Originally posted on LinkedIn
Today’s the day I dread. A day in the office.
I’m not complaining. I’m reporting — and it’s costing us both.
An Open Letter to Engineering Leaders in Open Offices
(From one of the detail-obsessed people you hired — and who’s quietly fading)
You hired us to find the anomaly.
We do — when we can.
But when we’re in open offices, we can’t.
Every footstep resets my model.
Every half-heard conversation erases my cache.
I rebuild it. Again and again.
This isn’t preference.
It’s physiology.
I’m at 30–40% output.
And exhausted.
You’re paying full price for impaired work.
(Dropbox: 28% lost hours = ~$34K/year per knowledge worker.)
Three fixes cheaper than one lost engineer:
• Deep-work zones
• Focus blocks
• Async updates
We want to deliver and we can — in the right environment.
Open Office Leaders: Your eyes see “alive,” but your metrics say “misfiring”, and now you know why.
Let’s align to deliver more.
And if it also happens to lower the human cost?
Then we all sleep easier at night.
Who’s ready to build a workplace that works?
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