Over time, it seems like I'm getting less and less noise dampening... my last office, they had these little fabric cardboard deals they clipped to the edge of the desk... before that, I worked at smaller places, where there were a few people per office, and before that, I worked at a large place that gave us full cubes.

But at this office? nothing. nothing in between me and the person in the desk across from me. I had facilities put in a whiteboard between us, 'cause while I can wear hearing protection for noise; accidental eye contact is just not okay.

These aren't junior people, these aren't low-paid people; I don't think it's about saving money; or, cramming us in might be about saving money, but leaving out the partitions isn't. They give us really nice, expensive sit/stand desks that would demolish the cost of partitions.

(That said, most of the places I've worked at the very least had fabric coverings on the floor, and often those noise dampening ceiling hanging things... but I personally think that partitions are important, and those have gone the way of the dodo)

You'd have to pay me a lot of money to have me work in a place with separate offices or with people that think that "accidental eye contact is just not okay". A lot of people (not arguing that it's the majority, I have no idea) are actually more productive and happy in an open space than in a box cut out from the rest of the workers.

I guarantee that you work with someone who doesn't want to accidentally make eye contact through their monitors while trying to work. You don't even need to be particularly introverted, i think, to find faces distracting when trying to code, and introverts, historically, have been attracted to the industry.

You literally couldn't pay me enough to work in an open office space. Those things are nightmares.

I did a lot of co-working from 2009-2012 in several cities. The atmosphere was always very quiet and professional. People were very cautious about creating noise, and few people every spoke aloud unless they were on the same team.

I'm not sure what changed. Was it the bro-ification of the tech industry? Did coworking get a lot cheaper, and brought in a lower class of people? Was it Starbucks making its stores less attractive to campers? It doesn't sound like I'd go back to coworking again.

The problem people can't be making much unless there is a way of monetizing noisy phone calls that I am unaware of?

From what I've read about wework, I certainly won't be a customer any time soon.