There was a group of people in a meeting room working on separate parts of some larger project. I had to call one of them. You think that guy would get off his ass to walk away and talk to me in private? I spend the time helping you out and you don't even offer me that?

No, I had to hear 3 other people having a conversation louder than his call with me.

It's especially "fine" if you're a salesperson, and you're sitting right next to a group of engineers who are trying to concentrate.

Roles aren't always that well-defined. Many of us aren't recruiters or in sales but can still spend hours a day on planning, etc. calls with distributed teams. It's not practical to seek out a phone booth or alcove for every one of those calls.

> It's not practical to seek out a phone booth or alcove for every one of those calls.

Why not? It's not practical to make 8 of your coworkers suffer through your call either.

Maybe, if you need to be on the phone for hours a day, you need an office not to be in an open floorplan.

Maybe, but that's not within my control. Take it up with management.

Doesn't matter though for me because I'm in my home office.

It's completely within your control to not seek out a different (and designed for phones) place when you need to make a call.

Blame management who puts people whos job it is to talk on the phone all the time in the same open office as people who need to concentrate.