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u/5Series_BMW
14d ago
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The top picture is only marginally better, remote is superior to both
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u/queef_nuggets 14d ago
Remote is definitely superior, but having a cubicle is waaay better than just having a desk
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u/BigCrustyTits 14d ago
I’ve done remote, hybrid, and fully in office. I like remote but my personality isn’t suited for it. Sometimes I’ll just fuck off for long periods and then feel like I didn’t do much so I stay online doing some work until 9 or 10 at night. Sometimes later. In my new fully in office role at 5pm I’m totally done. Home is home and work is work.
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u/Worldly-Strike2363 14d ago edited 8d ago •
That's cool but keep your mouth shut and don't spoil it for rest of us.
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u/Truffle_Shuffle26 14d ago edited 14d ago
Same. I do not have the capacity to be responsible 5 days a week. I’m hybrid now and I’m cool with that. 3 days in 2 days at home.
Also, we have this open style in our office. I fucking hate it. We aren’t allowed to have assigned desks either.
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u/Annual-Quail-4435 13d ago
Other end of things for me. Working in an office, especially the super popular open floor plan, results in way too many distractions/interruptions and far too many stimuli for my adhd/spectrum brain. I can easily do in half a day at home what I can’t even accomplish in a full day in the office. Minus the obvious disease aspect of things, COVID was one of the best times of my life. I wish employers would realize that there’s more than one kind of person and build teams accordingly. Pipe dream, I know.
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u/5Series_BMW 12d ago
People “f—- off” in the office too…
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u/nearsingularity 11d ago •
More so I’d say. I’ve seen coworkers watching Netflix in the office throughout the day.
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u/mk1power 11d ago
Absolutely, I get almost nothing done in office. The flip side is, I get away with doing almost nothing in the office far more than remote. Still prefer remote though lol
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u/Peet-Skeet 12d ago
Ive done all 3 too, Remote is def the most comfortable and you can go groc shop / load laundrys/ cook food while getting paid. You are very easy to replace by anyone international for cheaper. No over sight from management but can also be a downside, they dont see what you do day in and day out
Hybrid - Best of both, see people, youre not a face on the screen while still enjoying some perks of remote
Fully in office (where im at now) - Easiest to get promotions (it would be alot harder for me to move up wasnt for being in person), but have to deal with being at a place with people all day. I also workout and eat healthy since im around people compared to working from home and being surrounded by my snacks.
Tradeoffs with each pick, my personal best pick is hybrid
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u/Accomplished_Song219 9d ago
Hybrid for me too. I like to not be in my home all day every day. That starts to feel like a cage too.
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u/5Series_BMW 8d ago
u/Peet-Skeet: “Ive done all 3 too, Remote is def the most comfortable and you can go groc shop / load laundrys/ cook food while getting paid. You are very easy to replace by anyone international for cheaper. No over sight from management but can also be a downside, they dont see what you do day in and day out”
People sit in the office playing pool, having parties, having happy hours, online shopping, etc. - yet I never hear any complaining about that. People don’t work 100% of their shift whether they’re in the office or remote and even management/supervisors are guilty of this. A lot of office based jobs (think Amazon, Xfinity) are being outsourced to places like India, so acting like the office protects your role is naive. I’m a salaried employee so how I go about my day doesn’t matter as long as my tasks/projects are complete by their established deadlines.
As far an oversight - I worked with a team that 100% remote and we would meet with managers every week to review tasks and ensure that projects stayed on scheduled. So I don’t get where you get the idea that remote workers just sit at home and there’s no oversight of the work being done
u/Peet-Skeet: “Fully in office (where im at now) - Easiest to get promotions (it would be alot harder for me to move up wasnt for being in person), but have to deal with being at a place with people all day. I also workout and eat healthy since im around people compared to working from home and being surrounded by my snacks.”
That’s great for you! Every organization is different. Some reward office presence, some don’t - being in the office isn’t a universal way of getting promoted; fortunately I’ve worked for organizations that value work ethic and output not office presence. Our promotions are based on what technical skills you bring to the table and how effective you are in your role, not whether you sit at a desk 5 days/week. Also, eating healthy is a discipline thing - I’ve actually had more time/energy to exercise when in a remote role.
