Let me take you through my dream office
Decided to change job recently, applied for two, went for an interview at the first and they offered me the job.<p>I took it on the spot despite the other place paying more.<p>One of the reasons I took it on the spot was when asked where I&#x27;d prefer to work and I said somewhere quiet he said there are offices upstairs, take whichever one you want.<p>That was <i>the</i> major deciding factor (among others), I know the other place is open plan.<p>I&#x27;ll take slightly less pay to sit in a quiet office and work over an open office.<p>(Other things I liked about the job where flex time, I buy all hardware I need myself, they pay for conferences, training courses, no phone on the desk (I asked for that and they said no problem), an interesting complex problem (I like enterprise stuff) and they are strongly focused on building out some proper in-house technical skill and replacing their creaking systems, I get technical freedom, I can use whatever I want on the backend and I&#x27;ll be assembling a team as they bring stuff back in house and final kicker it&#x27;s 10m walk from where I live so no commute).<p>Since both places pay more than enough for me to live comfortably in north of England I&#x27;ll happily take the slightly lower pay (in the short term) for the above.<p>I don&#x27;t think employers <i>still</i> understand how much <i>some</i> developers loathe open offices, it&#x27;s not a &#x27;prefer&#x27; to, it is a &#x27;won&#x27;t if at all possible&#x27;.