The Subtle Sexism of Your Open Plan Office

[penguingrrl]

I thought this was a really interesting read. I know we’ve had discussions in the past of various issues inherent to an open office space, but I hadn’t considered how they are subtly sexist. It took me back to trying to discretely hide a tampon up my sleeve to sneak to the bathroom in middle school, nervously hoping nobody saw as I got it out of my backpack.

amp.fastcodesign.com/90170941/the-subtle-sexism-of-your-open-plan-office

[noodleoo]

That was an interesting read. I worked for a tech company that went to a completely open floor plan and I hated it. Not even cubes, just a giant open room with desks. It was awful. It was so dumb, we had tiny drawers with barely enough space for a purse and no where to hang a jacket (and this was in MA). I definitely felt like people were constantly watching and evaluating what each other was doing and it sucked.

[penguingrrl]

May 8, 2018 11:35:55 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

That was an interesting read. I worked for a tech company that went to a completely open floor plan and I hated it. Not even cubes, just a giant open room with desks. It was awful. It was so dumb, we had tiny drawers with barely enough space for a purse and no where to hang a jacket (and this was in MA). I definitely felt like people were constantly watching and evaluating what each other was doing and it sucked.

H works for a tech company that has the same thing. A sea of hundreds of open desks in rows. He moved out of the NYC office because he couldn’t handle having no time to himself from the time he got on the train at 6 am until he stepped off the train at 7 pm. The lack of privacy is unnerving and he isn’t dealing with the additional scrutiny women in tech face.

[glitzy07]

These are obviously just anecdotes from my own experience, but I work in an open office environment now and I really cannot relate to any of that piece. While it's not my favorite thing in the world and I'd probably prefer to be back in a cube like my last job, I don't mind it terribly. The only thing I REALLY miss about cube life is taking personal phone calls at my desk, because now I feel like I need to get up and go pop into one of the other rooms so I'm not a distraction to others. Whereas in my past life I could easily make a phone call to Comcast or a doctor's office and hang out at my desk working while I was on hold.

We have several meeting spaces with closed doors and while there are glass windows, portions of them are frosted so you can't see anything and everything that's happening inside. I do also work with a majority female team (my side of the office has 10 people in three "pods" of desks, and only three are male), so perhaps that plays into it. But I've never felt like I'm being watched or critiqued any more at this job than I did when I was in a cube.

I can certainly see how this environment would be a nightmare for a more private person than I am, though. Per OP's middle school tampon example, I personally DGAF and have no problem whipping a tampon out of my purse no matter who is around. But I do have a coworker who, despite our team at the time being all women, would very discreetly try to transfer a tampon from her purse to her pocket.

[shortstax]

I work in an open office where there are long tables, no individual desks. What I miss most is having drawers or personal space. Anything I might need I have to pack in my laptop bag and carry back & forth all day. It's so annoying.  And I've definitely done the tampon sneak.

ETA - now off to read the article.

[downtoearth]

Interesting, perspective. I would probably dislike this, but I've almost always had my own office or shared with only one other person.

My friend works for an engineering company that did this - everyone has a locker and basket to carry their stuff around, but everything is put away each night. She hated it and only goes in about 3-4 times in a month. Part of the reason she disliked it was the lack of any privacy. If she has to take a call from the school nurse or schedule a doctors appt during her lunch break, she had no where to go. Plus, she was trying to pump and they had put together a private call room/pump room that is basically a windowless closet that she has to sign in/out to use. And if you sit near that room, you can still pretty much hear the full conversation. The worst for her was not having a place to leave notebooks and figures that she was working on over night - so it basically wasted about 40-min each day. So she had to clean-up earlier in order to leave the office, then lock it away (on a different floor), then each morning she had to go get her stuff, re-organize where she was and find a location far enough from others in the open table area to have several large-scale figures/documents out.

None of these are specific to sexism or gender. I don't think she is there enough to experience that, but I am curious to ask her. At the same time, her company stopped requiring people to be in the office, so they can willingly telecommute from their houses (but they have a policy to not cover costs for people's internet, cell phones, printers, etc.). So between the environment change and unbillable time for not having her own space, plus the added time she gains from not commuting, she basically stopped going into the office.

[wambam]

I do the tampon sneak and I don't even know why. I'm not ashamed. I am 30. I have a uterus. I bleed from that uterus. It's like a conditioned habit to hide it.

ETA: But the lack of privacy for phone calls is the worst. I had to schedule and prep for my sterilization surgery from my car because of it.