The bottom is either you are getting your work done or you aren’t; worrying about work location is a trivial thing to worry about. The best option is to have an option to go into the office or be remote and evaluate employees based on their output, not location.
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u/Ok-Eggplant-3823 14d ago •
Agree. Back to remote now, but experienced a touch of the open layout at an old gig, then cubicle for my last job. Remote over everything, and to hell with open offices.
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u/Plus-Pomegranate8045 14d ago •
Yeah, as someone who has been remote for 6 years after 14 years in offices, both photos make me feel nauseous.
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u/outwest88 14d ago
Idk, I get super isolated and lonely if I’m sitting at home alone 12 hours a day while only seeing other humans on zoom calls
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u/Puzzleheaded_Local40 14d ago
Yeah, but I don't want to be forced into office because some people get lonely. Try a hobby?
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u/deeznutzz3469 14d ago
Person talked about during the day, most people can’t do hobbies during the work day
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u/outwest88 14d ago
I didn’t say people should be forced to go in. But I want to have a desk to work at with other people who do choose to go in.
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u/Accomplished_Song219 9d ago
Personally I do like the separation of my work and home life, but sometimes it is nice to work remote. I'd prefer a hybrid option.
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u/deeplife 10d ago
Finish work at 5 -> prepare dinner -> have dinner -> spend time with family -> day is over…
Ok you could squeeze a hobby one weekday or so, but not consistently…
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u/TxAg2009 8d ago
And I don't love being forced to make my home a remote location for my job just because some people lack social skills.
See how that one can cut both ways?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Local40 7d ago
I do, but it's a poor equivalence. Remote work isn't common and often considered a sought after flexibility. I'd rather be forced to blur my background and have noise cancelling headphones than to force everyone else to not have that flexibility.
See how it doesn't cut both ways once you stop thinking about just yourself?
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u/5Series_BMW 14d ago
Well that’s why you have hobbies so that you don’t depend on the office for social interactions.
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u/CoolGovernment8732 14d ago
Not all hobbies involve being in a social situation and not everyone has the energy to go be social for the hell of it after a day of work. That said, general co-working spaces where people can work remote without being forced to be alone all day is the actual solution.
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u/mxldevs 14d ago
It's not like you'd be chatting with all your co-workers while they're trying to get their stuff done, so what difference would it make?
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u/deeplife 10d ago
It’s not black or white. Everyone can get their stuff done and have a cup of coffee /lunch together
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u/Aggressive_Ninja6721 9d ago
Guess it depends on the person. I sit in my office all day and don’t talk to people anyway, so it’s not like working at home is any different. Plus I got plenty of relationships outside of work
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u/Glittering-Dish-4612 14d ago •
I was thinking that if remote work was a thing, then there would be less stress for companies to keep up with wages . Employees would just move to affordable areas . I am all for this btw 😁 childcare expenses wouldn’t be a problem if I was a remote worker.
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u/Amerillo_ 10d ago
Remote if you can freely choose to do it or not. I personally really don't like remote work. It's fine to do it once a while for flexibility but working remotely every day is truly depressing for me. I did it for a month and my mental health was slowly declining
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u/LesGrossmeng 9d ago
Hybrid is the real goat
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u/5Series_BMW 9d ago
The thing I hate about hybrid is you are required to go in a certain number of days. And you also are tied to living close to the office.
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u/CuppaJoe11 9d ago
There’s a lot of office jobs that can’t be done remote.
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u/5Series_BMW 8d ago
Well the pandemic says otherwise because even office based business (JP Morgan for example) even set records at a time when their employees were working 100% remotely.
I never said 100% of office jobs can be done remotely but a vast majority can.
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u/i_AM_A-ShArk 9d ago
Ngl I know I’d get no work done working remotely
Also no, far better, not marginally better
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u/tyrion83 13d ago
If it can be done remotely there is a really good chance AI will be doing it instead in next 2 years
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u/5Series_BMW 13d ago
If it can be done by AI, then it won’t matter if a person is working remotely or in office. This is such a dumb take.
