I worked at a company that did away with cubicles in favor of long tables where you had just enough space for a laptop and external display and looking past tha

I worked at a company that did away with cubicles in favor of long tables where you had just enough space for a laptop and external display and looking past that display, or to your immediate left and right, you saw the faces of your co-workers. That was in a different department than mine. In mine, we had cubicles. Not great but better than the long tables. The owner of the company asked me about the arrangement our department once. I was frank and told him everybody should have their own office. I told him people in our line of work need to be able to focus for long periods of time in order to be productive. He replied, "But I really want to encourage the vibrant atmosphere we have in [other department]!" I just shook my head and thought, "What you see is a vibrant atmosphere is really people not working." I heard after I left that he replaced all the cubicles in my former department with long tables.