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Former Valve dev talks about firings, productivity, cliques, bad management, office
- Thread starter ashecitism
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Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Well, Valve works with a peer review system, where bonus are given to people whose collegues say their work was great or important to the team, if I remember correctly from the employee handbook.
If these bonuses were to be limited I would guess some people, being the assholes they are, would sabotage their partner to improve their chances of getting the bonuses. Now this is worrisome.
If you are trying to get work done a a horde of people are yapping about inane topics and distracting I don't see how that's childish at all. You couldn't pay me enough to work in an open office. There is zero reason for people to be herded like cattle into an open office environment. It's like trying to work in a cafeteria.
Edit: And did people honestly believe the Handbook nonsense was how things at Valve really worked? If it weren't for their position in the industry, and the fact that talking negative about your time there is a good way to ruin a career, stuff like this would have gotten out a long time ago.
Oh man, every popcorn gif in the world goes here.
Total agreement that open office floor plans are total shit. I would never work at a place that has one unless it was the only job available to me.
Also, it seems he is not a total idiot:
https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/551149169130233858
Total agreement that open office floor plans are total shit. I would never work at a place that has one unless it was the only job available to me.
Also, it seems he is not a total idiot:
https://twitter.com/richgel999/status/551149169130233858
Yup. At one place there was a foosball table in the middle of our cabal room. It was fucking horrible. Not to mention a TV going 24/7.
Freyjadour
Member
No offense, but both of you sound like you've never worked in the kind of environment or job where this would matter.
This is a hot topic in office environments lately. It's not nearly as simple as you are making it out to be and it's okay to be opinionated about it.
BibiMaghoo
Member
Every office I've ever worked in has used some arrangement of open plan, be that in teams of 6 or a room of over a hundred. Small groups is preferable over a huge room, but I can't think of anyone I've ever worked with that would have turned down their own space to keep the positive social aspects of a small work group.
All I ever wanted was a space for my coffee machine to stay unmolested by strange co-workers
reptilescorpio
Member
It's important to design the open plan around the needs of the employees. Some require being close to others and complete openness (creative types) others require some separation or a focused spot where they can still zone in on their work for long periods of time as they desire without interruption (a lot of that comes down to explaining your needs to your team and them not being dicks about it though).
Freyjadour
Member
Every office I've ever worked in has used some arrangement of open plan, be that in teams of 6 or a room of over a hundred. Small groups is preferable over a huge room, but I can't think of anyone I've ever worked with that would have turned down their own space to keep the positive social aspects of a small work group.
All I ever wanted was a space for my coffee machine to stay unmolested by strange co-workers
Visual privacy and mutual respect is key I guess. In that respect it isn't much different than a private office and it's very convenient when working together or needing expertise.
I still have a door I can close, so that's huge too.
uncredited male
Member
Their software output isn't exactly commendable so I could see this factoring into it.
DOTA 2 just reached 10 milion unique active players...not many games could achieve that non-mobile
http://blog.dota2.com/?l=english
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Shots fuckin' FIRED.
Freyjadour
Member
Microsoft is a lot of islands in terms of policy, but I think there are a lot more open environments now.
They sure havent improved their Customer Service. Its as awful as ever.
Steam and three incredibly successful, actively updated and supported games.
Should I really care? I mean, all this stuff obviously influences the developers and how they work, their output, happiness at the company etc. As a customer though, I'm only really bothered with the products and the quality and longevity they have when they are fully released to me.
It's similarly true with all this second guessing of things like Naughty Dog and CD Projekt. It just isn't of interest to me particularly, until it is making big issue with the finished products. You could argue this is already the case with Steam / games / services of theirs, but it doesn't seem clear to me what is thus far problematic due to their internal working without detail and without the actual finished products (unless Rich spills the beans of course in the case of Valve).
It's similarly true with all this second guessing of things like Naughty Dog and CD Projekt. It just isn't of interest to me particularly, until it is making big issue with the finished products. You could argue this is already the case with Steam / games / services of theirs, but it doesn't seem clear to me what is thus far problematic due to their internal working without detail and without the actual finished products (unless Rich spills the beans of course in the case of Valve).
I agree that rooms like that aren't the best, but I was expecting the dude to go IN on Valve, if he's only complaining about cabal rooms then he needs to take a good look at the industry that he works in.
Dude should only speak up if he'll actually write crap about Valve, because if there's something that's especially bad maybe people can persuade them to change.
Dude should only speak up if he'll actually write crap about Valve, because if there's something that's especially bad maybe people can persuade them to change.
Fudgepuppy
Banned
I work in an open office, even though I could not sit alone considering how much my job depends on others in my team, but sharing the same space with 180 other people that I don't depend on is horrible.
AlphaTwo00
Member
This image is perfect and explains everything about why some programmers need to have quiet area to actually focus. I think I will print one up for work myself as a friendly reminder.
