> socially withdraw from officemates

I'm trapped in a dystopian open-office nightmare as well. When somebody comes up and starts talking to the guy who sits next to me, right in my ear, it's distracting as hell. So when I'm considering talking to somebody else in the office, I take into account the fact that I'm going to be distracting all of the people within earshot of this conversation that they almost definitely don't care about. As a matter of politeness, I try to use chat tools so that I don't disrupt any more people than I need to. Of course, cubicle walls solves that problem and permits face-to-face conversation, but that's not worth a few extra bucks apparently.

And thus, you are the rare gem that actually considers the outcome of your actions on others.

In contrast, most people are totally happy to blather about mindlessly, without any thought or care at all about who they are bothering with their chatter.

> "In contrast, most people..."

1) This isn't only at work, it's everywhere. Just yesterday I was wondering: When / how did walking around talking out loud to yourself (i.e., your phone) become normalized. How / why does having an unseen device in your hand or pocket make rude acceptable?

2) I also wonder how cultural this is? That is, is it only a USA thing? Are there cultures where this is less common? Where open plans might be doable, or at least less offensive?

I'm not sure its 'rude'. If they were with someone and talking to them, it'd be fine. What's the difference? It seems odd; but every odd behavior we see is not rude.

Fair enough. I'll rephrase. Why does it make the usually unacceptable acceptable?

Perhaps too often I'm on the wrong place at the wrong time but I hear plenty of half conversations in public (e.g., on the train) that would not happen if both parties were in the same row.

Too much volume. Questionable subject matter. Far from urgent. The rest of us don't need to hear that. Do they?

That part I'm on board with. Work conversations, kid conversations, spouse conversations that would never be aired in public otherwise, and now I'm privy to toilet-stopped-up issues on the bus.

I wish I had noted the article when I'd originally read it, but a couple of years ago I read one which surveyed many of the creators of 'big products' in those successful companies, asking them about their working environment. Most of those companies did, it is true, feature open offices. None of the companies benefitted from them. Those who built the important products that catapulted those companies to success did so without exception away from their desk. As I recall, one would find an empty office or conference room and simply claim it for a few hours to get some work done. Another would go outside and work on a bench, away from everyone else. Another would work primarily late at night when others weren't around. The companies succeeded in spite of their open offices, not because of them. But many MBAs are little more than cargo cultists, following along what others who are successful have done without any understanding or curiosity as to the 'why' the thing worked for them and whether it would apply to their own organization.

"But many MBAs are little more than cargo cultists, following along what others who are successful have done without any understanding or curiosity as to the 'why' the thing worked for them and whether it would apply to their own organization."

That's pretty much how MBA classes work with their case studies.

"All that said, the open office approach itself is a cheap cheat / proxy for an open minded collaborative organization. It's popular because it worked at successful companies. The problem is, for those conpanies it was more a correlation than a cause."

Exactly. Collaboration is a mindset, not an office layout. Same happened with Agile. Let's just pick some random artifacts from Scrum and think we are Agile instead of actually being agile.

> Moi? I see flags raising when tools are blamed (?) for cultural issues. In addition, it's not the quantity of face to face interactions that matter but the quality.

I don't think it's blaming the tools, rather just commenting that when you're jammed into an open office, sending an email is far less disrupting to your colleagues than having a conversation in person.

> “It's popular because it worked at successful companies.”

Is there evidence of this? I’ve only ever heard of cases where companies succeeded in spite of the open plan office, meanwhile you’ve got a place like Stack Overflow that is succeeding even when footing the bill for private offices in Manhattan. Nobody’s copying them...

I think you have to enter the reality of executive status-seeking, cargo-cult copying, narcissistic corporate vanity and opulence, and other sociological problems to begin to understand open-plan offices.

> Is there evidence of this? I’ve only ever heard of cases where companies succeeded in spite of the open plan office, meanwhile you’ve got a place like Stack Overflow that is succeeding even when footing the bill for private offices in Manhattan. Nobody’s copying them...

Stack Overflow is going out of business...

I searched around for info on this and couldn’t find anything really supporting your claim. At best I think you can say SO is going through all the same stuff that most other growing startups go through: needing to layoff some workers, pivot product strategies. That they are still raising money seems an indicator there is belief in the products, but sure, they might not make it.

For purposes of evaluating whether open-plan offices are effective, your comment seems at best disingenuous and at worst just some axe to grind against SO.

Probably not. I was speaking to the perception. I suppose I should have been more specific. But your point to my point proves the point.

Because that shit is expensive.

You mean, you want human beings to be treated like ... actual human beings?!?

What kind of crazy person are you?!?

;)