I work as a software engineer for the last 22 years. ~4 of them as engineer manager, the rest as an individual contributor. I hate offices. I worked in Micro

I work as a software engineer for the last 22 years. ~4 of them as engineer manager, the rest as an individual contributor. I hate offices. I worked in Microsoft in an office and it was hell. I was alone. It was not a team. It was me. It was sometimes better to email somebody then walk around to talk to them. I love open office plans. Yes, it's disruptive. But if I want to tell somebody something, I lift my head and talk. Everybody can hear what is going on and they can tune in if they are interested. For people that have distraction problems, usually headphones work quite well. Of course, I assume that people talk quietly and not scream their head off. BTW, I am usually the one that give advice and information instead the other way around.