Posted on 09/30/2019 12:36:38 PM PDT by C19fan
What was We thinking? That’s the only question worth asking now about the clowncar start-up known as The We Company, the money-burning, co-working behemoth whose best-known brand is WeWork.
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Much will be written in the coming weeks about how WeWork failed investors and employees. But I want to spotlight another constituency. WeWork’s fundamental business idea — to cram as many people as possible into swank, high-dollar office space, and then shower them with snacks and foosball-type perks so they overlook the distraction-carnival of their desks — fails office workers, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In my industry, a WeWork address simply conveys a message of a third-rate, non-serious operation.
Can’t get past the paywall
It’s a stupid article.
Open offices suck but that has nothing to do with capitalism (if anything open offices are socialist)
I did some work for them a few years back when they opened in Los Angeles, I am surprised they lasted this long.
Open Offices are a typical example of what’s wrong with our country. Bunch of MBAs listened to a bunch of consulting “experts” who read a bunch of “studies” coming out of academia. Upper management listened to the MBAs extol the virtues of these progressive changes, which, of course, must be effective because “science”.
Had anyone bothered to ask the rank and file of the company, they would have pointed out what a dumb idea this was and could have accurately predicted the resulting problems and decrease in productivity. But likely nobody asked, and if they did, why would their opinion matter - they aren’t consultants or MBAs or “experts”.
How much money, time and productivity have been collectively wasted over the last decade due to this latest stupid fad? How much more will now be spent to undo the damage? How many morons were promoted and/or bonused due to their successful advocacy or implementation of the disastrous plans based on this fad and are now in a position to embrace the next dumb idea because they were heavily rewarded for the last dumb idea?
And this is just one boondoggle of many that come out regularly and get swallowed wholesale by those who are supposed to know better.
The most ironic thing is this whole group that are responsible for the promulgation of dumb ideas are some of the more highly compensated people in whatever company they infest.
WeWork is nothing more than a glorified Regus mini suite operation. They do serve a purpose of either transition space or startup but, ultimately, a company should lease direct space from the landlord instead of paying the premium.
WeWork, Regus, HQ, etc., all lease space from landlords so a tenant is paying a huge increase for not much.
I think they wanted to believe open-office was better ... wanted to, because it was cheaper.
you FORCED me to look up “panopticon” ...
I like my open office.
It’s a table with sun umbrella in the back yard.
100% solar powered.
Thermostat is broken though, gets hot & humid.
My observations on this is that it is a veneer for reducing floor space and costs because of fewer offices. They can squeeze them into these shared spaces under the guise of so-called “collaboration”.
Unfortunately in today’s world people are often meeting with people in other cities. Thus the open shared spaces sound like call centers on conference calls. Tacky.
I was lucky I stil had my office when I retired.
A few months later, Trump was elected and the labor market suddenly got tight, even for 60+ guys with my skillset. Signed on as a contractor to my present organization, got hired full time. I now have a spacious office and a $7K annual raise. Most meetings are 3-4 people which can easily be accommodated in my new spacious private office. We get judged by results rather than the ability to play PC office politics. I could actually afford to retire now but don't because I actually enjoy coming to work.
I’ve noticed in many old movies and shows there were offices with open floor plans, usually with managers’ private offices surrounding the open floor filled with desks. I thought cubicles were more of a modern thing.
Seemed to be ok then but, again, that was in shows.
One big diff from the old days though is that you could smoke in the office. Maybe if they allowed that again this type of thing could work. Smoke nazis would flip of course but it seems to me that smoke days were happier days.
They use smoke to calm bees, why not employees?
I’d say by like 2015 or 2016 people in tech realized open officers were awful and a productivity sink, but management has kept pushing them because: (1) it’s cheaper and it’s a way of visibly improving the bottom line while productivity costs aren’t captured as easily and (2) as you point out, this change came from the top. for a company to reverse course on open offices their existing management would have to admit they made a mistake. unlikely to happen.
a big driver to the open plan is the cost of construction, which has skyrocketed. The cost of furniture is high too, though.
It used to be that the buildout cost $25/SF and the landlord gave you $25/SF (this obviously varies between cities and buildings), and it became a wash. Now, buildout is $60 and the LL gives you $25 so there’s a huge delta the tenant absorbs. In theory, they can’t take their buildout with them but they can take the furniture with them so it makes more sense to go open plan with alot of furniture than hard wall offices that remains.
Ditto.
I have an office to myself and am grateful for it.
The new building has an open office plan and I am amazed that those people function at all. Noise and people walking through all the time.
Last year, a counterpart from Australia messaged me for the first time to discuss progress on something. He asked if the other guy in my department was at the same table.
I told him that he wasn’t in my office and I would go down the hall to check his. The Aussie was blown away hearing we all had private offices.
That’s a great point. Anecdotally i have seen anchor tenants get huge TI benefits while everyone else languishes. Has that been your experience too or is everyone taking this kind of haircut on buildouts?
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