Had an interview, was told the group all sits in an open room? Wtf?

That can be hard to get used to. I interviewed at a place that billed their no cubes or offices policy as a positive. “New York Style Trading Desks”. It looked like hell, but it would have paid the mortgage I guess. As an introvert myself, it gave me the willies.

Regardless, I spent several years at a company with only half wall cubes. When I stood up, I felt like it was whack-a-mole.

Out of curiosity, where do you live? This has been a huge trend for years. Entire new business, like wework, have sprung up to support this type of office

It all depends on the team. If you get one slimy rat in the group it can be hell. But if they are all chill you can just play games together all day.

"Am I just being a b****? The prospect of having to 'look on' for 100% of the day is horrifying to me. As an introvert, I can see having to deal with this as extremely draining."

-In short, yes. I'd say your last two sentences are pretty telling; and hopefully, management picked up on this (or you were forthcoming with your concerns). Nothing worse than hiring someone, taking the time and money to train them, then they flake out.

what what what wrote:

Out of curiosity, where do you live? This has been a huge trend for years. Entire new business, like wework, have sprung up to support this type of office

i agree. we had this at a firm i was at 15 years ago. a group of engineers all together in a garage like space. they loved it. they all bonded and worked off each other very well. they even chose to squeeze a fuzzball table in their space.

a few years later i was at a software company where everyone, ceo and down all worked in an open table space. it wasn't ever because he didn't trust us. it was to show we are all equals. we all pull together. if you weren't feeling on, you had total opportunity to tuck away for a bit in a conference room. we all understood everyone needed off time.

As has been said, this is the way now. I consult for many companies, and all of them either do this with their engineering teams or would like to (still have cubicles and don't want to pay to change the office around).

Most of this has to do with adoption of Agile Methodology. Read about that if you don't know what it is.

It is not for everyone for sure. If this bothers you and you still have a job where that is not the case, you might want to keep the job you have. Depending on how old you are, eventually you may find yourself in this work environment unless you take a management job.

Trends do change though, so who knows.

i have a cubicle, but for bigger more intense projects, we also have an open office space where we sometimes spends months at a time. As an introvert, it isn't my favorite, but it's not bad. it makes the work part a little more fun. The only awkward part is when you leave for the day or take a long lunch. Everyone sees it. As long as you're doing your work, it's fine though.

You are being a b%%%%. We have been doing this for years in the UK. You do not need secret little private spaces. Man-up and do your job.

I worked on a real estate development team that used this kind of setup, and I really liked it. Different people were responsible for different pieces of projects, so it was nice to be able to turn around and ask my construction manager a question while I was on a call with an investor. If I had something I really needed to focus on, I could just go sit in our library or reserve a conference room so that I could hang out in a quiet space.

I'm an introvert, but I have kind of the opposite thought of others here. While I'm not naturally inclined to seek out interaction, it's sometimes good for me to have it pushed on me. I could easily just sit in an office all day and crunch numbers and write reports, but I'm actually happier if I get pushed out of that comfort zone a little bit on occasion. It kind of helped for me to be pushed into a more social situation, even if I wouldn't have sought it out on my own.

My friend worked in a place like that, and they had many new innovations.

http://cinemaakil.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/modern_times-Copyright-Roy-Export-SAS-1.jpg

It can get a bit crowded though.

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I hate the embrace of the open plan. For now I work from home, by myself in an office. I am introvert, the idea of looking into the eyes of my coworkers is terrible

What century are you from? Every job I've had in a decent sized company has been open plan. Only time everyone had their own office was mid 80s in a company with about 6 people.

Management no trust? wrote:

The prospect of having to 'look on' for 100% of the day is horrifying to me. As an introvert, I can see having to deal with this as extremely draining.

Err ever heard of computer monitors? (on top of a large reference book or two).

Don't do it unless you have no other options.

Studies have been done on this kind of a set up and the results are not good.

Here are the studies? Can you give a couple?

Not a time traveller wrote:

What century are you from? Every job I've had in a decent sized company has been open plan. Only time everyone had their own office was mid 80s in a company with about 6 people.

Where are you from? Almost every large engineering firm I visit in SoCal has cubicle farms and offices for the "important" people (mid and upper mgmt). Seems newer, smaller companies might do open plan here, but many large companies are still status quo and have policy where you can only wear denim on casual Friday.

Companies that don't have any money implement "open plans". Either they don't have money or refuse to spend it on the hamster workers.

When I first started work (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) all offices were open plan. It was not unusual to see upwards of a hundred desks all clustered together in groups of four sharing one phone. Your desk backed onto a colleague's desk so his face was just six feet from yours. Another pair were beside you with the phone sitting where all four desks met. The most junior of the group was tasked with answering the phone and then a pantomime of hand signals would follow to determine whether the intended recipient really wanted to talk to the caller or not. When we moved to cubicles in the 80's it was quite weird. We felt like battery farm chickens all stuffed into our little pens and it was universally hated at the time. Eventually it became the norm and life went on.

Both systems have their pros and cons, the trend back to open plan is just a case of what goes around comes around. I feel anyone who is good at their job will do fine in either system. People who are struggling will often blame the environment.