[Revolutionary]

I'm currently facing the option of having to take a workplace in an open-plan office, and I'm not used to it. In Germany, office work environments are traditionally different than in the United States, with more people having their own office (including me). I think it's a trend to save costs and put people in open-plan offices, I just don't know whether it's a trend within the U.S., too, or whether it's a form of americanization of Europe. Unfortunately, it's not just low-level, low-wage employees who are expected to work in an open-plan office, but also people in more senior positions.

Given the reduced level of privacy in such an office, I'm wondering how other men on this forum manage to lead a sexually active lifestyle that is compatible with work. Staying in a shared space with multiple people all day makes it hard to have any private activities (text girls, have phone calls, visit websites like RVF) you don't want your colleagues to know about. Basically, you are under constant surveillance.

How do the American brothers (and others) deal with this? Any tips or experiences? And how well is it even avoidable if you just happen to have an office job? Please don't tell me to get a totally different kind of job, that's not helpful.

Other question, how many of you are able to work in a room for themselves (without other people listening / watching)?

[The Beast1]

I've worked in an open office before. No one really cares what you're doing on your phone.

The easiest thing to do is get one of those privacy screen filters for your laptop screen that only allow you to view it at a certain angle.

Also get a good headset. The noise was such a pain in the ass.

[Brodiaga]

(03-15-2017 04:56 AM)Revolutionary Wrote:  

I'm currently facing the option of having to take a workplace in an open-plan office, and I'm not used to it. In Germany, office work environments are traditionally different than in the United States, with more people having their own office (including me). I think it's a trend to save costs and put people in open-plan offices, I just don't know whether it's a trend within the U.S., too, or whether it's a form of americanization of Europe. Unfortunately, it's not just low-level, low-wage employees who are expected to work in an open-plan office, but also people in more senior positions.

Given the reduced level of privacy in such an office, I'm wondering how other men on this forum manage to lead a sexually active lifestyle that is compatible with work. Staying in a shared space with multiple people all day makes it hard to have any private activities (text girls, have phone calls, visit websites like RVF) you don't want your colleagues to know about. Basically, you are under constant surveillance.

How do the American brothers (and others) deal with this? Any tips or experiences? And how well is it even avoidable if you just happen to have an office job? Please don't tell me to get a totally different kind of job, that's not helpful.

Other question, how many of you are able to work in a room for themselves (without other people listening / watching)?

Open plan office sucks, but I'd rather work in an open plan office with cool colleagues and boss than have my own cubicle and work with assholes. Don't ask me how I know.

About your "sexually active lifestyle". I don't see how this is related to the office environment. If you have to swipe on Tinder at work, go to the restroom and swipe a little bit while you sit there. No need to read RVF at work either. I don't see how reading the forum all day would contribute to your lifestyle, it would probably have the opposite effect.

[Steve McQueen]

Its not so bad, you just need to be discreet.

People to watch out for:

Your immediate supervisor
Person sitting next to you
Anyone sitting behind you
Brown nosers who may rat you out
Women - They have been trained to be perpetually offended the further west you live, do not get caught looking at something NSFW
You - Dont get complacent, just cause you were not caught the first 100 times doesnt mean you wont be. Always be careful.

My personal method for surfing while in work is to open a lot of documents at the same time and have the web page as small as possible.

If someone passes I will either click a document to cover it or try to minimise the webpage. If I am too late, I will rely on so much things being on my screen that the person just wont notice.

Also for forums like this one you need to be super careful, open another tab on the web explorer and have it on a main stream news website.

Make sure to clear your browsing history daily before you go home, also delete any cookies where you can. You may have to call in sick some day and your boss may need to access your computer, better safe than sorry.

[Vinny]

Hold your hands on ALT+TAB and hit it when needed.

Copy threads to a notepad file and read it there instead of the website.

Write posts at a notepad file as well.

[Edmund Ironside]

Use work computers/devices for work. If you do anything else on them, keep it to things that you would be comfortable defending while having them shown to all of the management of your company on a big screen. Nothing you do on a work computer is private from your employer or the workstation support people in IT.

If you want to access anything else while you are at work, use your personal (not company supplied) phone, and if you really want that to be private, be using your data connection and not connected to the company LAN.

What all of that means is, most of your time when you are at work really ought to be spent working. Failing that, at least stick to reading news (from relatively mainstream sites) or things at least vaguely related to your job or things that you are very confident are ok within your company culture. (For example, at some companies it might be perfectly normal to stream an NCAA basketball game, at others that might be a firing offense, at many between it might not get you fired but might hurt your reputation.)

I hate open plan offices by the way, but the people who support them will justify it partially because they are trying to get employees to spend more time working.

[ElFlaco]

(03-16-2017 09:33 AM)Edmund Ironside Wrote:  

I hate open plan offices by the way, but the people who support them will justify it partially because they are trying to get employees to spend more time working.

They also argue that there will be more team work, better communication within teams. (This is related to cooperative learning, the idiocy that lets the slacker skate by in group projects.)

Open offices are a disaster for any kind of work where long stretches of concentration are required.

[brick tamland]

Open plan system is used to cut costs of office space.
I dislike sharing space with people I'm not friendly with. Most of the time it's hi and bye. Your co-workers will chat endlessly on the phone and bring visitors. Constant foot traffic is distracting. You'll have to make sure no-one can access your PC when you're away from your desk. Taking naps is not possible. People will walk in asking where your coworker is. Ringing unanswered phones are irritating.

[Revolutionary]

Thanks for the feedback, opinions and tips. While it would obviously be better to have your own office, could an open-plan office be a reason for any of you to turn down an otherwise interesting job position?

