Why are open plan offices so distracting?

HEY YOU! YEAH YOU! WITH THE NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES!

Do you know what factory workplace noise limits started at?

No joke: It was a factory that made factory whistles. 

Okay. The factory whistle factory is apocryphal. 

Since the whistle had to be the loudest thing in the factory, it was a textbook example of how the hazard could be a necessary part of the environment, or the product itself. 

Open-floor-plan offices may not compare to the shipyards, manufacturing plants, and airports that first brought over-ear headphones to the workplace. But noise pollution is still a serious issue in knowledge work. 

If it weren’t for my noise-cancelling headphones, I don’t think I’d ever be able to work outside of my house.

Most of the time, my headphones aren’t even on. They’re there to keep noises out of my ears, not pump sound in. 

I can’t focus when anyone else is speaking, even if it’s just song lyrics in another language. 

If I can hear the person 3 desks over talking on the phone, I’m wrecked until they hang up.

I want to be able to stare off into space to think without having to see a coworker walking by with all the subtlety of a clown juggling on a unicycle.

Yes. I know I can go work in a phone booth or a quiet room. But why should I drag my laptop over to a hermetically sealed pod with no electrical outlet?

I want to go back to a more civilized time...

...when people got to keep their own desks...

...and had a dedicated set of drawers to keep their protein powder and an extra pair of shoes in...

...and hedge-like partitions that gave them privacy while still leaving their workstation open to the fresh air...

...when staring off into space meant gazing at nothing but the fuzzy, noise-dampening blankness of a movable partition...

...or pictures of their family surrounded by 3-year-old reminders pinned up on post-its.

It’s about time we brought humanity back to the workplace. Bring back the cube farm!

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