Open plan offices attract highest levels of worker dissatisfaction

> It is common for me to not talk to a single coworker about work throughout the day.

I have to say, that is a rare situation in every office I've worked in. Maybe it has to do with the types of people I've hired, but it is incredibly common to see collaboration during the day between 2-3 people and heavy collaboration anytime difficult problems comes up.

As I recall, Microsoft designed X-shaped buildings with shared spaces towards the middle.

Every developer has a private office with "a door that shuts". They all have a view that doesn't look into another office. When they need to work alone, they can work alone.

Each office is large enough that a second person can come in and work alongside them, whiteboard together etc.

Social areas are placed towards the centre of the X. Offices are on the outer. This controls the spread of noise from the social areas.

These buildings were inspired by IBM's Sillicon Valley Lab (née Santa Teresa Lab), which itself was inspired by studies of programmer productivity which found that private offices improved performance markedly over cubicles and open-plan offices.

There's a discussion in Peopleware.

To be clear, I meant verbal communication, not over the computer. There's lots of the latter. But overall I agree it is probably a quirk of the office I work in that we have more solo work than usual.

But if no one talks in the open plan layout, what's the benefit of open plan at all? Might as well give people their own private space free of visual distractions.

Work spaces I have had

* High school: desk in bedroom. Unaware there are worse options: Productivity: 9.

* College, year 1: dorm with roommate, cop-style desks facing each other. Shut up! Productivity: 4.

* College, years 2-4: two roommates, desk under bed. Vaguely cramped, but not bad. Productivity: 6.

* First ship: Flight of the Intruder style aluminum desk/dresser/bookcase measuring 24" wide, aligned athwartships, so every roll of that frigate dumped my work all over until I hacked some retaining straps in. (http://www.maritime.org/tour/img/fbc/fbc-captain.jpg, except our bunks were 3 high). Productivity: 3.

* Second ship: Double-wide version of same but it's a carrier, no rolling. Productivity: NA because I also an actual office, with a door, and it was right next to wardroom. Downside: back wall of office was next to the trap wires. Had to wear double hearing protection during flight ops. Office productivity: 6-9.

* Staff at the Naval Academy, Annapolis: more desk acreage than I could use, huge vaulted window, rich blue carpet, could hide out all day. Productivity: 0-8. Home office: got an Ethan Allen desk on clearance. Productivity: 6.

* Med school, year 1: Katrina. 5' folding table next to the foldout couch two very kind University of Houston students let me sleep on all year. Still have that folding table. Not bad. Productivity: 6-8.

* Med school, years 2-4, New Orleans: Ethan Allen desk tried in every room of the house, but little kids make it impossible. Productivity at home: 0. Starbucks: 7.

* Internship. Same as above, but also had a cubicle in the 180 desk "resident storage facility". Had no desire to be there and rare could be. Productivity at cubicle: -1.

* First job as a doc: moved to San Diego, converted falling-apart cubicle desk in our office (incidentally the server closet, possibly the only reason it had an air conditioner) into a standing desk. Joy. Could work all day. Had a 34" stool that helped on occasion. 3 officemates: productivity: 5. A Navy clinic, "doctor's office" set up during the weekdays I took clinic, productivity: 4 (they seemed to feel doctors were cheaper than medical assistants). Starbucks: 7.

* Oh, during that job, worked at an urgent care on the weekends: sterile "doctor's office" with a desk and computer. 4 exam rooms. Highly routinized workflow seeing 30+ patients in 12 hours. Productivity: 11.

* Currently: professionally designed cubicle set up in an office with one office mate. We face opposite directions, neither face away from the door. Most productive ever. Productivity: 8-9. Starbucks 7. But also moved my Ethan Allen desk into my bedroom and installed a door lock. Home productivity: 4-8.

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