Open Floor Plans

I don’t know if it’s true that Apple’s new campus will be mostly open floors with few offices. But it is true that I could never work without my own office.

Like almost everybody at Omni, I have my own office. We also have lounges with chairs and sofas, and some people work in the lounges some or all of the time. Everyone’s different.

Here’s why I work in an office: when I’m around other people — it doesn’t matter who they are — I feel a constant low-simmering level of anxiety. And I find it extremely difficult to be productive when I feel any level of anxiety at all.

I’m a nerd, and this is something a good number of nerds put up with. It doesn’t go away over time.

When people who decide on workspaces for programmers don’t understand this, I wonder if they understand programmers.