I had to make this change a couple months ago. I'm still learning how to be productive again.

Mr. Clod's office has been like this for probably 10 years, across different companies, so it's definitely the growing trend. He's on very chill terms with his current boss, who has admitted that years of management studies nationwide have concluded that workers are vastly more productive this way. No one likes it, but they all get over it. It's like when the RIAA started going after Napster et. al. and everyone screamed that it would never work and would kill the music industry etc... And now everyone just buys their MP3s and doesn't think twice about it. Sometimes everyone hates a thing but it's still the most effective choice.

Part of the deal is having "private conversation" booths available for when they're needed, but most companies have figured out that people just take their cellphones outside when that happens. The other part is simply workers figuring out that no one is judging, or even really paying attention, lest they be judged themselves. Absolutely no one is thinking about shit coming out of your body, or the speed at which it does so. If anything, the guy with the boldness to just do what he needs is appreciated because it gives everyone else permission and precedent. Like when a parent sees another with a screaming kid, their first thought is, "thank god, it happens to other people too."

Rrrrrrright; so if the bosses also participate in the open floor plan, and sit out in plain view with everyone else, it's fine, otherwise we know it's the standard elitist hypocrisy. Why shouldn't THEIR productivity rise too?

We had to have an open door policy instigated to force my then cow-orker now minion to put her phucking fone away. Didn't work. Turns out she texts mindlessly like some pick their nose. Problem is, she phucks up her work because she's not paying full attention to it. Open office door made no difference though, because she wasn't paying attention. Her position was eliminated before she could be fired tho', so then she became my p/t minion ...and so my problem :( whinewhinewhine. But the point being, the open door didn't help. Our bosses propped htheiris door open too, though. it wasn't an elitist thing.

In my private office, I keep the door open all the time unless I'm meeting with someone about a sensitive topic. Those a rare. Having walls and an open door is just fine by me.

But having no walls between me and my cow orker in a small office probably will not be when I'm thrown into that situation in a couple weeks. How will I make phone calls? Even work ones? I can turn my monitor so I can still Cellar, but she's going to clearly hear my side of every phone conversation. And I'll hear hers. Ugh.

For the past decade or so have always worked in a large clinic workroom with computer stations every couple of feet, no divisions. In WV we shared with a bunch of GI people who put up a big sign labeling the workroom 'The Poop Deck'. One of the profs had a voice like a foghorn - annoying, but he could also be entertaining. People doing clinic work are either with a patient or with each other. I suppose it may explain why I hyperfocus, but it doesn't bug me.

I hate it. The guy to my right falls asleep, picks his nose, face, etc. It's distracting and disgusting. Only one guy in an office of hundreds has an office, so all the higher ups are in the same situation. I like the semblance of some privacy. If I want to eat at my desk and food falls out of my mouth, it's not just me seeing it.

I prefer cubes regardless of all the cube farm jokes.

Oh no doubt, the managers in his company do it too. Literally no one has an office, as far as I know.

Pretty much every office I've worked in has been open plan - I can only think of one which wasn't. And even then, it had the monitor sized dividers described. Everyone else used them for important phone numbers/ work info etc. I used mine for postcards or works of art I particularly liked, cartoons cut from Private Eye and a different poem every month.

Open plan offices were worse when it was legal to smoke at your desk.
I sat opposite a chain-smoker for about six months - it was hell.
That and sitting next to a woman planning her wedding. Hmmm, wonder why I left that job?
(actually it was because I got a better paid one closer to home, but I was only looking because of the work environment)

I'm in the waiting room. Not only in view of my cow orkers, but all the patients, as well

Only a couple of very senior people in engineering have offices, and then they are glass walled, so you can still see, it just stops you overhearing them.

I once worked in an open plan office that was far too big for the number of people occupying it.
The manager created his own little space in one corner by surrounding his domain with several tall acoustic screens with a hessian type fabric finish.
It was known, and not without good reason, as the 'padded cell'.

I just saw plans for my new space. Ugh. It's worse than I thought, but not as bad as it could be. I'm losing my privacy. I'll be losing about 2/3 of the square footage that I had. Losing my guest chair. I'm losing about the equivalent of 25 boxes worth of file storage space.

What I'll have: An L shaped desk with 2 shallow drawers and 1 deep drawer, a narrow set of shelves, a solid wall behind me and a solid wall to one side, an open space in front of me above the little ledge above my desk, and a glass partial partition wall to the other side. It's a cozy 4 person office with the desks pointed towards the center of the room and the cow orker backs to the solid walls. That's the one saving grace. Nobody can see my computer screen, even if everyone can see me. Absolutely no sound isolation.

develop an annoying vocal tic, you'll soon get sound isolation?

cock!