The employee reviews over at Glassdoor are more favourable at least: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Valve-Corporation-Reviews-E24849.htm
Comfort Jones
Banned
Did you even read the op?
Bomber Bob
Banned
oh oh trouble in paradise
Freyjadour
Member
It's on our door at work.
Adam Scott Aukerman
Member
I utterly loath open offices, they're toxic to creative work in my experience when you've got more than a handful of people around.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I like the "if they weren't successful, they'd be in trouble" part of it. That lets you know he's REALLY exposing them on how incompetant they are.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
I don't think he cares.
Freyjadour
Member
Glassdoor is weird with negative reviews, but it's all we have really.
Some people thrive in open offices, some do not. This guy clearly does not. Considering his complaints about open glstemming from context creation, this guy likes to work in a rigidly defined structure. That happens sometimes. There is no inherent "best" or "worst" hierarchy, it varies from individual to individual.
Guy who can't handle open offices leaves, those who can stay. Where's the trouble?
My personal stance is that I am fine with it up to the point that my work or creativity demands isolation and freedom to just work on my own or with the minority working on things directly relating to what I am doing. In that sense, the perfect place for me is to switch between the two at will. Being forced into either as a binary choice would piss me off.
That said, if a company functions like Valve, and the majority there actually like it and work well with in that, so be it I guess. That's their thing. If some people can't tollerate that or function well within that, they end up leaving. That seems pretty standard
Well, I meant it more as in I think it's beneficial having all your team in the same room.
Having everyone else also in the same room isn't very good though. You're constantly distracted by things that don't even concern you.
Unfortunately, I don't see it changing in a lot of places. Just cheaper to not have any walls and have a bunch of desks.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
I don't know how developers are productive in those environments. My office walls are full of whiteboards, and I run out of whiteboard space often and have to tack papers to the wall. I also don't get the benefit of not having direction from a supervisor. Staying on track and looking side to side is important, and the viewpoint of a supervisor helps to prevent wasting time on the wrong path as well keeping tasks prioritized.
cpp_is_king
Member
I think there are different opinions on what constitutes an open office.
there's this, as from the Valve employee's article:
and there's this:
I think we can all agree that the latter one sucks way worse than the former.
I work in an office such as the former, and also incidentally as a software engineer. Many of my co-workers complain vehemently and loudly about it. I would prefer a more enclosed environment, but at the same time, I haven't had an office in close to 15 years and 6 different companies. I feel like those days are gone. And honestly, this really isn't that bad. The salary, perks, and other benefits more than make up for it. I may not be at 100% peak productivity, but like in computing, optimizing for the single-threaded case by increasing clock speed isn't always the most efficient for the end result.
there's this, as from the Valve employee's article:
and there's this:
I think we can all agree that the latter one sucks way worse than the former.
I work in an office such as the former, and also incidentally as a software engineer. Many of my co-workers complain vehemently and loudly about it. I would prefer a more enclosed environment, but at the same time, I haven't had an office in close to 15 years and 6 different companies. I feel like those days are gone. And honestly, this really isn't that bad. The salary, perks, and other benefits more than make up for it. I may not be at 100% peak productivity, but like in computing, optimizing for the single-threaded case by increasing clock speed isn't always the most efficient for the end result.
Hi i'm Caleb
Member
Sounds about right. I currently work in an open space like this and I dislike it greatly. I don't need to hear about your job issues or family problems. I just need to do my job in peace.
Yeah I saw a bunch of these kinds of offices in rapid succession visiting my buddies' workplaces during my Silicon Valley "douchebag tour" and they all seemed uniformly awful. Made me realize how straight up privileged and lucky I've been to be in a career where I've always had my own office with the ability to close the door whenever I feel like it.
General question - have you ever worked or organized a community project? Particularly one online, where you may never meet the people you're working with face to face, ever?
Those who can successfully navigate such projects do better in open offices.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
Open floorplans are significantly WORSE than cubes in my experience as a software dev. Constant distraction with little benefits with open plans. I actually IM coworkers and prefer that sort of communication 90% of the time because it doesn't break concentration. When we need to we hash it out on a whiteboard of conference room.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
I think we all assumed Steam was Valve's peak as well as its endgame. What do they have in the can currently? A console with Steam pre-installed? The company sounds as if it has absolutely no idea how to stay relevant let alone innovative.
It honestly sounds like Steam was a matter of having a good idea at the right time rather than an Apple-level move.
I work as a programmer for a start-upish company with roughly 50 people in an open plan office. I see both the benefits and the disadvantages. There is a lot of communication going on in my team, as it is a client focused company. Without the open plan it would be harder to collaborate with others when trying to fix an issue. However, if I am doing something that is more like a project and am engrossed with the flow of logic for this, it is very easy to lose track when people come over and ask questions.
I'm one of those people that just can't fucking get through reading a few sentences if there's tons of chatter and stuff moving around in the background.
Fuck me. Valve sounds like a nightmare for someone like me.
Seems like some really unproductive programmers if they can't context switch at all.