My major pros and cons for a job are, so far:

• Job description (whether I like the kind of work)
• Whether I'd like to work in that specific company
• Boss and colleagues
• Long-term career prospects
• Working hours
• Pay
• Location
  

Having your own office vs. open-plan office is not on that list yet. Would it be on your list?

[Cobra]

Delete

[Cobra]

Are you going to work so you can read the forum there and think about women and sex there? Why would you intentionally derail your job or career?

Your co-workers and leadership definitely notice you when you do this.

If you take a few short breaks and leave to do this, it should be fine but your question was: How do I surf the Internet at work without getting noticed and still get paid?

Edit: If you were my employee and I find you did this constantly, I would fire you. The only exception to this is that you're a high performer in which case you could earn some additional privileges. That said it still sets a bad example to other employees.

[Speculation]

Open plan offices are just cost saving. Everything else is a rationalisation.

The culture of 'look busy at work' is far less important than actually meeting your KPI's and getting your work done. If I was a boss and my subordinates got their work done and weren't doing anything to bring myself or the company into disrepute I could care less about how they spend their time.

Extroverts who love having noise and people around believe that having enough passive surveillance of staff will somehow improve productivity. For introverts it just ends up distracting them and disrupting their focus, concentration and sanity.

Unfortunately the corporate world is full of voyeurs who will try to be the first in the office and make notes of when everyone arrives and leaves and what they are doing on their screens.

Just another reason to strike out on your own.

[Suits]

(03-16-2017 10:10 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(This is related to cooperative learning, the idiocy that lets the slacker skate by in group projects.)

You hit the nail on the head.

I absolutely loved group projects and group exams (even better) when I was a university student.

D is for diploma.

[Stallion]

Also be careful, most companies are nosy enough to monitor your Internet traffic at work.

They have better things to do than look at every page you browse, but if you spend too much time on a particular non work related website, the sysadmin may get an automatic warning.

I've seen this happen when a colleague was spending too much time on a rental website looking for a new apartment, the company blocked the website after a couple of days and told him " you are here to work". Also the logs of all your internet traffic can be stored for a very long time, so they are the perfect proof if they want to fire you without giving you compensation (in case you are in Europe at least).


I don't see why you would have to spend time browsing the forum or whatever at work, but if you have to, do it on your phone with data (not the company wifi) for a few minutes a day.



You get used to the open space very fast, just get some good quality noise canceling headphones, a Deezer account (10 times better than spotify) and listen to your favorite music all day (podcasts are good to). I angle my 3 screens so they are not visible from the door, but this is more a question of me feeling more "protected in my own corner" than being afraid of anyone looking at what I'm doing.



But I will say it all depends on the company... try and see the atmosphere. My current company has an open space and nobody gives a shit about what you do. As long as your work is done and good quality, you can spend 5 hours in the office and nobody will even blink. I've seen people leave at 3 pm because " I'm not busy anyways, I'm going to see a movie with my wife".

It all depends on how lucky you are.

[Peregrine]

(03-17-2017 06:19 AM)Cobra Wrote:  

Are you going to work so you can read the forum there and think about women and sex there? Why would you intentionally derail your job or career?

Your co-workers and leadership definitely notice you when you do this.

If you take a few short breaks and leave to do this, it should be fine but your question was: How do I surf the Internet at work without getting noticed and still get paid?

Edit: If you were my employee and I find you did this constantly, I would fire you. The only exception to this is that you're a high performer in which case you could earn some additional privileges. That said it still sets a bad example to other employees.

If someone gets their work done, what does it matter if they're browsing appropriate websites?

[theoneandonly]

Thinking back to open plan offices, I remember how half my afternoons were spent 'looking busy' instead of doing actual work. So much better to have my own gig now..

[JohannesAusPrag]

(05-30-2017 07:28 AM)theoneandonly Wrote:  

Thinking back to open plan offices, I remember how half my afternoons were spent 'looking busy' instead of doing actual work. So much better to have my own gig now..

I can relate to this, in the morning when there is only few people in my open space office I can do work and solve issues, the more people comes the more distraction not only in noise form comes too.

I have only two girls in the office they are females and like to chit chat with other guys, but because I work in SW engineering department there is worse kind than central european girls and those are IT manginas with high pitched voices, body odour of fat sweat and their tendency to talk, talk and talk, usually pathetic SFW and PC jokes they seen in newest movies or heard from their female overlords.

Anyway good full ear headphones, portable screen behind my back and side to create cubicle and coming in and out early is what makes this environment acceptable.
But still, I would trade this for small office for few people anytime.

[Akwesi]

OP: you are correct to view this as a kind of Americanization, but it's not new. It's been going on even in Europe since the 1960s.

Research shows that it reduces productivity, ruins concentration, and makes people take more sick days (either because they get sick, or because they don't want to go to work). It's a dumb way of saving money and shows how desperate corporate and government bigwigs are for control and surveillance of the employees they otherwise hail as their "most precious resource" and such bullshit.

In short, it's bad for you and you should factor it into any decision you make about taking a job.

[jamaicabound]

I have worked in open office spaces. I would say in the US most employees who are not mid management or high level don't have an open office but in the past was at least cubicles which while many of us hate them afford you some privacy.

I worked in an open office space. Here in the states it seems to be the "new" or "hip" way of doing things, especially for a lot of startups and tech companies. They say it causes more of a community feel and comradery, that it's easier to work as a group, throw around ideas, etc.

Like you, I wasn't a big fan, everyone can see your computer screen at all times, when people are on calls it's like your in a damn call center, sometimes it can be hard to think with other people talking either to each other or on the phone and you always have a very social employee who wants to spend the entire day either chatting with people across the office or even just announcing everything they are doing all day.