[benoau]

Worst desk I ever had was in a corner with a constant stream of chatty colleagues passing both behind and beside me. It might not be harassment but it severely undermined my ability to focus on complex tasks.

> She felt she was not respected when she asked for quiet and asked a manager if she could work from home but this was not allowed. Ritchie was told by one manager that she should concentrate on reaching her targets and not concern herself with what was going on around her.

[pavel_lishin]

When I first started at a previous employer, we had an open office plan with rows of desks. I was on a software eng team, building $PRODUCT with about four other people. The next two rows, for some unfathomable reason, was completely filled with sales people whose job was to be on the phone talking loudly to potential customers all day.

It was ... unpleasant, trying to focus on work while simultaneously hearing a dozen one-sided conversations at a time, plus phones ringing with incoming calls.

Eventually they moved them to an area with other people doing similar work - which I'm sure sucked for them, too. But at that point, I'd already developed the habit of having my headphones on all the time, and even today it's hard to concentrate without feeling the hug of headphones on my head.