I never said people can't feel different than me. I said that it seems unlikely that they're actually more productive in an open office, and that even if they specifically are one of the rare few that actually do work better, a vast majority of people don't.

This is empirical, not just a difference of opinion.

I have the impression that people who are not afraid of open offices did not work in an office that was particularly bad. When the manager joins in the constant chatter, talking all the time about video games or sports, it's very difficult to do get work done. You have no one to turn to because the management is in on it.

I worked in open offices that didn't bother me. Generally large companies with more than 60 employees. The noise becomes an indistinguishable background sound and long conversations are almost non-existent.

It's the smaller ones that annoy me. Those with 10 to 15 people. Conversations are easy to hear and understand, so your brain picks up on them. Since it's small, it turns into a bunch of little friend groups who have constant conversations.

...

Describing it just now, I notice that I am describing a high school class versus a university class. That's exactly how they feel. It only takes one or two disruptive agents to ruin everything.

Yes, I worked in a small office 2 weeks ago, and every conversation made it into my ears. Now I'm in an open office with 60+ people and it's like sitting in a fast food restaurant, noisy chatter that I can tune out. If there's some conversation particularly loud/annoying I just put on my headphones. It's not that bad, but I have the ability to tune it out, and I feel other types of people can't do that.

I’m glad for you. You can tune it out. Some of us can’t tune it out, no matter what.

Well, not until we either put on our maximum NR headphones and play our music at hearing-destroying levels. Maybe by the time we are completely and totally deaf, we will be able to tune it out.

> People can even feel different from you. The shock!

That is exactly what I told my boss when they introduced our new open office and they said "works fine for me".

It goes both ways.