[penguingrrl]

May 8, 2018 12:15:40 GMT -5 downtoearth said:

Interesting, perspective. I would probably dislike this, but I've almost always had my own office or shared with only one other person.

My friend works for an engineering company that did this - everyone has a locker and basket to carry their stuff around, but everything is put away each night. She hated it and only goes in about 3-4 times in a month. Part of the reason she disliked it was the lack of any privacy. If she has to take a call from the school nurse or schedule a doctors appt during her lunch break, she had no where to go. Plus, she was trying to pump and they had put together a private call room/pump room that is basically a windowless closet that she has to sign in/out to use. And if you sit near that room, you can still pretty much hear the full conversation. The worst for her was not having a place to leave notebooks and figures that she was working on over night - so it basically wasted about 40-min each day. So she had to clean-up earlier in order to leave the office, then lock it away (on a different floor), then each morning she had to go get her stuff, re-organize where she was and find a location far enough from others in the open table area to have several large-scale figures/documents out.

None of these are specific to sexism or gender. I don't think she is there enough to experience that, but I am curious to ask her. At the same time, her company stopped requiring people to be in the office, so they can willingly telecommute from their houses (but they have a policy to not cover costs for people's internet, cell phones, printers, etc.). So between the environment change and unbillable time for not having her own space, plus the added time she gains from not commuting, she basically stopped going into the office.

Ugh, pumping sounds extra hard in that setting! She’s so lucky she can work from home mostly! H would absolutely kill for that option to avoid the open space floor plan, but his company rarely allows it. Now he can go out to his car for phone calls and such, but when he was in the city it was impossible and he burnt out after only two years from the stress of having no privacy
.

[penguingrrl]

May 8, 2018 12:03:31 GMT -5 @246baje said:

We moved from individual offices across from a mall where people occasionally got shot and more often robbed. When the announcement came that we were moving to a beautiful campus with an open floor plan the resistance was massive.

My first thought was that there is no where to cry.

Fast forward 4 years and I’ve gone to work on the days that my son was diagnosed with autism and epilepsy and just needed a place to close the door and cry. And I couldn’t. One day knowing I couldn’t control my emotions and I would not have the space to collect myself I drove onto campus and drove back out. I can work through tears but doing so with folks staring at me? No thanks.

Additionally twice a year we have performance evaluation meetings based on a brutal forced ranking system. You always know when folks have had them and they haven’t gone well because they return to their desks looking shattered.

One thoughtful thing the company has done is provide free tampons and pads in all the women’s and all the unisex bathrooms. But if you have a heavy flow or don’t use Tampax then you need to walk with a purse.

That sounds so stressful.

[shortstax]

May 8, 2018 12:20:47 GMT -5 wambam said:

I do the tampon sneak and I don't even know why. I'm not ashamed. I am 30. I have a uterus. I bleed from that uterus. It's like a conditioned habit to hide it.

ETA: But the lack of privacy for phone calls is the worst. I had to schedule and prep for my sterilization surgery from my car because of it.

Same here. Yet, I can't do it. 

[icedcoffee]

I had an open floor plan at my last job (pods of 4 cubes with low walls) for almost everyone except execs and senior leadership who had glass offices. I hated it. I was pumping for a year of it and it absolutely is sexism. I had to go to a private closet to pump for 90 minutes of each day. If I had an office I could have pumped while working at my desk. It's hard to get promoted when you lose 90 minutes a day of productivity. At my new job I have an office. Actually, even those in cubes have walls with doors! It's lovely.

[wawa]

I switched jobs recently from a standard high wall cube farm with peremeter offices and now we're all in rooms with doors. It's lovely.

The main office though is all glass offices and low wall cubes. BLECH.

[bex]

Interesting. I definitely do the tampon sneak. I hate it. And I don't take phone calls at my desk, ever. H gets annoyed with me because he'll call me and I text back, but whatever. We have a big cube farm and some people have offices, but to the extent possible they are moving away from offices (if the union provisions allow.) My position in other locations has an office but I don't, which really annoys me.

I'm only here three days a week and we are a majority female component, so I don't know that I pick up on a lot of the sexism that this article describes, but its possible I just miss it.

I do hate the lack of privacy though.

[seeyalater52]

We have a semi-open floorplan (low wall cubes in pods of 4 or 8) for everyone except senior level staff and I don't relate to most of this, but a critical difference seems to be having dedicated space. We're all assigned to a static cube and it has drawers and places to keep your stuff. Also we're like 95% women. It can be annoying because conference calls are an inherent part of our job and some people do not understand how loudly they're talking. So it can be a little noisy.

