Peopleware - Part 2 - The Office Environment

"There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back."

Chapter 7: The Furniture Police

• "The people who control space and services...don't strive to understand complex issues like productivity...the reason for this is that they are not themselves doing the kind of work likely to suffer from a poor environment."
• "Almost without exception, the workspaces given to intellect workers are noisy, interruptible, unprivate and sterile."

Chapter 8: You never get anything done round here between 9 and 5

• "To be productive, people may come in early or stay late or even try to escape entirely, by staying at home for a day to get a critical piece of work done."
• "The amazing thing is not that it's so often impossible to work in the workplace, the amazing thing is that everyone knows it and nobody ever does anything about it."
• "Top performers space is quieter, more private, better protected from interruption, and there is more of it."

Chapter 9: Saving money on space

• "The environmental trend is toward less privacy, less dedicated space, and more noise. The obvious reason for this is cost."
• "Without warning open plan seating was upon us like a plague upon the land. The advocates of the new format produced not one shred of evidence that effectiveness would not be impaired."