Discussion on:

No more cubicles or private offices at Microsoft Asia Pacific's Singapore office

people like their privacy and we should continue to give it to them.

"...promote greater productivity and collaboration, reduce the office space required, and attract and retain employees from all generations."

The key phrase here folks is "...reduce the office space required...". It is all about squeezing as much profit as possible, nothing more. It is not going to help anything but a bottom line.

Maybe no one at MS does work, or they are much more organized than me. But my desk drawers are full of notes and reference materials, my shelves are full of books, and my desk is covered in expense reports and other active work. Having to move that every day would not be practical.
Oh, and the shelf directly over my monitors is full of nerf guns and nerf swords, to quickly defend myself from sneak attacks.

I've managed to eliminate most of that by keeping it electronically. I appreciate this doesn't suit everyone but pretty much anything above that weeks scribblings (of which I type the important details up on a Friday afternoon) and a few basic hand drawn sketches (If they would buy me a decent tablet those would be electronic as well) are kept on our servers.

Reference books/folders etc. can be centrally stored and used when needed, reducing the numbers needed also.

Would have been a pain to have to run out of the firefight and find my guns in a central location, instead, I just reached up, grabbed my nerf gun off the shelf, and started shooting.

I have reference manuals that are only in paper. To be honest, I prefer them that way. It's easier to have the manual by my side as I'm referring to it, rather than flip between windows. Plus, when I'm building to a spec, I make notes in the spec manual exactly what I've done.

But, that's just my personal preference.

Edited to add: but it's sure convenient to open the electronic version and do a search on a key word!

I agree about making notes on a paper version of a spec, I do that as well, the key then though is typing it up in a meaningful manner before I forget what the notes mean. I've actually found that it leads to a lot less ambiguity later.

Notes go into OneNote or similar app. Expense reports are converted to electronic forms. Instead of having paper spread all over a desk, spread it over multiple monitors.

Okay, bound references will be a problem, at least until more of them are converted to .PDF or e-reader formats. On the other hand, I suspect there are probably some bookcases somewhere.

My question is, where do I put the picture of my wife and my NASCAR die-casts?

I don't want anymore, I'm going to die of radiation poisoning at this rate.

sixer!

Though admitted, only five (including my laptop) are currently connected. Switching to a desktop soon to solve this problem!

This should be the way all offices are run. The days when it is necessary to have print anything within an office are dead - the 'brain' just has not accepted it yet.
As for individual offices and personal cubicles, much of that has to do with the accumulation of political power within a given company - at least in many industries. I've actually witnessed instances of where cubicle walls and office walls are put up that leave a long 6" or 12" gap from the office wall or cubicle wall to the next because people of equal rank within the corporate hierarchy are only allowed a set amount of floor space, regardless of how it makes no sense architecturally.
I say find another 'yardstick'.

It must be remembered that this is a very specific situation, an office where the majority of staff spend a good portion of time away from base. That means that the entire job is based round the principle of being mobile from the start. Any regular tasks that prevent that mobility are taken away and given to someone else who is single site based.

If you tried to apply this to 90% of offices it simply wouldn't work because the demarcation of those roles is not there.

Very few of them even occupy an office any more; they work from home.

So the employees are ciphers like the guys in the background being killed as 007 saves the day. No place for personal items, mementos, personal company awards, or, as Slayer mentioned, work materials that can't be accessed on a tiny little screen. This isn't the office of the future; it's hell.

I'm glad to be nearly 70 and free of this nightmare.

Cubicles are also denounced as dehumanizing 'gopher towns', where everyone is cut off from everyone else.

What do you think the typical office should look like?

There probably is no perfect solution. I guess if I started off completely mobile, I wouldn't have accumulated so much stuff to haul around from desk to desk. Heck, I just got my own office (hurray for employee attrition ) and now I have even more stuff. And some plants and stuff on my desk.

I would find it very irritating to have to haul around 3 monitors every day.

I can't imagine this working for a service desk situation, or sales, where you have multitudes of people talking on the phone all at once. That would be a horrible cacophony. Cubes do help absorb sound. To that end, I'd like a picture of the ceiling of this new office space, I'm betting there are sand bags or some kind of sound proofing installed.

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You'd have your answer. The place looks, as described, more like a Cafe than an office.

n/t

I like cubicles. If I want to talk to someone, I'll get up and go talk to them or arrange a meeting. Ideally I would have my own office but I realize that isn't feasible. My next choice would be large offices divided into cubicles and a few open spaces for meetings. Barring that, give me the gopher town.
People are distractions and if I can't get a few hours to focus on my work without listening to someone tapping their feet, clicking their pens, typing loudly, having long conversations or stomping down the hall then my productivity is severely diminished.
Maybe these open environments work for managers who MS made this for since their work is people? But managers, please don't push your preferences for open offices and 'open door policies' on those of use who's work is at our computer.