@@@
And aside from my 10 bazillionty pregnant coworkers' constant loud conversations about their pregnancies and babies that I can't escape from it's mostly tolerable, aside from than making me cry on pretty much a daily basis at this point.

[gibbinator]

Interesting.
I just visited one of my offices (normally I WAH) for the first time and it is all open floor plan. While I did find it annoying that I seem to eat loudly and I was quite self-conscious of the racket my shoes made all the way to the bathroom, I can't say I particularly felt watched. I actually rather enjoyed being surrounded by people for a week. The presence of others rather forced me to focus and not waste time places like...here.

Now, one big difference is that I work in a female-dominated field and of the 25 or so employees at that office only 3 are men and only one of them was on my team (so anywhere nearby). So while I did dress up more than usual (aka, not in pjs) while working in the office, I can't say I felt any more concerned about my appearance than I am when otherwise in public.

Having to listen to everyone's phone calls was rather distracting though. Fortunately taking calls is not part of my work life.

[raangoli]

I have a cube at work, but it has a low wall and then is completely open to the cube across from me. My coworker thinks this is an invitation to just talk to me randomly throughout the day or comment on what I am doing. It irks me to no end. Thankfully I am only there once or twice a week.

ETA: agree about the no space for personal items that need to be tended to during the day. I feel like I am constantly texting because I can't have a quick personal phone call which probably looks even worse.

Also, why was the architect's name kept anonymous?

[mrsd2006]

This is interesting. Our office now currently has the low wall cubes in the whole office, except for two departments, we have high walls (legal) and the EA's. I feel like some depts have a higher demand for privacy- HR, legal, for example.

We are moving to a new office next year with ALL low walls, and the four of us in my department are fighting it all the way, we never to fail to bring it up in a meeting Legal and HR need more privacy, that's all there is to it!

[pitta12]

I feel like open floor plans bring out the worst in people in general by encouraging snooping and gossip. I am always having to talk to the new college hires who report to me about how it's best to MYOB because you don't know what somebody is dealing with outside of work and there may be legitimate reasons for them to text at their desk, so unless it's getting in the way of you doing what you need to do you shouldn't be worrying about it. It seems like it's especially the newbies who are all up in each other's business in this way, although there are some notable exceptions among more tenured people who should know better.

[wawa]

May 8, 2018 12:59:51 GMT -5 melmaria said:

I don't work in an open office, but my law firm is in the process of remodeling to make all of the attorneys offices have glass hallway walls and doors. Supposedly they will be frosted, but everyone is pissed.

It especially sucks for the women attorneys who are currently pumping at work, which they do from their offices. Yes, we have mothers' rooms, but when we are supposed to bill as many hours as possible it's a lot easier to just pump from your office and not have to move your whole workstation every time. Now, those women are planning to hang up curtains across the glass wall/doors so they can pump in privacy. The whole thing is so stupid.

I'm annoyed enough that I have a window next to my door.  It's nice because it lets natural light into the rest of the office, but I'd like to bike to work and I can't change my clothes in here.  

the more I think about this, the more the subtle sexism is becoming clear.  Like, just little shit that all adds up.  Example:  it's FAR more socially acceptable for a man to scratch his ass in public view.  Not a woman though.  So what the fuck are you supposed to do when your ass itches if you work in a fishbowl?  No ass itching for you!  See also bra adjusting.  We don't have pockets often in our professional clothes, so we have to carry our purses around or leave our wallets/phones/keys just laying about on shared tables.  

Yup.  Patriarchy.

[kayl84]

May 8, 2018 11:27:38 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I thought this was a really interesting read. I know we’ve had discussions in the past of various issues inherent to an open office space, but I hadn’t considered how they are subtly sexist. It took me back to trying to discretely hide a tampon up my sleeve to sneak to the bathroom in middle school, nervously hoping nobody saw as I got it out of my backpack.

amp.fastcodesign.com/90170941/the-subtle-sexism-of-your-open-plan-office

You went to my HS right? We had like open plan classrooms. Where you could hear everything going on around you. But it was separated into subjects. I remember being distracted AF by everyone else who had loud teachers around me.

[penguingrrl]

May 8, 2018 13:37:26 GMT -5 kayl84 said:

May 8, 2018 11:27:38 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I thought this was a really interesting read. I know we’ve had discussions in the past of various issues inherent to an open office space, but I hadn’t considered how they are subtly sexist. It took me back to trying to discretely hide a tampon up my sleeve to sneak to the bathroom in middle school, nervously hoping nobody saw as I got it out of my backpack.

amp.fastcodesign.com/90170941/the-subtle-sexism-of-your-open-plan-office

You went to my HS right? We had like open plan classrooms. Where you could hear everything going on around you. But it was separated into subjects. I remember being distracted AF by everyone else who had loud teachers around me.

