re: New office trend away from Open Floor Plans to Office Pods

See I can’t work with those. I personally wouldn’t have a problem with them, but my coworkers would hate seeing me because I’d cropdust their little cryo pod everyday.

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Soooooo, an office? I think we've come full circle.

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No, it's not an office, it's a self contained work environment. You couldn't charge these prices for an office. I did a quick google and the phone booth like I put in the OP is $7500. Especially when you're pricing it per square foot, it can't cost that much to build actual offices with walls and doors.

The company I work for (a very large company) just spent millions redesigning our buildings to the open floor plan. Like someone said earlier, if you want the same seat, you have to get there early. They assign everyone one filing cabin et drawer to store whatever they want in them, which for most would be a keyboard and mouse for their laptop. Most people hate it. Thankfully I can work from home most days. I go in just to keep in touch with everyone and to be "seen". Working strictly from home only is not as great as it sounds. You need some interaction with others.

The plus side is there are lots of comfy chairs and couches scattered around where you can hangout and relax, or work from there if you want.

I wasn't crazy about my previous job but they had a really great floor plan.

There weren't depressing cubicles with high partitions, but it wasn't entirely open.

The floor plan was open enough to facilitate conversations while still minimize distractions. A square section would have 4 desks, one in each corner so your backs were having each other. Partitions between sections were high enough that you couldn't see people in the other section unless you stood up.

The interior of the office had huddle rooms to take phone calls. Likely much cheaper than these phone booths.

The exterior of the office was lined with offices for more senior execs but frosted glass kept things transparent and "open". Corner offices were conference rooms so the most prime spots were reserved for teams.

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But it will be open seating. So you just have to show up early every day if you want to get a work station you want. If you don’t, youre SOL

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I’m curious to see if people end up “assigning” their own seats early on; i.e. returning to the same spot every day starting from the beginning. I remember in college when I was in smaller classes of 30 or so, seats weren’t assigned, but everyone would always end up sitting in the same spot for the entire semester. I think at play is some sort of psychological effect that causes us to form patterns. The same thing happens at my office with parking spots, which are unassigned (everyone parks in the same spot every day, and it’s weird when someone parks in “your” spot), and I’m thinking the same thing might happen at your office.

To add: I think a result of this randomization is that people end up making some sacrifices regarding finding “the best spot” in exchange for a knowing that a place is “their spot”.

The inventor of the "Open Floor Plan" concept needs to have his dick nailed to a tree stump next to a fire ant nest and covered in honey.

Well, that sounds like a great way to start the day.

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So you just have to show up early every day if you want to get a work station you want. If you don’t, youre SOL

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I've never heard of this nonsense

Companies look at big tech and think these open floor plans are the way to go because Google and Twitter do it. However, when you're an engineering firm, it doesn't work.

It’s kinda funny how quick companies got ahold of some hint of research that said that young people liked open office plans and remodeled everything on the cheap, claiming to be “trendy” and ripping walls down to pack people in between.

....just for it to turn out that the reason young people liked open offices was that they weren’t in the work force long enough yet to realize that open offices suck arse and you’d prefer your own space.

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But it will be open seating. So you just have to show up early every day if you want to get a work station you want. If you don’t, youre SOL

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So every day I have to pack my coffee cups, my pics, my plant, my fish, my plug ins, my charge cords, my favorite pens, my inspirational quotes....all that shite?