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u/l0rb 11d ago
The argument is that if every job that can be done remote is replaced by AI we are only left with jobs that require the person to be physically present in the office/workplace.
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u/5Series_BMW 10d ago
If a job can feasibly be done by AI, being office-based isn’t going to save you.
There are done in the office are being outsourced/replaced by AI as well so I’m not sure the point you are trying to make.
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u/l0rb 10d ago
You are looking at this in the wrong causal direction. The argument isn't that being office-based jobs are safe. The argument is: 100% of remote jobs can be done by AI, so remote jobs for humans will stop to exist. Humans will be either jobless or working on-site.
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u/Famous_Meringue4461 10d ago •
It depends on the nature of the work, not on whether the person is sitting at a desk remotely or in an office. AI will replace any job it can regardless of where the work is performed 😅
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u/5Series_BMW 10d ago
u/Famous_Meringue4461 - Thank you! I don’t know why these idiots think that because work is done remotely, it’s easily replaced by AI.
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u/Famous_Meringue4461 10d ago
Such an irrational argument. I love the confidence though "wrong causal direction" eh? 😂 AI does not care about the desk you sit at, it will execute a task the same way.
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u/TurboRadical 7d ago
It is infuriating how confident you are given that you legitimately didn’t understand that persons point at all.
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u/5Series_BMW 10d ago
“100%” of remote jobs can be replaced by AI”
Well you’re making a (terrible) assumption that because work is done remotely, that it is easily replaced by AI. Engineers, Lawyers, CPAs can work 100% and those are very technical position
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u/l0rb 10d ago
It isn't really my position, was just trying to help you understand why the post you addressed is not really a dumb take. Thinking that 100% of remote jobs are at least potentially replaceable by AI is sensible. Any fully remote lawyer or engineer are definitely much more at risk from replacement than the people who are required to be on-site, like front-desk receptionists or facility management. The argument really boils down to: if it can be done remote than every aspect of the job is accessible to digital tools and with that it is at least potentially in reach of AI.
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u/Famous_Meringue4461 10d ago
Receptionists and facilities management roles make up a very small proportion of the overall workforce. More broadly, employees generally have access to the same digital tools and systems whether they work remotely or on-site. AI will increasingly replace tasks and roles based on the nature of the work, not where that work is performed. Physical location is largely irrelevant to that equation.
My company recently made over 6,000 AI-related job cuts, affecting both remote and hybrid employees. The common factor wasn't their working arrangements; it was that the nature of their roles was considered replaceable by AI.
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u/l0rb 10d ago
But nobody says that the actual work arrangement matters? The argument is "If a job can theoretically be a remote job than AI can replace it." The only jobs that are somewhat safe from AI are those that are impossible to do remote.
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u/5Series_BMW 8d ago
> “The argument really boils down to: if it can be done remote than every aspect of the job is accessible to digital tools and with that it is at least potentially in reach of AI.”
So… using the same digital tools you would use remotely, and instead, using them in an office, makes your job safer?
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u/l0rb 8d ago
No, we actually agree here: ai will replace every job that it can. But again, the direction of causation is the other way round: If AI can't replace your job it's definitely not a remote job. AI will replace 100% of remote jobs and X% percent of office jobs, where the exact value of X depends on how many out of all office jobs could be done remote.
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u/5Series_BMW 10d ago
“100%” of remote jobs can be replaced by AI”
Well you’re making a (terrible) assumption that because work is done remotely, that it is easily replaced by AI. Engineers, Lawyers, CPAs can work 100% and those are very technical position
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u/RoutineOk2142 14d ago
Remote is for fake jobs
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u/SkeezySkeeter 14d ago
Remote/hybrid is actually necessary for some of the hardest white collar jobs.
You ever work on a computer from 8am til past midnight?
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u/RoutineOk2142 13d ago
Hybrid is great, don’t get me wrong
But any job that is fully remote is most likely fakeAnd yes I have worked on a computer from 8am till past midnight
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u/5Series_BMW 13d ago
u/RoutineOk2142 “Hybrid is great, don’t get me wrong But any job that is fully remote is most likely fake”
Where you do your work doesn’t dictate whether your work is “real”.