Yes, those were awful. My elementary school had them as well for the 1st and 2nd grader’s. Thankfully both buildings remodeled and got rid of them. So incredibly distracting.

Apparently they were part of a trend that said that even if the kid wasn’t listening to their own teacher maybe they would overhear things from other classrooms and at least learn skmethjnf

[GilliC]

Yes to the overuse of glass (and minimalist furniture) being unconsciously sexist. When I first started, I had a partly glass office but a fully fronted desk, so I could sit however I wanted while wearing a skirt. Those days are over!

Even worse, I’ve worked in an office with glass floors on the stair landings. Yes, the area below was open floor space of a height that people could and did walk underneath. Seriously?! WTF?!!!

[lilibet]

We have assigned cubes with low walls (you can see over them while sitting)with 4 or 6 desks together. Everyone except the big boss is out on an open floor with all of the cubes. Managers sit along one side so there are hourly employees right next to them. We have 2 conference rooms which are the only private spaces in the building and you have to book them in advance. We do have a mother's room.

It's awful. There is no where to go if you need a moment of quiet, either to work on something detailed or just to have a moment of quiet. You can't escape all the conversations around you and people will just holler at you over the wall. Plus you hear everyone's conference calls. The woman that sits across from me gets louder as she gets annoyed in meetings, which is really distracting. If you have a meeting with your manager it's probably going to happen at their desk, so everyone walking by can hear. And if you do get pulled off the floor everyone sees it and knows it's not good.

It's almost all women in my office but I still tuck tampons in my pocket. Mostly it's because so many of my coworkers are quick to be like "oh, lilibet is on her period, I thought she seemed moody."

[al320]

Im at my second company with open floorplan. I hate it. HATE. The lack of privacy, everyone knowing my peeing schedule, not being able to avoid everyone... its seriously draining. I could write a book about how it kills productivity, but i wont. Just wanted to add to the hate.

[meshaliuknits]

May 8, 2018 16:50:11 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Even worse, I’ve worked in an office with glass floors on the stair landings. Yes, the area below was open floor space of a height that people could and did walk underneath. Seriously?! WTF?!!!

OMG that's a terrible idea. As someone who doesn't like heights I extra hate the idea of clear landings.

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

We just moved in November to an open plan office and I straight up hate it. I’m constantly hiding pads to go to the bathroom (and considering that I’ve had 2 procedures on my uterus in the last two months, on top of my usual periods, I have been sneaking a LOT of pads and it’s making me angry). And I also hate the fact that for someone like me who struggles with ADHD, the constant stream of people wandering around is fucking maddening and distracting.

[LoveTrains]

My office moved to a new space with an open floor plan in the last year. The cubes are low walls and are very small. They are in rows of five deep against all glass walls and are then in sections of 4-5 wise with offices surrounding the cube banks. The offices have glass walls but solid doors and are also teeny tiny. There are lots of mini huddle rooms and privacy rooms though.

My biggest issue is that there is only one giant bathroom on my entire floor. One men's room and one women's room for like 150 people. There are six stalls. There are not enough toilets and the bathroom is really, really far from me. I've had days where I'm stuck in a line and it's a huge problem. And the bathroom is off the kitchen which is gross. If someone is sitting at a table in the kitchen they can see right into the men standing at the urinals. Ewww.

[isabel]

May 8, 2018 20:36:20 GMT -5 LoveTrains said:

If someone is sitting at a table in the kitchen they can see right into the men standing at the urinals. Ewww.

Whut? Who comes up with these designs!?

[lilibet]

May 8, 2018 17:26:56 GMT -5 lyssbobiss, Command, B613 said:

And I also hate the fact that for someone like me who struggles with ADHD, the constant stream of people wandering around is fucking maddening and distracting.

My cube neighbor has ADHD and really struggles with this. Last year we were moved around and now we sit along the main path to the bathroom and it's completely distracting. I struggle with it even without having ADHD but she has days where she can't focus on anything because it's just constant motion around us.

You would think offices would take that into consideration.

[taratru]

Our teacher work areas are very open. I'm lucky enough to have planning periods where only 1 or 2 other people are in there, but there are some times during the day where you can't do a damn piece of work in there because people are yapping. I never talk on the phone or do anything personal. It's not a sexism issue, just more of an annoyance.

Reading this makes me realize I have NO idea how the private sector works. I've literally spent my entire life in a school. That's damn depressing.