I think that there should be two open office options to this poll. One of the big problems in discussing this issue is that 'open-office' can mean 200 people i

I think that there should be two open office options to this poll. One of the big problems in discussing this issue is that 'open-office' can mean 200 people in one big room, or a team of 16 people sharing an open office. These are obviously completely different working conditions, but both of them are called 'open-office'. Without two separate definitions, people bring their own experiences to how they view this phrase. I say this, because I have worked in a 16 person team open office, and while there was some adjustment to it, it was a pretty ok working environment. Right across the hall, the rest of the company worked in one big room. We were lucky that we were 'noisy enough' that we got our own team open-office, but the poor guys on all the other teams got to work in the so-called 'collaborative environment' where talking in groups was basically banned. It got nicknames like 'The Tomb' and (sarcastic) 'Happy-land'.