In an open-plan office, you have to listen to all your coworkers, including those on completely different teams, have extremely loud and simultaneous conversations that you can hear from far across the room.
In a coffee shop, people generally don't talk, or keep their voices low when they do, so you generally only hear people talking to the staff to make orders and such.
Roles aren't always that well-defined. Many of us aren't recruiters or in sales but can still spend hours a day on planning, etc. calls with distributed teams. It's not practical to seek out a phone booth or alcove for every one of those calls.
There was a group of people in a meeting room working on separate parts of some larger project. I had to call one of them. You think that guy would get off his ass to walk away and talk to me in private? I spend the time helping you out and you don't even offer me that?
No, I had to hear 3 other people having a conversation louder than his call with me.
Last time I was at the coffee shop someone was watching Netflix at full volume. So yeah that was pretty bad. And I don’t have any power to stop them (at a workplace I could complain perhaps)
> For some, probably. I'm happy to work in a cafeteria, coffee shop, etc.
Depends on the work you do and your age, I suppose. Also whether you touch type on a standard keyboard or not.
My work is made easier with large dual monitors and a nice standard keyboard. Squinting into a single small screen while mispressing all the laptop keys (because those characters commonly used for programming don't have a consistent spot in any laptop keyboard) is not my idea of fun.
