We have 3 desks in a large open plan office with a kitchen area. It's about 10 feet from my desk. Most of the time it's just me from our company as the other devs work from home or work out the main office.
My experience of working in this shared space:
* It's noisy. I mean really noisy, noise cancelling headphones are a must. Like I said the kitchen area is near my desk, and people would routinely bang the cupboard doors. I sort of fixed this by putting felt and rubber on the doors to stop the loud banging, but I shouldn't have had to do this.
* People are noisy, people whistle, walk around talking loudly on their phones. Some people I'm sure talk loudly on purpose just to try and look like they are important in front of strangers. One guy makes random trumpet noises with his mouth...
* No one talks to anyone from other companies, to the point of awkwardness. I often see two people in the kitchen area from different companies and it can be a bit like a comedy sketch as they try to get their kitchening done without acknowledging the other person exists. Absurd, why don't people talk to each other. Especially people you see every day!
* When you are remotely working and the only person from your company you have no one to talk to and this is quite isolating and depressing. Especially worse if you end up in a room with 10 others and they are all from the same company. Then they start looking at you like you are in their space.
* The kitchen area, despite being an office staffed with supposed professionals, is always a mess. How does this happen?
Our office space is also open to a throughfare to conference rooms and such, so you randomly get random people walking through the office, again noisily.
But working here I at least don't have all the distractions of working from home.