I don&#x27;t think I have ever worked in an office that wasn&#x27;t either cubicles or open plan .. with one or two small exceptions. I have never really minded the lack of privacy but noise has always been an issue. There&#x27;s always an office loud-mouth who thinks his or her thoughts should override everybody else&#x27;s. At this stage a heavy set of headphones are a standard part of my office equipment.<p>I get that giving an individual office to everybody perhaps isn&#x27;t feasible, and I also get that a more open plan office can in fact facilitate communication. But there are degrees .. I&#x27;ve had hard and soft-wall cubicles, open plan with dividers, open plan without dividers, facing a wall, facing a colleague but thankfully I have never had to deal with the author&#x27;s scenario of a shared single long desk though I have seen some of my colleagues endure this, nor hot-desking either.<p>So in summary, I think an open plan office is fine in principle, and I believe there are some issues with private or shared offices it does address. But it does introduce some distractions and other problems that should be mitigated, and ultimately should never be at the expensive of having a bit of personal space.