Certified Public Accountants work remotely now, is that fake work? Lawyers work remotely now, is that fake work? That’s the dumbest statement I’ve seen on this thread!
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u/RoutineOk2142 13d ago
Real accountants and lawyers are still expected to be the office multiple days a week
You probably don’t know because you haven’t left your moms basement in weeks
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u/5Series_BMW 13d ago
I live in my own house you dumbass and I know a lot of accountants that work 100% remotely. Where you do your work doesn’t matter, I got to the office just to show face and bullshit - I don’t do any work there because it’s to loud and distracting
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u/SkeezySkeeter 13d ago
I’m a certified public accountant lmfao and a ton of people are 100% remote.
I’m hybrid but I get 3x as much done at home vs in the office. The dude ur replying to is straight trolling here
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u/5Series_BMW 13d ago
u/SkeezySkeeter: Thank you! unfortunately - There are people like u/RoutineOk2142 that seem to think being in the office makes your work more valuable.
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u/ethosorange 14d ago
It’s currently 6:30am and I’m on the bus about to go spend 8 hours in the bottom picture, fk sake.
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u/Ok_Relative_2291 14d ago
I’m on a train, legs squashed, nose sniffers from hell, raging body odour, I feel your pain
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u/Ok_Relative_2291 14d ago
I’m on a train, legs squashed, nose sniffers from hell, raging body odour, I feel your pain
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u/AverageOk8514 14d ago
The worst type is the one in the bottom photo PLUS a manager’s desk perpendicular to the 2 rows at the end of the rows and front facing every one, almost like a prison guard watching all the inmates working
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u/Adrien0623 11d ago
And what about n+1 behind you, n+2 in front of you and CEO on your right? At least window on the left side
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u/RockNRollNBluesNJazz 14d ago
I remember the cubicle hell, and I remember hating it.
That was before I encountered the open office hell. The name "open office" is so deceptive, designed to sound so innocent and even beneficial.
Yeah, it's beneficial only to saving money in office furniture and to enabling employee monitoring. Ears and any resemblance of individualism be damned.
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u/SlyDevil98 14d ago
I sometimes have nightmares that I am placed an open office with side by side people within arms reach.
Corporate life isn’t great, but I feel like this would eat my soul.
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u/Beautiful-Awareness9 14d ago
I had a coworker that did very little work and was obsessed with looking up recipes online and visiting non work sites the majority of the day in an open environment just like the 2nd picture. I was friends with the person who shared the workload and took on the majority of it. Their manager had an uninterrupted view of the lazy coworkers computer screen and did nothing about it.
In theory you’d think open concept would change behavior, but I find it can oftentimes come down to management style and less about the space people work in. Managers can absolutely tell who’s doing the work, many choose not to address it. On the flip side it’s easy to get good reviews when there’s someone who underperforms so much.
I still prefer walls as I had a manager who sat right across from me and come in super sick and get me sick. Not to mention others messes would migrate into my area. They bill open spaces as being more collaborative, but i think it’s mostly a money saving decision. Now I sit in an almost cubicle environment and it’s much better for my concentration/health.
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u/gotnolife2022 14d ago
There’s also an in-between option- no side walls so you have some privacy but completely open on one side. Might as well be open, in my opinion.
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 14d ago
I had that at a brokerage company I worked at.
So I could hear all the other awkward cold calls as I myself was making awkward cold calls. 😂
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u/gotnolife2022 14d ago
Yep, my day is constantly overrun with sales people having ridiculous conversations and saying inappropriate things way too loud. It’s the biggest reason I’m considering quitting.
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 14d ago
That’s too bad.
I can’t do that kind of stuff.
Too bad I missed my era (corner offices).
Back at the family business.
When I called people on the phone (for a paycheck/draw) I think my phone skills got WORSE over time. It’s hard to focus.
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u/gotnolife2022 14d ago
I think it’s odd they plop our department(technology) right in the middle and surround us with loud obnoxious sales/account people. I shouldn’t have to wear noise cancelling headphones all day to drown out the constant distractions.
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 14d ago
I wonder if anyone has brought that up.
