I heard rumor of some management-speak article explaining how to attract and keep IT professionals. It purportedly listed "The Top ? Things Programmers Love" and "Walls and Doors" was on the list.

I am quite fortunate; my small company takes good care of the programmers. Everyone has an office, and we have a commitment to maintain that standard. It just makes sense.

Programmers need to concentrate. Now, in my case, that means a relatively quiet place where I can control the volume and severity of competing attention-grabbers. I find that though I can often focus fiercely on a task, shutting out all other stimuli (a trait that has gotten me in trouble with Mom, SO's, etc. ;-), noise and activity makes it more difficult to get into that state.

My current assignment has me in a cubicle (for the first time in my programming career). It is less-than-ideal :-) In an office environment, where everyone wants to be perceived as pleasant and friendly, it is normal to be greeted, in my cube, by each passer-by through the day. This is probably just my introversion showing through <nobr>(Myers-Briggs - INTP),</nobr> but I consider most of those greetings a distraction. There is a lady on our floor who likes to have very LOUD speaker-phone conversations. The printer has a distinctive "jet-spooling-up" sound. The project manager is two cubes away (so, a little over 6 feet), so any conversation about me or my projects will get my attention.

Cubicles seem to encourage a perpetual "open-door" policy; if you want someone's attention, just go get it. With no mechanism available to signify "I'm busy and concentrating, please come back after lunch," interruptions are guaranteed.

I enjoy working where I am. Let's be clear about that. :-)

<WINDMILL-TILTING>
How much does it cost a company to house its programmers in sheetrock? Let's compare some numbers. A 9' x 8' cubicle occupies 72 square feet. Our offices are 9'11" x 11'6". Call that 115 square feet. Real estate in NW Oklahoma City (the only pricing data I have) has commercial office space renting for around $12 per square foot per year. (115 - 72) * 12 == $516 per year. That assumes that you build the offices bigger than the cubes. You wouldn't necessarily have to do that.

How much does it cost to build out an office vs. cubicles? At da Vinci (my employer), we would pay about $500 (estimated) to build out three offices in a new space in our building. Furniture? We spent ~$1000 per office on Hon brand furniture. Modular office furniture is ghastly expensive. Browsing through an office furniture catalog, it looks like those 9' x 8' cubicles would cost around $3000 each. Cubicle walls, desks and cabinets are quite expensive.

So, how many years does it take, saving $516 per year, just to make up the extra cost in modular furniture?

How much does a company pay in salary for a programmer? Does it make sense to scrimp $500 or $1000 per year on that person who costs $30000? $45000? $60000? $50K salary equals roughly $25 per hour. Could a noisy, interruption-prone workplace cost that person 20 hours in lost productivity over the course of an entire year?

Housing programmers in cubes is stupid.
</WINDMILL-TILTING> ;-)

Russ
Brainbench 'Most Valuable Professional' for Perl

In reply to RE: A quiet place to code... by Russ
in thread A quiet place to code... by el-moe

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