[doktrin]

> But living in the middle of hundreds of others just teaches us to ignore everyone.

This is an important point. For many of us who have worked in startups, "open office plan" really just means "team room". I enjoyed working in open office plans in smaller companies since it basically just meant 5-10 engineers sitting in the same space.

Last year I worked for a mid-size company of about ~200 employees, most of whom were crammed into a gigantic factory like space with endless arrays of fluorescent lights lining the ceiling.

The experience was among the most distracting I can remember. This was in no small part due to having to overhear loud conversations between people in different departments, such as marketing and sales, which require much more verbal communication than engineering. if I can help it I will never work in a similar environment again.

[lifeisstillgood]

That is probably the most important point - the reason startups go from a "team room" to massive open plan is because when it all began there were only 5 of them so open plan equaled sane. Add 20 more people and it's not sane anymore.

the reason startups do open plan offices is because no one is concentrating on managing the culture of the startup as it grows. Open plan is then I suspect both cause and symptom.

A campaign for team rooms is needed