I'm certainly an open-office hater, it drives me absolutely batty. Open office with frequent phone calls throughout the day by your neighbors? I'd quit. I do

I'm certainly an open-office hater, it drives me absolutely batty. Open office with frequent phone calls throughout the day by your neighbors? I'd quit. I do like small open offices when working closely with people on a team. But everyone in that office has to be working on the same project. This is the scenario where it can be great. Even in this case, though, there are some periods where you need to step away to a silo to do your own thing for awhile in my experience. I have heard of some mythical working environments with both public and private working areas that allow people to move as they will. I guess this would be the optimal solution.