Swizec Teller has an amusing article in DZone on Why Offices Are Where Work Goes to Die. The article is, as I say, amusing but it also mines several nuggets of truth. Irreal, as you doubtless know to your sorrow, is adamantly opposed to open office plans because of the destructive effect they have on office efficiency and moral. These plans are always justified on the grounds of improved communication—rather than their actual advantage of being cheaper—but Teller describes how even in a traditional office setting this ease of communication can be detrimental. He discusses several problems but the most serious is the constant interruption of flow, which for engineers is deadly.
Teller’s article is a neat summary of why I’m a big supporter of remote work. I won’t flog that horse here but Yegor Bugayenko has an excellent post on the bane of office workers: meetings. Bugayenko likens meetings to legalized robbery. He describes how meetings are abused to effectively end all progress on projects that overuse them. It’s another great read. You should read it and Teller’s post.
In the meantime, here’s a very sharp TL;DR for Bugayenko’s thesis:
"You likely have to get management approval for a $500 expense … but you can call a 1 hour meeting with 20 people and no one notices."
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) July 8, 2015