[munin]

I spent two summers of my PhD at research labs with private offices. It was awesome. At grad school, I work in an open plan lab. When reading or writing papers I find it very difficult to concentrate when people are having overlapping Skype calls on speaker phone or loud conversation near my desk. In a private office, I could take a paper and a whiteboard and really focus.

Also, interruptions become less jarring. If I'm focusing deeply in an open office, I have headphones on. That means if someone wants my attention, they have to come up close behind me and tap me on the shoulder, which is pretty intrusive of the personal space. In my private office, I wouldn't have to wear headphones in the first place, and if someone wanted to interrupt, they would knock on the door. Much less intrusive.

Interruptions also become less frequent. In an open office people seem to think that they can just come over to your desk and grab you to ask you, well, anything. The closed door has a good deterrent effect, people will interrupt you only for serious things, like lunch, "the building is on fire," and so on.