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Comment by NikhilVerma | Hacker News Reader

Like anything taken to the extreme open offices are bad for you. I personally have worked in an open office and a semi-open office (where your team is in a part enclosure/room with a door). And I much prefer to have a semi-open office rather than a private office.

A private office for me would totally kill any social interaction I have with anyone. A semi-open office keeps it private on the team level.

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> A private office for me would totally kill any social interaction I have with anyone.

Perhaps a better working environment would allow your day to be spent more efficiently and leave you with spare time and energy to get an actual social life, instead of requiring your job to double as your social life and end up performing both functions badly?

You are likely to spend more than half of your time awake in your workplace. You might as well try to make it a pleasant place to be. And being sociable at work is hardly likely to exhaust you to the point of preventing an social life outside work.

Do workers prefer spending more than half of their awake time in their workplace in order to make more money, or do they simply not have enough bargaining power to negotiate for a shorter work day?

Its been discussed on this site that competition for remote work is fierce. That would suggest a lack of bargaining power.

What's your job? Do you have a greater need to concentrate or to socialize? Not criticising, just asking. I need to be able to go talk to people only sometimes but I need to go to a quiet place and think without interruption more often.

The best office I ever worked in was a series of long corridors with many closed offices and two developers to each. It had large meeting rooms at regular intervals, a lunchroom with table football and that was about it.

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