digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

See the original image at valleywag.com

The 10 worst workspaces in tech

valleywag.com — What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • KonstantinLevin, on 05/09/2008, -6/+4"The poor souls at Internet phone company, Jajah. No one should have to suffer through so much purple outside of Sunnyvale. Also, when does corporate graffiti get added to ThingsWhitePeopleLIke.com?"
    • jim1977, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5I thought Adobe was stunning, and Yahoo... well let's say Yahoo's offices look as retarded as their website and average user.
      • troye, on 05/11/2008, -0/+1I like Mozilla. They do not ***** around. I really digg the minimalistic way they have it set up in there.

        Mozilla ftw my opinion.
  • MikeonTV, on 05/09/2008, -0/+12Cause Valleywag is totally known for having amazing offices!
  • stevesearer, on 05/09/2008, -0/+9Don't forget to go to http://www.officesnapshots.com :)
  • cyberwiz01, on 05/09/2008, -0/+7And sadly, my cube is still drearier than all of these.
    • DreKor, on 05/10/2008, -0/+3Seriously. I know I'd be ***** if my company forced me into an office complex with adequate meeting space, a color scheme that didn't end in beige, floor to ceiling windows, and a basketball court. As it is, that window down the hall is distracting enough.
  • xsquirrel378x, on 05/09/2008, -0/+20adobe's headquarters dont really look like a place of business, its like a four seasons hotel
  • Baronvontito1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+6I've always thought Google's offices looked more like a theme park than a workplace; along with Pixar's offices.
    • Zera, on 05/10/2008, -1/+2Yea, how can the compare Google's posh, um, EVERYTHING with FOLDING TABLES of a startup??? Dumb article. Google's ball pit, and all the free Naked juice you can drink must really be a bitch.
  • Terr01, on 05/09/2008, -0/+27I don't quite trust this article.

    For instance, one of the Microsoft "headquarters" photos is actually the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle.
    http://valleywag.com/photogallery/Microsoftheadqua ...
  • mark076h, on 05/09/2008, -3/+3i want to see MrBabyMan's workspace?
  • alpha88, on 05/09/2008, -3/+5lol @ some of microsoft's employees using macs
    • SniperGX1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+8It's not new that MS employees use Apple notebook hardware with vista running on them.
      • alpha88, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2The one Mac visible is quite clearly running Safari on Mac OS X Tiger.
    • piratearggghhh, on 05/10/2008, -0/+4Microsoft develops software for the Mac.
  • johndajap56, on 05/09/2008, -0/+16i'd say those are some of best, like microsoft and adobe look like sick places to work
  • coheedcollapse, on 05/09/2008, -1/+8I don't mind the article, but most of those places don't seem bad at all. Yahoo just seems like they have cubicles that they're allowed to do whatever the hell they want with, and as we all know, no matter how "outside of the box" Google's workplace might be, it's still ridiculously awesome.

    The only one that looked anywhere near painful really was Mozilla. They had their computers set up on folding tables.
    • AROZ, on 05/10/2008, -1/+1I didn't know that Mozilla had offices in Toronto. They should find a better place, perhaps in Liberty Village. Or at least better furniture...
  • jajah, on 05/09/2008, -3/+5Ha, thanks for the mention, I'm just glad that there are no cubicles at JAJAH and I don't mind Jajah Watamba's omnipresence. Great article and we just painted some more walls purple after we inked the deal with Yahoo ;-) Have a great weekend you guys, Frederik
  • SitPoMk, on 05/09/2008, -0/+6"h-h-h-e t-t-took my s-stapler"
  • dangsta, on 05/09/2008, -2/+25those offices don't even look that bad.
  • welk, on 05/09/2008, -1/+42The person who wrote that has never seen a bad place to work.
    • DreKor, on 05/10/2008, -0/+5None of those workspaces involve a cash register or a deep fryer, they can't be that bad.
  • RandyGandy, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3Our workspace in a call center is far worse than any of these, we like to call it sardine city
    • alperea, on 05/10/2008, -0/+3Call centers can get pretty bad. I used to work with ones with toy airplanes hanging from the cieling, baloons everwhere (used for achievemnets), and stuffed animals, etc. It can get pretty annoying.
  • DrakeRangoon, on 05/09/2008, -2/+9I'd rather live and work in an Alaskan pine forest, frankly. In the summer I would go fishing for delicious fresh salmon in crystal-clear rivers, or perhaps saunter through a sunny meadow and find some delightful berries to munch. I would roam free among the tall trees, occasionally finding a rare treasure of sweet honey, and I would observe and join the grand dance of nature uninhibited.

    I would scale mountainsides, and when the skies darkened in late autumn and began to coat the wilderness in snow, I would just find a cozy, warm cave and slip into a deep, eternally relaxing sleep until spring!

    tl;dr: ***** offices, I wish I was a bear.
    • reddikilowatt, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2You're a lumberjack,
      and you're OK.
      You sleep all night, and you work all day.
  • buymagicfish, on 05/10/2008, -0/+61) They aren't bad, except maybe Mozilla
    2) Holy Crap! I know the guy in the ball pit at google.
  • simonbp, on 05/10/2008, -0/+9Is this article a joke? All of those places look better than any office that I've worked in.
  • chompapotamus, on 05/10/2008, -1/+13dugg, but why is this website so labor-intensive to view the images!!!
  • moolaismyfriend, on 05/10/2008, -2/+4Those offices are just fine.
  • olenick, on 05/10/2008, -0/+20The worst I ever saw was when I worked for some guys in the late 90's that wanted to show off their servers and put them in a glass room. The room was so hot that the guy who worked in there ended up completely covered in sweat and eventually just walked around in nothing but shorts and sandals. So in this corporate environment there was a guy walking around in this glass room that looked like Tarzan in a zoo exhibit. They finally fixed it, adding industrial air-conditioning, but then it was exactly the opposite and he had to walk around in a jacket and gloves with the fingertips cut off so he could fiddle with the machinery. We all felt bad for him.
    • DreKor, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Don't servers sort of need A/C to live?
      • hexydes, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Come on, it was the late 90s. What did the servers consist of? Two Pentium-IIIs, 64MB of memory and a 10GB hard drive?

