3 Reasons The Open Office Must Die

Of all the nutty ideas to come down the pike in modern office life, the open office should have been killed before it began to spread like a virus.

“Gee, all we have to do is throw a bunch of desks, computers and phones in a big room and call it a day,” said a misguided human resources officer who must have been low on blood sugar that day.

Unfortunately, the bad idea proved popular with cheap bosses and stingy managers.

Here are three of the worst parts of this insane idea.

Too Much Information

You know what walls and doors are good for? Preventing you from having to listen to your coworkers conversations with their family, side piece, doctor, therapist and bookie.

I worked with one guy who spent more time on the phone making sports bets than he did actually selling stuff.

And I can’t count the number of times I had to listen to someone accuse their significant other of cheating on them. “I told you that the next time I catch you cheating I was going to put all your stuff in the front yard and light it on fire,” your coworker Sandy Hadenoughofthis says as she yells into the phone.

You stare at your computer screen, wondering if you have enough time during your lunch hour to interview for a new job.

Germ Sanctuary

Feeling upbeat, confident and healthy? That’s about to change with the new open office plan at your company. Germs love open office plans. If you were a germ, why would you spend the time going from office to office when you could infect twice the number of people in half the time in an open area?

Regina Imtoovaluabletobesick believes she is holding the company together, that if she takes one day off the whole place will fall apart, even if she is sick. So she comes to work, sniffling, sneezing and hacking her way through the day, sending wave after wave of germs into your workspace, like arrows in the movie “300” raining from the sky.

You try to prepare by downing vitamins, getting 10 hours of sleep, and drinking orange juice by the gallon. But it is no use. By Friday, you are sneezing every 10 minutes. Regina, the germ carrier then asks, “Do you feel alright? Don’t you think you should go home rather than get others sick?”

Noise Pollution

It’s not just the unwanted intimate details of others lives you have to listen to, it’s the sheer volume of noise in an open office that will send you screaming into the streets.

Ever been to a dance club where the music is so loud, you can’t hear the girl next to you telling you she doesn’t want to dance with you? An open office makes that club seem like a library on Sunday afternoon.

By 10pm each night after you get home, your headaches will begin to subside. You will even hear the laughter of your children again, impossible right after work because your hearing has been temporarily damaged by the chaos of the open office wall of sound.