Open-plan offices are backdoor age and health discrimination, also known as "culture fit".
With all the project-management garbage (often in the name of "Agile") designed to mash software down into chunks that can be done mindlessly by CommodityJavaDrones, making software development superficially reliable (but the product soulless) the job is easy, which the business wants. It's more expensive to dumb down the job and hire idiots (legitimate 10x programmers only cost 1.5-2x) but more reliable-- the risks are long-term and thus pushed off to the next guy-- as they see it. So the attrition for promotion has to be conducted by subjecting people to petty stresses, but in bulk, and seeing who cracks first. When someone has the first panic attack, goes to the ER (a real panic attack, if you don't know what it is, is terrifying) and one way or another isn't working there in 3 months, that's part of the design.
Also, as one who suffers panic attacks, it's not the noise that makes people sick (and, with enough time in an open-plan office, almost everyone will get sick) because people will tune that out over time, but open-back visibility, which is much harder to get used to. The creepy feeling of being watched is what fucks peoples' health up. That could be fixed with booth-style seating if regular offices can't be afforded, but you never see that either.
There's a false egalitarianism to it as well. Managers typically have desks in the bullpen as well so they can say that it's a blanket policy, but that's making an unfair comparison. Managers can come and go as they please, typically only spend a couple hours per day in the bullpen, and don't have much to fear from visibility anyway; but workers who take the side offices "too often" draw suspicion and, even if they're getting a lot of work done, have to worry about getting "culture fitted" (that is, no-hired or fired for being old, sick, or female.)
I love programming itself but this is a fucking shitty industry and it's goddamn time we rise up and take it the fuck back.
With all the project-management garbage (often in the name of "Agile") designed to mash software down into chunks that can be done mindlessly by CommodityJavaDrones, making software development superficially reliable (but the product soulless) the job is easy, which the business wants. It's more expensive to dumb down the job and hire idiots (legitimate 10x programmers only cost 1.5-2x) but more reliable-- the risks are long-term and thus pushed off to the next guy-- as they see it. So the attrition for promotion has to be conducted by subjecting people to petty stresses, but in bulk, and seeing who cracks first. When someone has the first panic attack, goes to the ER (a real panic attack, if you don't know what it is, is terrifying) and one way or another isn't working there in 3 months, that's part of the design.
Also, as one who suffers panic attacks, it's not the noise that makes people sick (and, with enough time in an open-plan office, almost everyone will get sick) because people will tune that out over time, but open-back visibility, which is much harder to get used to. The creepy feeling of being watched is what fucks peoples' health up. That could be fixed with booth-style seating if regular offices can't be afforded, but you never see that either.
There's a false egalitarianism to it as well. Managers typically have desks in the bullpen as well so they can say that it's a blanket policy, but that's making an unfair comparison. Managers can come and go as they please, typically only spend a couple hours per day in the bullpen, and don't have much to fear from visibility anyway; but workers who take the side offices "too often" draw suspicion and, even if they're getting a lot of work done, have to worry about getting "culture fitted" (that is, no-hired or fired for being old, sick, or female.)
I love programming itself but this is a fucking shitty industry and it's goddamn time we rise up and take it the fuck back.