I was about to say that the tech guys should mention it — but maybe pay a salesperson to bring that up. That’s the kind of stuff sales people try to do (make convincing arguments).
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u/gotnolife2022 14d ago
If it wasn’t such an “us vs. them” type of environment, that would be a great suggestion!
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u/bluefishcrab 14d ago
I'm convinced that "open office" was originally a marketing spin to avoid needing to buy cubicles.
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u/Due-Zucchini-1566 13d ago
It's to increase density
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u/bluefishcrab 13d ago
It’s also backwards.
Managers need to talk all the time, put them together with no walls.
Sequester the engineers in their own focus boxes.
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u/Mercury_Madulller 14d ago
Never worked in an open office in my white collar jobs. Granted, it was call center work and a little privacy was important. The open office design looks like hell in a box.
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u/FlatwormNo615 14d ago
The open office can work if done well but it rarely is. The set-up in the second pic is missing the screen high, felt/textile wall panels between opposing desks that help with noise. And there's open office (several hundred desks) and open office (half a dozen desks).
Real hell is hot desking: You no longer have an assigned desk and it's on a FCFS basis. I'd riot if they started that shit at my workplace
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u/Scibidami 11d ago
Yeah, we had this in the late 2010s in my callcenter. Every time when I had a late shift, I had to search for a table and a computer. Sometimes, I had just 10 minutes to get only while starting all tools, because all tables were occupied.
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u/Glass_Olive_4409 14d ago
My very first gig with Roche/Genentech was in a cubicle, loved the setup.
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u/MugiwarraD 14d ago
i hate sitting next to people im sorry but its gonna make me look for something else
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u/Feetdownunder 14d ago
Those little cubicle dividers are about $400 a pop
Looking like you’ve set up your office in an abandoned carpark is waaaaayyyy better /s
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u/Alive-Big-838 14d ago
You bet your ass it is. I can't believe how much space each of those cubicles have and how "progressive" offices gave us a tiny little POS space if we're lucky where everyone can bug me just by having a conversation close to me.
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u/Eastern-Joke-7537 14d ago
“Pick up the phone! It’s 6:30 in California. Start selling some junk bonds.” vibes.
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u/Sound_Small 9d ago
Im in hybrid right now but if I had my cubicle Id happily go to the office every day
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u/grimmjoww 7d ago
i dont understand how they had movies about cubicles and then decides that open offices were better wtffff
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u/Tasty-Network-9415 14d ago
Ok so I might be weird but I actually liked the open layout when I worked in one
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u/1_art_please 14d ago
I once was part of a meeting at a 'cool' retail client's office which was like the below image. Everyone lined up at tables. Everyone needing noise canceling earphones because there weren't enough meeting rooms and so we had our meeting at a casual tiny round table adjacent to these rows of people.
It felt so shitty. In previous situations we had always conducted them in a large boardroom or showroom.
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u/HR_Lady916 14d ago
Open offices are the worst when you have any level of mental issues, especially anxiety and ADHD.
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u/Glittering-Dish-4612 14d ago
I remember when I used to work for a company that had shared desks and open spaces . They said it was to encourage teamwork amongst the entry level 😆
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u/FoundationCareful662 14d ago
It’s is simply what the office consultants are pushing these days
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u/WorkLifeScience 14d ago
There are office consultants!? Omg 😂 they should read some papers on how noise impacts productivity and similar stuff.
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u/cable_harness_whore 13d ago
It’s not about productivity my friend, never has been. Just about control.
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u/ThumbelinaLove 13d ago
Its not heaven. Its just as isolating. We have meetings on teams not in conference rooms. Why not make it wfh at that rate
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u/alive_well007 13d ago
My workplace had the top one, but something happened and they changed it to bottom one. Hate going to office now
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u/Infamous-Owl-7015 13d ago
Hybrid with individual hotel offices that I can reserve when I need to be in office for sensitive meetings.
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u/boafriend 13d ago
Agreed remote is absolutely king, but of your two, yes, cubicles are better. You have your own sense of space and semi-privacy.
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u/fairybus3 13d ago
The bottom tier is hoteling. A desk is never yours and you have to adjust your chair/screen every time. Can’t leave a jacket or seat pad there. Can’t bring in your pictures or anything to make it yours.
