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Ask HN: Of Introverts, the Open Office, and ADHD

by alansmitheebk on 9/19/16, 11:55 PM with 10 comments

I am one of those people who detests the open office. I find them noisy and distracting. Even with headphones on I am distracted by the movement around me and the feeling the I am in a fishbowl being looked at from outside. I've read a lot of articles and rants about the open office posted on HN.

I've recently been reading about ADHD and I', starting to wonder if my difficulties may have more to do with ADHD than being an introvert.I don't know if I have ADHD. I'm 40. I wasn't diagnosed with it as a kid but I don't know if people knew much about it then. I do remember constantly daydreaming, loosing things and forgetting to do my homework as a child.

Can anyone relate to this? Does anyone have any insight on this? I apologize for the incoherent nature of this post.

  • by dudul on 9/20/16, 12:12 AM

    "I do remember constantly daydreaming, loosing things and forgetting to do my homework as a child."

    Oh, you mean you were behaving like a child?

    I don't have ADHD and I hate open spaces.

  • by anexprogrammer on 9/20/16, 5:58 AM

    I'd start by comparing yourself against the Adult ADHD scale: http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/ncs/ftpdir/adhd/18Q_ASRS_Engl...

    It's more than just distractability.

    Hating open offices is pretty common, ADHD or not, extrovert or not, as they tend to kill concentration.

  • by threesixandnine on 9/20/16, 3:23 AM

    I don't have ADHD and am extrovert but still hate open office. When I work I want to work.

  • by exolymph on 9/20/16, 12:07 AM

    You don't have to have ADHD to hate open offices and find that setup distracting, but it's certainly a possible factor. I know this is boring / dissatisfying advice but going to a doctor could probably add more context to your self-assessment.

  • by samblr on 9/21/16, 10:53 AM

    I agree on open-offices being distractive - had worked on a work-shelf kind of environment where we could easily elbowed adjacent person without moving an inch from chair. And the division was 'research' oriented! This was because it was a prime location. No wonder most wanted to work from home or do most of their design kind of work in conference rooms. Main reasons I see open office environment is - they want to save up on real-estate. So most of times its hidden and given fancy names.

  • by borplk on 9/20/16, 6:16 PM

    Yup I can relate a lot.

    Since I started working for myself from home the difference has been night and day.

    I hope I can survive on my own for the longterm because the thought of having to go back to yet another office, especially an open one irritates me.

    One of the things that I found as an introvert is that being around people all day exhausted me so much that by evening I was just all numb.

    I had to isolate myself for the entire weekend just to recharge enough for the next week.

    So I would get into this never ending cycle of kind of wasting my weekends.

  • by wingerlang on 9/20/16, 11:49 AM

    I've probably got some mild form of ADHD (and going by the link posted I'm definitely in the area). I'm also an introvert and I work in an open office.

    I'm not sure how a normal office would work though, seems like I would go crazy in one of those.