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Comment by rodiger | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure it varies based on place of employment and personal preference. I understand many people have some level of social anxiety that may be exacerbated by the open floor plan. I just personally enjoy it and hope to not see its demise. Glad we get to pick our employer!

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Unfortunately, that doesn't help, since 100% of software employers with offices use open floor plan offices, or some variant of the same.

I always ask people in the industry what company has private offices for programmers. The only answers I've ever heard are "Fog Creek" and "maybe Microsoft?", but my friends at Microsoft say that's not so common any more.

Citation badly needed. We use cubicles rather than open floor plans in most of our office locations. Every commercial real estate discussion I've had has treated open floor plan, cubes, and offices as three distinct points on a spectrum.

It's ironic to try and fit as many software developers in a floorspace as you can, when their productivity more than linearly drops like that. You could do with a few, actually focusing people.

Apple still has 2 person or completely private offices.

Not in the spaceship.

It's not so much a social anxiety, as an awareness of others. You can't just be yourself without being rude. Even just basic body functions, like farting, is something you need to consider and manage before doing it. I'm not saying I want to constantly fart, but there's no privacy.

> social anxiety

Yikes, that's kind of an insulting assumption. I just get bothered by sounds, and don't want to bother others with sound (and smells).

I didn't suggest it was the only reason people may prefer offices- just one potential reason. I'm making no claim about OP or any other specific person on this thread.

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