I’ve had every type of desk situation - completely open with no barriers, small fabric barriers, and full cubicles. I’ve found that if you get along with your coworkers the open concept isn’t too bad. And if you hate your coworkers anything less than a closed off office isn’t going to help. In a cubicle people can still openly talk to you over the walls and people will pop up behind you at random while your working to ask you questions. My current boss does that and she’ll use the softest voice possible to say hello and then just stand there watching me until I notice.
I typically just want my back to a wall, maybe it’s some kind of lingering prey instinct, but even if people can talk over them I like having the wall.
if I must have a cubicle, I have a strong preference for walls I can see over OR walls no one can see over. I’ve had walls about 5ft tall, where my coworkers could stand a head above them but I couldn’t. That was unfair. They’d pop up on any side of my cubicle.
I’ve also had open concept. That was OK. I was doing QA for an agile dev team and it was nice to just turn to them and ask questions. We had small private rooms for phone calls, meditation, and migraines.
I’ve had every type of desk situation - completely open with no barriers, small fabric barriers, and full cubicles. I’ve found that if you get along with your coworkers the open concept isn’t too bad. And if you hate your coworkers anything less than a closed off office isn’t going to help. In a cubicle people can still openly talk to you over the walls and people will pop up behind you at random while your working to ask you questions. My current boss does that and she’ll use the softest voice possible to say hello and then just stand there watching me until I notice.
I typically just want my back to a wall, maybe it’s some kind of lingering prey instinct, but even if people can talk over them I like having the wall.
if I must have a cubicle, I have a strong preference for walls I can see over OR walls no one can see over. I’ve had walls about 5ft tall, where my coworkers could stand a head above them but I couldn’t. That was unfair. They’d pop up on any side of my cubicle.
I’ve also had open concept. That was OK. I was doing QA for an agile dev team and it was nice to just turn to them and ask questions. We had small private rooms for phone calls, meditation, and migraines.