Oh, it isn't just me!
My wife doesn't understand why i have a horrified look on my face whenever she opens my office door to look for something or pass through.
I actually think understanding of this sentiment has declined over time. It's been around with a name since the days of the Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hack-mode.html), but the general trend seems to be towards not supporting it at work or realizing how universal it is among programmers.
I'm not quite sure why; I assume it's partly that software development is less unified these days, and perhaps partly that day-to-day coding is way less stateful than it used to be. If someone is juggling register addresses all day, I imagine they'd be especially quick to condemn interruptions.
I think psychological flow [0] is the more general framework for this -- even outside of programming. It's not that understanding is declining, it's that programmers don't do a good enough job of demanding healthy working conditions. The rise of start-up like physical work spaces is an encroachment by those who extract wealth from our labor -- pushing the envelope as far as they can and taking more and more concessions, not just in terms of wages that don't keep pace with expensive cost of living implied by the urban centers where you're more or less required to live in order to work, but further by making basic physical workplace health an issue of subordination and sublimation -- signalling loyalty by being willing to suppress your human needs and requirements.
In other words, people aren't ignorant of this, they just won't care unless programmer labor makes them care, and programmers seem especially bad at sticking up for these kinds of things.
The problem is how to make a company care. If you say you quit unless you get your own office they'll say "Good riddance, even if you're a great dev and we'll have problems replacing you, we don't want someone who's not a team player."
Most people are social creatures (including most programmers I've met), if asked they will tell you they like to share a room with several others. It's fun, it's "collaborative" and there can be a hearty banter going on or whatnot. It's the cool thing to do because all cool startups do it! And they are team players!
So now if you come along and say you can't work under these conditions, your coworkers will think you don't like them and your managers will think you're not a team player. So in order to have any possibility of success, all programmers need to be on-board.
Now this is difficult because bringing the subject up may cause your coworkers think you don't like them. Then they'll say they rather sit together, and they want to be team players, and that having their own office with a door they can close feels like a privilege they don't deserve, and that closing the door feels like you're not being social, and that they don't even remember what it's like to be in flow (if they ever have). And that it will be too expensive for the company if all devs have their own room. Never mind the loss the company makes due to devs working (much slower) in interruptible mode. The problem is that that loss is not easily quantifiable.
My own experience is that I'm much more productive when I've had my own office and had the possibility of long stretches of working in flow. But whenever I've brought it up with a manager they've brushed it off as anecdotal (even though I've brought studies that say the same thing) and made me feel greedy for wanting the privilege and prestige that comes with my own office even though I care nothing about prestige and the only privilege I want is to be allowed to work in flow because that is a marvelous feeling.
> Most people are social creatures (including most programmers I've met), if asked they will tell you they like to share a room with several others.
I think this is actually false, both anecdotally and when surveys have been collected.
No one actually thinks you're not a team player just for desiring minimally healthy conditions. They are fully aware that you are probably a great team player, especially if you care about your teammates getting healthy conditions too.
The "not a team player" buzzword is just a political tactic to find a plausible excuse to discredit or eliminate you, despite you having a justified point, before it ends up catching on with colleagues. It's an HR code word for "we need a blank check excuse to impose our will while thinly veiling our dictatorial approach with some democratic plausible deniability" -- nothing more, nothing less.
Coworkers also will rarely care -- they want privacy too! As for managers making you feel greedy, that's just more of these psychological manipulations and tricks. They know full well your request is healthy and reasonable, but need a way to both look like they are high status and reject it at the same time, so they must invent ways to make your request look low status.
> I think this is actually false, both anecdotally and when surveys have been collected.
Yeah, me too, I guess I was a bit vague with the "if asked" part. I meant if asked straight to their face when others (possibly) managers are listening. There are exceptions of course but in my experience most people see it as a potential conflict with coworkers and managers and will not support it publicly.
> No one actually thinks you're not a team player
Yeah, I know, poor choice of words. But I meant basically what you said. It's shite politics in play. The cost of an office is a very concrete number in a spreadsheet but the loss of productivity is hard to gauge.
I have a small office in a large closet upstairs that I use at night for work, my SO has a converted room downstairs as her office for her home business, so there's not a lot of cross traffic. Unfortunately, that means she IM's me quite a bit, which since it's even lower cost than walking 20-30 feet if she's already at a computer, I'm not entirely sure isn't worse. :/
I frequently work from home and coworkers pretty frequently IMs me. Maybe I overthink this but I don't dare to shut off my IM (or mail either for that reason) in order to have uninterruptible concentration on a task because if I'm not responding to IMs quickly enough my coworkers may get the wrong idea about me working from home. The company supports it and most of the time I'm much more focused working at home, but when I'm in the office I frequently hear comments about other coworkers working from home like "Oh, (s)he's working from home, well, it is a beautiful sunny day today * snicker *".
Why else would you want a private home office? If you don't have a significant other, there's no need for a separate private space.
In my case, I work from home two days a week, and I have children. I separate space is essential to get work done. It's a matter of having a private space that allows me to be home if needed, and save time for with my family, or not being productive enough to make it economical for the business to allow.
I was trying to express that I am envious of people who are able to have a significant other and a comfortable home with space. Having even just one of the two sounds like a dream world to me.
I'm not quite sure why; I assume it's partly that software development is less unified these days, and perhaps partly that day-to-day coding is way less stateful than it used to be. If someone is juggling register addresses all day, I imagine they'd be especially quick to condemn interruptions.