If you work in an office, do you prefer an open office or would you rather have a cubicle?

Cubicles. Studies show that open offices create more stress and other problems. Now, largely working at home in my own private office, which is best of all.

Cubicles for goodness sakes! I rue the day our company decided to do the open plan thing. It was intolerable. Then came the job cuts, the bigger workloads, the reduction of the IT department, more job cuts, even bigger workloads, pay freezes, the paralysed unions... ugh. Seems like a lifetime ago, thankfully!

At the very least, a cubicle. With high walls. It is impossible to hold a conversation in an open office.

I've never had anything but a private office, and having seen too many cubicle and open offices, I can't imagine how anyone could work effectively in either (except old-fashioned newspaper offices that are full of reporters' desks, and those are few and far between, these days).

My own office.

We have low cubicle walls. I'm a graphic designer but I'm in the same area as the customer service department. It's really hard to be creative when I'm in a room full of ten other people answering phones all day. I really miss the office I had at my previous job.

I assume "open office" here means a Japanese-style open office where the desks of people in the same division are pushed together to create a kind of long island of 8-10 desks. I've worked in such an office. I've also worked in an office that had cubicles. Many people bemoan cubicles, but a Japanese-style open office is worse and I can't understand how anybody would prefer being in an environment where everybody can see each other all the time. I've also had my own private office, a room almost as big as a 1K apartment. Obviously that's the best work situation.

Suprising responses. The trend is in favour of open seating.

It may have a lot to do with organization culture. Those old style silo orgs may prefer cubicles; modern team oriented work places would presumably prefer the open plan where folks can easily communicate with each other.

Have only ever worked in an open plan office. Never had a cubicle, but they look nice and private, although I suspect that make it harder to exchange ideas.

Don't see the point of hiding away from other people.

Open plan is best.

If open plan is so great, why did my bosses have their own little rooms and cubicles?

Having to overhear irrelevant conversations was never conducive to my work. Open plan just saves a bucket of cash, the overlords presume.