How I cope: I work for a company large enough to have little areas I can retreat to and get work done in isolation: A stall in the library, a corner of the caf

How I cope: I work for a company large enough to have little areas I can retreat to and get work done in isolation: A stall in the library, a corner of the cafeteria. I can get a solid hour or so of work done on a laptop (coding, writing, whatever) before I need to connect with my cow-orkers. I also try to stay off the network during this time; I turn off wireless and shut down the browser and email client. This does wonders for concentration. [I should add: Most of the rest of our company does have offices. Our particular division does not, and most people hate it. I'm ambivalent; the open space plan works pretty well on teams, but if you get /two/ teams in the same open area, it's a misery of cross-talk and extraneous noise. Perhaps extreme mobility would help, a-la Valve, where people can dynamically choose their neighbors]