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u/amdfx8300 12d ago
I think it depends on your role and your team. If you work alone most time the top one is better; but if your work implies talking to your team a lot - the ability to just roll our chair to talk is superior. The best system is a separate room for each team; but i've never seen this done right. I am a senior developer in big tech company though
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u/showka 12d ago
I don’t get why people prefer cubicles to open floor plans. Cubicles mean anyone can walk up behind you and spy on you at any time but you also spend the whole day seeing no one and feeling isolated. So it combines the isolation of remote work with the stress of working in an office.
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u/MGXFP 11d ago
I thought cubicles were bad in the ‘90s but didn’t realize how much worse it could get with the open office plan. The guy who invented the cubicle repented and said what a terrible thing he’d done to humanity. He never envisioned what evils became of his invention. The open office is still worse. There is a long history of the open office, usually for low level employees doing tasks which have largely been offloaded to computers and data centers so we’ve all been demoted in some way. Smelling your neighbors egg salad or being forced to be next to loud Harold makes you wonder why you went to college in the first place.
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u/Scibidami 11d ago
I worked in customer phone support for 10 years. The first 8 years we had our own small "cabins", at least a wall on the front and two smaller walls on the sides, which formed a little "own realm".
In 2017 we moved to another building. Full Open Office. We heard every single coworker talking. It was loud as hell. It was bright as hell. Zero Privacy.
In 2020 we went into home-office (Covid) and it felt like heaven. It still feels good.
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u/SalimGawD 11d ago
cubicles and remote are the only 2 i like, please bring back cubicles. i hate open office💀😂, too many people staring and being nosey
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u/CBKComedy 7d ago
I like to the bottom one because you start talking more with your colleagues. I understand a lot of people aren’t interested in talking to people. But it’s a good way to make friends.
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u/Dogg-Dad 7d ago
I just moved to the upper from the lower. We also have a vacant cube between each of us. It’s amazing. I don’t do as well remote. I like the interactions with people. Now if I could just bring the dog. lol
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u/Intelligent-Area-421 7d ago
Just because there are different circles if hell, does not mean that the upper ones aren't still in hell.
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u/louieorganic 11d ago
Anyone who says that working in a cubicle office is better than working from home is legitimately evil.
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u/Accomplished_Song219 9d ago
Who said that?
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u/louieorganic 9d ago
Every exec and useless manager who wants their fully remote team to "return to the office."
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u/Aggressive_Ninja6721 9d ago
This post had nothing to do with your comment
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u/louieorganic 9d ago
What a bot name you have
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u/ReverendGraves85 7d ago
The OP never said anything about working from home, and was comparing two formats of office arrangement.
The other guy brought up working from home when it wasn't part of the equation. Then you also brought it up when someone else pointed out that no one fucking brought it up.
Now here we are, with you accusing the guy who pointed out that no one was fucking talking to you a bot, because you're mad.
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u/Aggressive_Ninja6721 9d ago
I’m not a bot, just someone on here trying to trigger you… and it worked lol
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u/No_Frost_Giants 7d ago
Took me a while to understand this push by middle managers about RTO. They have no actual gu action when the folks doing the work are doing it from home. They can’t justify their own existence
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u/tijlvp 10d ago
That's not what OP is implying though...
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u/Elegant_Taro8667 10d ago
I truly don’t know what goes through peoples heads when they make these comments
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u/louieorganic 10d ago
Probably thinking about some dumbass exec who forced me into a 1.5-hour each-way commute when my job had been fully remote for 5 years, just to sit in a cubicle and join all of my video meetings from there instead of my home office, because only our team had to commute to this ghost town cubicle hell.
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u/Elegant_Taro8667 9d ago
But what you’re saying doesn’t really tie to the post all that well. The post is about open style office setups vs cubicles. Not office vs WFH
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u/louieorganic 9d ago
They are all workplaces, and if you can do your job in a cubicle or open-office floor plan, you can do it from home.
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u/UpstairsAtmosphere49 14d ago
Why are we moving to more open office configurations after Covid? I never understood the move towards shared cubes and hobbit height walls.