        If it gets too hot, just blow on it.
  • ThatGeek, on 05/10/2008, -0/+4ok, that website is horrible
    • kushin, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2it does suck ass. how about using some of the highslide.js on those galleries btches
  • joltcola, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2http://valleywag.com/photogallery/MozillaToronto/1 ...
    is that guy looking at digg during the meeting?
    • AROZ, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2Having zoomed in I can say no, he isn't unfortunately. There's a red circular logo on the left hand side of the blue column, which doesn't resemble digg.
  • xen0blue, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2OOOOOH, 10 worst WORKSPACE, I read that as WORKPLACES and was like "WHAT? that looks awesome"
  • FreshPineSent, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Nope, sorry, Google has a sweet office. Kindergarten toys FTW!
  • darny, on 05/10/2008, -0/+6Don't be down on the adobe building, it's actually a USGBC (platinum) certfied green building.

    http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressrel ...

  • seiha, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2high moon studios is probably one of the best places i've seen to work.

    http://www.highmoonstudios.com/company/studio_tour ...

  • 2Bnor2B, on 05/10/2008, -1/+2Anyone notice the number of Apple laptops, in the picture of workers at Microsoft .
  • Rwned, on 05/10/2008, -1/+3Is it just me, or are like 99% of the employees in these shots white people?
    • mikebritton, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Yeah, where are the Tokens?

      /sarcasm
  • passedoutghost, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2You should have seen my workplace. Absolute *****. My boss was a dickhead too. Glad I got out.
  • Shenaniganz08, on 05/10/2008, -0/+6buried as inaccurate
  • bmcnally, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1It's possible that the ones without cubicles are using extreme programming (i.e., two programmers work on a single computer and do a lot more code review as the program is being coded) rather than them just being bad places to work.
  • popolop, on 05/10/2008, -0/+3Initech?
  • diothar, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2You know, my office is better than most of the offices there, but I really just don't see those as bad places to work. I've had some pretty bad jobs and I know a lot of people worse off with their desk situations.
  • secrity, on 05/10/2008, -0/+3Having two programmers working on a single computer sounds like *****.
    • DreKor, on 05/10/2008, -0/+2I dunno, pair programming is a legitimate style. It just takes a certain mindset and some getting used to.
  • IronDonut, on 05/10/2008, -0/+0Those places are the Taj compared to http://www.FreshDirect.com - a ***** in Long Island City surrounded well Queens, a car shredding facility, a fish processor and a Salvation Army flophouse. Worst tech joint I've ever seen.
  • oldcyborg, on 05/10/2008, -1/+1my office is worse, and dirtier, altho it is bigger and has Everything in it. I don't have to leave except to Pee and eat... I just cleaned out my keyboard and it looks like I must eat, mostly in here. hehehe
    Cyborg
  • barl0w, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1I love working in DT SFO. A clear view of the Oakland Bay Bridge:

    http://flickr.com/photos/barl0w/2459053420/
  • dildobaggins, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1I call ***** on this, I worked at MS in Redmond for 3 1/2 years, their workplaces are some of the best with the exception of Imperial Square. Red West used to rock, had a pond and waterfall in the middle and the girls would sun on the lawn by the pond......yummy. and 16, 17, 18 were connected via sky bridges that were both lined with video game machines which you could play for free. They have some of the nicest themed cafeterias I've ever seen with really cheap, really good food. Building 11 had the coolest server rooms and network control center. Most workers on main campus had their own offices, no cubes in sight. Of course, Balmer's in charge now, perhaps things have changed.
  • dildoolielly, on 05/10/2008, -0/+4"We don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements."

    -Peter Gibbons
  • grfx303, on 05/10/2008, -0/+0Corporate schlockmeisters always miss the fact that their soulless, beige world and the directives that guide it prove the most incentive to leave it. Trying to create a world class branding campaign while the beige cubihell is sucking the soul from you is indeed an exercise in frustration and causes the questioning of sanity and greener pastures.
  • RateBuilding, on 05/10/2008, -0/+0Dare to rate the buildings where you work !!!.
    You will force your Landlord or your boss to solve your problems.
    And you will gain a Public Voice against bad buildings, bad Landlords etc...www.ratebuilding.com
    It works...cause it is on Public Place...no more secret.,
    Go on: just rated 2 buildings.
  • mikebritton, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1People like to project dissatisfaction with their actual work onto their workspaces. I work with seven people in one giant cube we affectionately call The Pit. We all like being there.
  • wildmXranat, on 05/14/2008, -0/+1Vallewag.com's UI is the worst. Concentrate more on your site and stop whoring out the ad space.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.