I've worked in short cubes, tall group-cubes (3-4 people were cube room) and offices (both shared and solitary). In my current cube layout, we have a general pr

I've worked in short cubes, tall group-cubes (3-4 people were cube room) and offices (both shared and solitary). In my current cube layout, we have a general practice where if a conversation is going to be large and boisterous enough, generally it's held in a private room off to the side. We have several of those. I'm comfortable in all of them. I do find myself needing headphones more often in the short cube environment; but, that's not really a big issue to me. I don't think I would like the open layout. Something about people walking by always being able to see what's on my monitor bothers me; and I'm currently in a situation where my boss could see my monitor if he chose to look up. Still not as bothering as a completely open layout. So, I don't see anything wrong with cubes. edit: I should have also mentioned that I wore headphones when I had my own office, too, because walls aren't soundproof, generally.