In retrospect, having an office was one of the few redeeming perks of academia. They were so far behind the times, they may have been ahead of their time.

Not a contradiction in any way, but you reminded me of the dark side of academia and offices with a story I heard from my local university.

They had a new building constructed, including a very coveted corner office. A student organization was absolutely delighted when they received that corner office, and thought it was a sign of growing appreciation for their work. Turns out, it was actually a way out of a political quagmire: professors had fought for that office so bitterly that it had gotten to a web of "ok, I will accept that you're not giving it to me, as long as X doesn't get it either". The student organization wasn't really hated by anybody enough to be part of this web, so they got it just as a way to avoid pissing anyone off too much.

I've had a lot of jobs in academia and only had an office once, for about 6 months, because nobody else needed it.

Moving from the academy to tech right now and dreading open office.

>Also, there's this new invention called "doors"

Must be very new since our office had none bar for the meeting rooms.

Same. Two to four person office where I can commute by bike? Sign me up. Sitting in a 30+ person open office with >1h one way commute vs working from home? Thanks, I‘ll work as long as possible from home.

You have evidence?