I think that this is a general problem with WFH. You'll get 3-5 times more done, because most office environments are horrible and anti-productive, but you're basically stepping out of the political fight. There's so much nonverbal subcommunication that you'll miss about who's viewed as a top performer, who's not, who's ascending and who's not.
The social environment of most workplaces is Meritocracy By Assertion. It has to conceive of itself as a meritocracy but the politically successful people are always most able to make themselves seem to have the most merit. No one ever said, "I'm promoting this guy because of his political success". And yet... over time, what we see is that non-WFHers rise up the ranks, because it's just such a political environment to be in the office during normal working hours, and, in general, when they get to the top, they're hostile to the whole concept. So then you have places like Yahoo where, even if you don't care about climbing the executive ladder, you have to adopt behaviors of those who do (namely, avoiding WFH).
The really depressing thing to learn about organizational politics is that, while they're a grind for hard-working, decent people, they're actually fun for psychopaths. About 95 percent of people will be utterly miserable if they have to spend 90 hours per week in a packed, open-plan environment. The other 5%, mostly psychopaths, thrive on that shit, like the creatures that live in deep-sea thermal vents (extremophiles). It energizes them.
You see this in The Wire. Stringer Bell doesn't love "The Game" (meaning criminal enterprise). He plays it because he's good at it and is trying to work his way out of it, but Marlo (and, to a lesser degree, Avon) is a natural gangster just as much as McNulty and Kima are natural cops. Natural office politicians are the 5% who don't start to fade and fail when subjected to 90-hour weeks in open-plan bullpens, for the same reason that polar bears don't mind ice. Eventually, though, an organization ends up full of natural politicians and has lost the whole "vision thing".
Most organizations think that it's valuable to "be tough" and schedule meetings during weird hours and cram developers together and set unrealistic deadlines. But the people who thrive in such environments aren't "the best" in terms of the ability to get work done. They're the natural politicians who thrive in that sort of environment.
Did you really just assert that the only people who thrive in "packed, open-plan environments" are psychopaths? What about extroverts, people who get energized by social contact? Are they all psychopaths?
Also, when you refer to how "most organizations" think it's valuable to be tough, you're going against the bulk of organizations I've worked with. I'm going on close to 50 organizations now that I've worked with in some capacity. I'd say less than 10 had that mentality.
I'd guess that extroverts are, on average, about neutrally buoyant in the open-plan environment. They don't get hit as hard as introverts but it doesn't energize them.
Introverts are drained by open-plan offices, extroverts learn to adapt and tolerate them, people in between the two extremes are slightly drained but blend in. No one really likes working in one, except for the psychopath (or the clueless 23-year-old who believes the hogwash about it being "collaborative").
The thing is that most decent extroverts still hate office politics. They have a greater need for social interaction than introverts, but they don't thrive on meaningless noise, environmental chaos, or a complete lack of privacy.
So while an extreme introvert is drained after 2 hours in an open-plan office, the extreme extrovert can spend 8 hours in one, no problem. He might be less productive but he doesn't go home exhausted. The psychopath, however, is energized by a politically intense environment. Most extroverts dislike office politics; psychopaths love that shit.
So your beliefs/guesses/hypotheses state here are that:
1. Open plan offices are damaging to all, except those:
a. Who mistakenly believe in the collaborative nature of open plan environments. By believing they enjoy working in them.
b. Are extroverted. They gain no benefit, but are not hurt.
c. Are without sociopathic. (Stealing the corrected language choice from your comment below.)
2. Extroverts who tolerate office politics are indecent. (The inverse of the statement that starts the third paragraph.)
3. (Through inference via there connection in the third paragraph:) Politics is meaningless noise, environmental chaos, and/or a lack of privacy.
4. Sociopaths are energized by office politics.
I find most of these flawed in one way or another, but I'd like you to confirm that my reading is correct before I address each in detail.
I find your perspective judgemental, somewhat narrow and (ironically) un-empathetic and I think a debate about it could be enlightening.
Point. I wouldn't use the word "sociopath" there, but it's possible to be low in empathy and still not a bad person.
That's actually a skill in the corporate environment because snooty clubs (like an executive suite) generally look for non-stickiness, i.e. "you get just me". People who communicate, "I'll leave my friends at the bottom unless you ask for them", tend to get promoted faster than those who are seen as a risk of bringing in less-wanted friends.
