Office Blues

I’ve been in the work force for 38 years, and I have always had a cubicle with full-height partitions or an office of my own.  As a computer programmer, I’ve always needed to concentrate intensely for most of the work day.  That requires a certain amount of freedom from visual and auditory distractions.  I need to focus.

This week, the work environment I have had throughout my career is being taken away from me, forcibly, as it is for all of us where I work.  We had no input.  No explanation was given.  The decision was made at the highest levels of our company’s management.  We are moving to open office.

We still have cubicles—if you want to call them that—but no partition is higher than eye level when sitting in an office chair.  No more upper shelves, no more book shelves.  Only a work surface and a meager amount of drawer storage underneath.  No more physical barriers between rows.  Just one big, noisy, overilluminated room.  Everything and everyone exposed for all to see from anywhere in the room.

Speaking of illumination, as part of the office “improvements” they have also replaced the warm white fluorescent lights we have used for decades—with a correlated color temperature (CCT) around 3000 to 4000 K—with significantly brighter and bluer LED lights having a CCT of 4000 to 5000K or higher.  It provides a cold, harsh, clinical illumination, not at all like the natural daylight they are trying to emulate.  LEDs are, of course, readily available in the warmer color temperatures of 2700K to 4000K.

I am not alone.  Many of my coworkers—some much younger than me—do not like open office nor the bluer, brighter lights we now have to endure.

This just adds additional stress to an already stressful job.  When is management going to learn that one size does not fit all?

Anyone need a top-flight SAS programmer with good communication, mentoring, and teaching skills?

Further reading…

The Unintended Effects of Open Office Space
https://www.hbs.edu/news/articles/Pages/bernstein-open-offices.aspx

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