I think my most upvoted comment on HN was me complaining about open offices during the 2018 world cup soccer/football game. The TL;DR of it was that I don't re

I think my most upvoted comment on HN was me complaining about open offices during the 2018 world cup soccer/football game. The TL;DR of it was that I don't really care about soccer, but most of my coworkers did, and they were really loud while watching TV right behind me, making me really hate open offices. I more or less stand by what I said (though I would probably be more polite now than I was in 2018), and I think now I'm somewhat more convinced that open offices are a bad idea for one simple reason: getting sick. Pretty much any person who frequents HN has had to work from home during the pandemic, but something that I didn't realize until the end of 2020 was that I didn't really have any cold for most of that year. I was somewhat convinced that I was one of those "perpetually sneezing/with-a-cold" people, since for most of my life I've always had a bit of a runny nose or a cough. 2020 was different: I didn't really get sick at all last year, I think more likely because I wasn't going into an office filled with other perpetually-sick people. Honestly, I don't know that I would accept a job at this point with an open office. I'm happy to work from home, and I can deal with a private office, but I really enjoy not sneezing or coughing all the time.