Can you please not do this? Michael is a valuable member of this community, and while he subscribes to a certain narrative, I for one find his comments to be intelligent and insightful. If you're going to disagree, do so respectfully without taking cheap potshots. Thanks.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Gandhi
Each step, if you keep your integrity intact, is hard: probably a 90% cut. It's easy to be laughed-at or opposed by doing something wrong or stupid. It takes at least some charisma to get past "they ignore you" while doing what is right.
You can get to ridicule with a terrible Youtube video, and the next level (opposition) is easy if you're willing to do the wrong thing: just become a criminal. It takes work to get to the opposition level while remaining in the moral right.
That said, I think it's much more of a multi-level dynamic. You get one response from people in power and another from the rest.
I think the progress is more like this: Level 0, people just ignore you. Level 1, people in power ignore you but the hoi polloi/useful idiots (who support the people in power) ridicule you and a few intelligent people out of power realize that you might have something to say. Level 2: people in power recognize you as a threat, and try to magnify the ridicule among the hoipolloi (while appearing to "stay out of it") but this can also increase your support. Level 3: people in power try to mobilize the useful idiots to fight (rather than just ridicule) you. (They themselves don't fight.) Level 4: people in power recognize their deteriorating position as your popular support increases (i.e. their attempts to heap ridicule on you actually buy sympathy and publicity). They'll either try to buy you out, or fight bitterly in a last-ditch effort that may destroy them and may destroy you. Usually you get the former, and it's up to you whether you take a deal or keep fighting. Level 5: you win.
The adversity that I get from certain ex-Googlers and HN personalities is somewhere around Level 2.25, maybe 2.5. I've had people try to fuck with my employment in the past, but I've managed to succeed in spite of them.
Getting from 2 to 3 is a big jump, and it's slow to happen because the people in power are afraid that you might be right and turn the masses (i.e. get to level 4-5). It's easy to ask the masses to ridicule someone; asking them to fight that person is demanding a commitment, and if the person being opposed is actually right, the more intelligent people within the masses will turn... and the useful idiots, though late to follow, will either be isolated (and disempowered) or themselves turned. So the preference of power is, strongly, to ridicule rather than oppose. Opposition is admission that ridicule didn't work.
Second quote, the authorship of which will probably never be uncovered:
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
HPMOR also addresses it, in a more accessible way:
> Professor Quirrell had remarked over their lunch that Harry really needed to conceal his state of mind better than putting on a blank face when someone discussed a dangerous topic, and had explained about one-level deceptions, two-level deceptions, and so on. So either Severus was in fact modeling Harry as a one-level player, which made Severus himself two-level, and Harry's three-level move had been successful; or Severus was a four-level player and wanted Harry to think the deception had been successful. Harry, smiling, had asked Professor Quirrell what level he played at, and Professor Quirrell, also smiling, had responded, One level higher than you.
The social environment of most workplaces is Meritocracy By Assertion. It has to conceive of itself as a meritocracy but the politically successful people are always most able to make themselves seem to have the most merit. No one ever said, "I'm promoting this guy because of his political success". And yet... over time, what we see is that non-WFHers rise up the ranks, because it's just such a political environment to be in the office during normal working hours, and, in general, when they get to the top, they're hostile to the whole concept. So then you have places like Yahoo where, even if you don't care about climbing the executive ladder, you have to adopt behaviors of those who do (namely, avoiding WFH).
The really depressing thing to learn about organizational politics is that, while they're a grind for hard-working, decent people, they're actually fun for psychopaths. About 95 percent of people will be utterly miserable if they have to spend 90 hours per week in a packed, open-plan environment. The other 5%, mostly psychopaths, thrive on that shit, like the creatures that live in deep-sea thermal vents (extremophiles). It energizes them.
You see this in The Wire. Stringer Bell doesn't love "The Game" (meaning criminal enterprise). He plays it because he's good at it and is trying to work his way out of it, but Marlo (and, to a lesser degree, Avon) is a natural gangster just as much as McNulty and Kima are natural cops. Natural office politicians are the 5% who don't start to fade and fail when subjected to 90-hour weeks in open-plan bullpens, for the same reason that polar bears don't mind ice. Eventually, though, an organization ends up full of natural politicians and has lost the whole "vision thing".
Most organizations think that it's valuable to "be tough" and schedule meetings during weird hours and cram developers together and set unrealistic deadlines. But the people who thrive in such environments aren't "the best" in terms of the ability to get work done. They're the natural politicians who thrive in that sort of environment.