I was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next cube while seated. This was done to "increase collaboration", however myself and my team are placed by a group of people from HR, so it's constantly our recruiters on the phone pre-screening candidates. We never need to interact with them. And I know they are annoyed with us as well when we're talking technical jargon. We both get on each other's nerves and constantly distract each other.

Even if you subscribe to the "open = more collaborative" idea, it only works when you're near people that you interact with daily.

I miss my full-height cubicle, in an area with only people from my department.

> I was transitioned from a full-height cubicle (in a corner, no less) to a half-height cubicle. I can see from the neck up of the person in the next cube while seated.

Wow, that's absurd.

Our company transitioned from 6 foot cube walls to 4.5ish foot cube walls, such that you can see over the cube walls if you're standing up, but not when sitting down. It works very nicely for being able to see across most of the floor, to easily find someone you're meeting with (and who is thus also standing looking around), or to collaborate with your team over cube walls. But if you're sitting down, you have walls all around you, both to muffle noise and to provide a comfortable feeling of privacy.

There are also a large number of drop-in conference rooms ("collaboration rooms"), and some one-person phone-booth rooms for fully private phonecalls.