About this Episode
Hosts: John Sextro, Chad Etzel and Darryl H. Thomas
Audio Engineer and Post-Producer: Darryl H. Thomas
Released Friday, January 16, 2015
Tweet Shoutouts
@jak @iohyespodcast why oh why!
— Soheil (@soheil) January 9, 2015
@jon_m_hill @iOhYesPodcast you're too good to me
— Jason Kozemczak (@jak) January 10, 2015
@iOhYesPodcast just found out @jak is leaving. Not cool man
— Doug Whitmore (@gooddoug) January 11, 2015
The Discussion
The Open-Office Trap published in the New Yorker, by Maria Konnikova
1997 - The University of Calgary study (before, 4 weeks after and 6 months after)
Disruptive, stressful, cumbersome, dissatisfied, resentful
Productivity fell
2005 Study
When workers couldn’t change the way that things looked, adjust the lighting and temperature, or choose how to conduct meetings, spirits plummeted.
johnsextro
This article sounds like a bunch of crying from a pretentious primadonna http://t.co/x3jDzAerwC
Types of open floor plans
the blank slate - just tables and chairs
moveable walls - rolling or sliding walls/whiteboards used to create separation
Team Area / Pit / Bullpen - semi-private partitions, not easily reconfigured
John’s opinions
Cubicles, they suck
False sense of privacy
They don’t contain nor block noise
They get in the way and are a waste of space
Offices, slight better but still bad
They can contain and block noise
But they are a terribly inefficient use of space
Stifling to collaboration and fascist
Darryl’s opinions (read: facts)
Open floor plans, they suck
Amusing article (http://verynicewebsite.net/2015/01/be-yourself-as-long-as-its-your-best-self/)
Workers are left with no sense of personal space as a company grows
The universally proposed “solution” to noise is headphones, read: OTHER NOISE
People feel free to interrupt your workflow in person, as if IM and email wasn’t bad enough
Note: I think this actually works well for teams up to 10 quiet people (no phone calls, etc), beyond that, it’s untenable
My favored compromise solution: Bullpen cubes (cubes that can accommodate teams of 4-5 people)
Cubicles, I hated them until I no longer had them
I miss my partitions
Cubes actually do affect noise levels: they discourage yelling across the room and deflect and diffuse/absorb audio a bit (when built properly)
Shared offices, I love ‘em
Office with up to 3 occupants
Can get cramped, but with good office-mates, it’s pretty harmonious
Especially good if your office mate is always going to meetings (and you aren’t)
Open-Source Project of the Week
Sleipnir, BDD framework
Sleipnir is not dependent of NSObject
Sleipnir is not using XCTest
Picks
Darryl Follow @dh_thomas
30th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference (#csun15, San Diego, March 2-6, 2015)
As the name implies, this is a conference related to technology and how we make it accessible to those with disabilities. I’ll be attending for the first time. Traditionally web-heavy, there are a few iOS-specific sessions this year in addition to several sessions that are universally useful regardless of platform.
Early-bird registration ($455) ends February 3, 2015
Chad @jazzychad
UICollectionView initial content offset sol’n
John Follow @johnsextro
Ninjevade - developed by a friend of mine, Matt Burton. He just recently released it to iTunes.
Alternative show title suggestions
Rail against the environment
Bullpen
5by5
Code of Conduct
Rage coding
Do that thing
You and your damn physics
There was a ‘B’ somewhere
Those germs can move