What I find gross is that the article somehow considers cubicles as a "private" solution.
This modern management cargo cult has reached really gross levels of absurdity.
If open plan is a cacophony of voices amidst which a person is to find focus and deep thinking, then cubicles are the same cacophony without the peripheral vision part.
I find teamwork, collaboration and such bullshit words just a mask for true motive. Cheapness. Cheapness in landlords, Cheapness in architects and Cheapness in companies who ultimately make up reasons for why they don't want to spend money and time on building truly productive environments.
I don't know about other people, but cubicles instill in me a sense of paranoia I don't get in an open office plan. It actively raises my stress level and makes it harder to focus knowing anybody can show up behind me at any time and I can't see them coming.
Finding a solution becomes harder with time, but the number of algorithmic checks performed per second is constant (more checks are simply required as difficulty increases).
My partner does: UI/UX design, HTML and JavaScript and a dash of backend. I do: backend, architecture, algorithms, sysadmin work and HTML + JavaScript when necessary.
It works really well. We also continuously try to expand to the others territory.
But robotics hasn't really gotten its consumer spotlight yet.
If we ignore robotic vacuum cleaners and toys. But there are some incredibly cool robotics applications.
What needs to happen is a "killer application" of a robot in workplace that will be transferable to home. Off the bat I believe that robotic cars (or autopilots as they will be known) will be first major application of robots that can be transplanted from corporate world into home use.
And I can easily see that in 10 years a lot of new cars will be 1. electric and 2. will have an autopilot option.
What if most women want to take care of their own babies?
Hell I'm a guy and I'm dreaming about downshifting or even ending my career when kids start coming. I have seen consumerist/careerist families and I believe I can do better.
I actually WANT my kids to be raised in an atmosphere of (material) scarcity to the point that I could do without major wealth or if I acquired it I would "hide" it from them.
False dichtomy "careerist" "or" "family". Modern family can evolve to just as other relationships. It is very frightening for a child to be left at a day-care center, it would be much better if the parents could bring their children to work and have an "office" only for kids. Hire a baby-sitter and you are all set. Work and family.
Don't tell me this and that as reasons why it cant work. It works for me and my coworkers just fine.
Very much agreed with gp on downshifting career when having kids -- that's what I've done.
I'm less convinced about bringing the child to work, mostly because I've never been in a workplace where I've seen that, so it's tough to imagine.
Can you elaborate on that (or do you or a co-worker have a blog post, article, etc. about your experience)? Can you run though a typical day?
I work remotely, entirely, as does my wife. Obviously, this is one way to solve that problem, but it's not possible for most people, and the startup I work with is thinking about setting up offices, etc..
Child comes with the parent and sits or sleeps in his small chair in the parents office. When the child wakes up or wants something, the parent gives it to him like any other person that comes into the office and wants something. Usually the baby is happy if he can get a toy or push the chair around a bit. The baby also likes to have his father in clear sight when in his chair with toys.
For the father it means he gives attention to the child from time to time, but he can still get his job done.
Once he was on phone with a key account manager on the other side, the baby started crying for attention or something, the key account manager heard and asked if he needs a minute or two... he took the baby in his arm and continued the conversation while the baby tryed to smack him, thats how it looked like. Very funny and uplifted the whole conversation.
I imagine for bigger children we could dedicate one office full with toys to them. It would be like daycare center on-site.
None, as long as you don't piss off a prosecutor somewhere who wants to punish you for being a bad person. The problem here is it makes it possible for someone to say "show me the man and I'll find you the crime."
The article I read was about talking the talk versus walking the walk. And being aware that sacrifices will have to be made. And that people have a mind of their own and most of the people take the route of less sacrifices.
Honestly, nowadays in western world anybody can do just about anything if they put their mind and effort towards it. And acting as if women don't do startups as per some kind of society's disapproval is weak.
I was raised by an emancipated woman, who was a truck driver 40 years ago. I see the same kind of women around me. They are few, but they command respect and admiration.
And there is this other kind, too busy writing and debating to even get anything done.
My point? The author shared her experience of walking the walk in contrast to others who in a Victorian fashion talk the proper talk.
But completely honestly, why did you even develop this kind of culture in the first place? Don't you think you should have prevented the whole situation in the first place?
Heh, that's easy to answer - it's because I was an idiot!
Of course I should've prevented the whole situation in the first place, but I wasn't on the ball enough to realize it was a problem. I wasn't consciously trying to shape company culture at all, which is why it developed on its own in a suboptimal way.
It happens all the time, and it can be essentially invisible to management at larger companies. People get close. Cliques with their own sub-cultures will develop, HR-unfriendly and perhaps legally-actionable things will go on behind closed doors when everybody in the room is friends with everybody else.
Nobody will really notice or care until someone with a different worldview starts having to work closely with them and stuff starts bleeding through.
When it goes on for too long, people may get angry and resentful when trouble starts, and then you have a much quieter but more insidious mess...
What? No, I've never seen this happening from the inside! Of course not! I'm a perfect angel!
Hard to believe the ad wasn't titled "Dear Sophie's Account Held by Myself, Her Father, Not to be Handed Over to Sophie until such time as she meets Google's User Age Threshold for Regulatory Compliance."
"Dear Sophie" does have a much nicer ring to it, I guess.
"Dear Sophie" pretty clearly implies it isn't Sophie's account to me. When you write an letter (especially one that hasn't been sent yet as the commercial implies), you are the owner of the letter, right? To cite the Bible, it is Paul's letters to the Corinthians, not the Corinthians' letters from Paul.
Leaving aside my glee that we must reach into mythology (edited, thanks rubidium) to help Google's case, any letter that begins "Dear Sophie" sounds like it's a letter... to Sophie. And while she might not be able to read it right now, my initial guess as to why would be that infants don't have great reading comprehension, not that Google can't find an algorithm to get around COPPA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age. It would be iron age. And no historian disputes that an actual letter was written to Corinthians (and most are certain on Paul), so that takes out the mythology. At best, you can call it "Iron Age history of uncertain veracity". Sorry that it doesn't have quite the same demeaning effect.
Not sure what the age of the reference has to do with anything, but ok, here is a modern one. I write a poem, and send it to my girlfriend via email. Who is the author of the poem? I really don't get how intended recipient = account owner.
But the commercial isn't about sending emails to your daughter. The account is all emails sent to itself, which the father someday intends to log in and show to his daughter. It is the digital equivalent of keeping a scrapbook. The father creates the scrapbook about his daughter, and then shows it to her. I fail to see anyway this can be seen anything but the father's account.
> But the commercial isn't about sending emails to your daughter
That's very true, as I don't have a daughter. It's about one man sending emails to his daughter.
And the way I know that is it's called "Dear Sophie" and then the dude makes clear Sophie is his daughter. And the script, as written, has the narrator talking and writing to her, and not himself (which would have been less touching, if apparently more legally accurate).
This modern management cargo cult has reached really gross levels of absurdity.
If open plan is a cacophony of voices amidst which a person is to find focus and deep thinking, then cubicles are the same cacophony without the peripheral vision part.
I find teamwork, collaboration and such bullshit words just a mask for true motive. Cheapness. Cheapness in landlords, Cheapness in architects and Cheapness in companies who ultimately make up reasons for why they don't want to spend money and time on building truly productive environments.
Its sort of sour grapes situation.