Offices For All! Why Open–Office Layouts Are Bad For Employees, Bosses, And Productivity

I had an office. Now I don't.

I'm not looking for your pity; I want your own righteous indignation. Because you, too, deserve an office. We deserve better. We all deserve offices. But it gets worse: We've been told that our small squat in the vast openness of our open–office layouts, with all its crosstalk and lack of privacy, is actually good for us. It boosts productivity. It leads to a happy utopia of shared ideas and mutual goals.

A cubicle of one's own.

These are the words of imperceptive employers and misguided researchers. The open–office movement is like some gigantic experiment in willful delusion. It's like something dreamed up in Congress. Maybe we can spend less on space, the logic seems to go, and convince employees that it's helping them. And for a while, the business press (including, let's be honest, some of the writing in this very publication) took it seriously. "Less space per worker may be inevitable for cost–effectiveness, but it can enhance the working environment, not degrade it," said a particularly infuriating New York Times piece, who quoted only one critic, a person who claimed all this bustle was troubling for introverts.

Take those long tables, the ones currently lined with laptops at startups, and give them to an elementary school so children can eat lunch on them.

No. This is a trap. This is saying, "Open–office layouts are great, and if you don't like them, you must have some problem." Oh, I have a problem: It's with open–office layouts. And I have a solution, too: Every workspace should contain nothing but offices. Offices for everyone. Offices for the junior associate and the assistant editor, and offices for the vice president and the editor–in–chief. Take those long tables, the ones currently lined with laptops at startups, and give them to an elementary school so children can eat lunch on them. We'll have to do away with all those adorable communal spaces, but they were always a little demeaning, a little not–quite–Starbucks. We won't need them now that we all have our own meeting place.

Peace and quiet and privacy and decency and respect for all. We people who spend more waking hours at work than we do at home, we people who worked hard to be where we are, we deserve a few square feet and a door. Call me old fashioned, call me Andy Rooney if you must, but Andy Rooney had an office.

Let us pause to count our grievances.

Feifer in his happy place.

Out here? I've been interrupted at least a dozen times trying to write this, and I'm only a few paragraphs in. That's not just my perception: Employees in cubicles receive 29% more interruptions than those in private offices, finds research from the University of California, Irvine. And employees who are interrupted frequently report 9% higher rates of exhaustion.

That's just speaking of the intentional interruptions, of course. I'm now always surrounded by chatter, which means that, like every other office worker in the country, I have to wear earphones. I'm currently listening to Django Reinhardt on Pandora. His talent is timeless. But while it's easier to think with Django in my ears, it isn't nearly as easy as silence was. The music just adds to the clutter in my head. Back when I had an office, I left work with my mind still happy and fresh; I emailed myself ideas while walking home, as some newsy podcast told me even more useful info. Now, at the end of a day of nonstop jazz, I leave work feeling fried. I miss my podcasts, which my brain just doesn't have room for. I walk to the subway in silence, repairing.

Are you unmoved by this argument? I don't take offense. This piece would be so much better had I written it in private. Between the words "That's just speaking..." and now, I've been interrupted two more times.