to the ground floor for coffee, but that's okay as I like a walk and it gives me a chance to chat to people. It's good coffee too.
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Exec?

I sometime wish I had my own office but I'm just a grunt in this job with no clout.
 
The whole concept of offices (with desks and computers) gets me triggered. Why make your employees go to an environment filled with distractions - where they are LEAST PRODUCTIVE - because management education is based on factories where people produce x widgets per hour. These sorts of jobs can be done from home, and therefore should be. Modern working is not a plastic fork factory. The commute itself is unhealthy, traffic being as it is.
 
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billysielu said:
The whole concept of offices (with desks and computers) gets me triggered. Why make your employees go to an environment filled with distractions - where they are LEAST PRODUCTIVE - because management education is based on factories where people product x widgets per hour. These sorts of jobs can be done from home, and therefore should be. Modern working is not a plastic fork factory. The commute itself is unhealthy, traffic being as it is.
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I think you raise a good point. I would happily work at home but since i live on my own, it's nice to actually see people - even if there are no conversations at all. If i had company at home and actually be able to work at home, I wouldn't bother traveling to the office. Likewise, if the office wasn't so dead and boring, I probably wouldn't mind coming in.
 
snips86x said:
Exec?

I sometime wish I had my own office but I'm just a grunt in this job with no clout.
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Unfortunately not. The building is an old Georgian wine merchants/brewery house, so quite a few rooms. Being pretty much the only one in my dept, and with a dash of luck, I get my own office.
 
snips86x said:
The environment I work in is quiet...very very quiet and I hate it. Full of Devs and not many support staff (like myself) I find it really disengaging and there's no stimulation! Because of this, I spend my day listening to music, which isn't always a bad thing, but it would be nice to have conversations with actual people once in a while. It doesn't happen :(
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For me this would be ideal - I'm quite happy to get my head down do my own thing and listen to music, etc. there is nothing worse than having to spend all day interacting with someone(s) that you wouldn't choose to.

Mostly don't work in an office environment or generally have worked from home when doing that kind of stuff. Don't really enjoy it much as its one of the environments where time seems to drag the most.
 
We have just moved to a smaller workshop where I work even though the workload has not changed and now we are fighting for space for our repairs (mainly Apples). The team I am in (3 of us) have a row of workbenches which we repair up to 5 units each everyday but have like space for 2 or 3, if we get an iMac that takes up most of the room. The management recently tried to squeeze someone else in too and when we stated that the repairs would have to go on the floor they soon changed their mind.
Environment itself is pretty relaxed, we do have a laugh and can have music etc, some watch youtube while doing their stuff. Oh and the Air con in here is useless and we have no windows :(
 
Rossi~ said:
I have my own office on the top floor of the building (only 3 storey), nice view on to the high street. I have a mini hi-fi setup for music over airplay.
I need to go down to the ground floor for coffee, but that's okay as I like a walk and it gives me a chance to chat to people. It's good coffee too.
Click to expand...

Someones doing alright!
 
snips86x said:
The environment I work in is quiet...very very quiet and I hate it. Full of Devs and not many support staff (like myself) I find it really disengaging and there's no stimulation! Because of this, I spend my day listening to music, which isn't always a bad thing, but it would be nice to have conversations with actual people once in a while. It doesn't happen :(
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Yeah I don't think I fit into my work environment. It's pretty stale and corporate. If I don't bring my headphones a day feels like 12 hours rather than 7.
Problem is that I dunno how to escape it without retraining. But then I don't love what I do either.
Just think career isn't important to me.. Probably as I haven't found something I enjoy.

Doing what I do now IT/data analysis.. I think I'll always be stuck in this type of environment.
 
I work in a huge global company (around 100k staff) so we are spread across many buildings. We recently consolidated two buildings into one. The new one has a hot desking policy where we are encouraged to work from home one or twice a week to save desks and therefore costs.

I really dislike not having a permanent desk. But human nature being what it is means the same people tend to hot desk in the same location when they can. I have meetings with people from many different countries so long gone are the days of needing to sit in a room with my team.

Although I don't like this way of working I decided to embrace it as much as I can. I now have a setup where I could literally work from any desk anywhere in the world. As long as I have electricity and an internet connection then I could do the same job. Working from home occasionally is also very useful. But I do miss the days of sitting amongst my team purely from a social perspective and being able to leave my own stuff on my own desk (not possible if you sit at a different desk each day).
 
i'm in an odd situation in work, where everyone i work with is on different projects or a different department so it's very hard to build working relationships
my work is mine and theirs is theirs. i've built a small relationship with some folk but on the whole i feel very isolation and it's not good
it used to be worse but i try make the best of it now. i am stuck though, would love to move on but jobs are hard to come by
i'm trying to get some qualifications but they are still IT related, may as well build on what i have. would be great to just chuck it all in and do something you love but money is a bit of an issue :o
offices can be odd places. one god send i do have is being able to work from home a day a week. more companies should do this for sure once you have been there a while and are trusted.
 
Have a small dev office in our building, 3 of us in it at the moment. We have a sonos on all day and while there is #BANTZ we are mostly focused on coding. :) There are other departments we can wander around and chat/annoy when we feel like it. Plus the break out area for chilling, chatting, ping pong and gaming pc.
 
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