how do people handle highly visible workspaces?

by Alison Green on October 24, 2024

A reader writes:

This is a low-stakes question, but I’m curious if anyone else is bothered by open-office floor plans (or otherwise very visible work spaces) and if so, any tips on how to deal with feeling strangely “on display” at all times?

I work a non-customer-facing office job. I haven’t worked a true customer service job since I worked restaurant jobs in college, and I remember feeling terribly drained at the end of a shift with sore facial muscles from smiling all day at strangers. (I say that just to say I don’t know how people do it; customer service workers have my utmost respect!)

More recently, at my last job my desk happened to be in the middle of a large room and visible via an interior window to a busy hallway, and also visible to another hallway behind me. We had no break room so I’d eat at my desk and had many moments where I’d be stuffing my face while accidently making eye contact with those walking by. It wasn’t just the eating that was awkward — I’d really prefer to blow my nose (allergies, yay), or make a weird face at my computer on occasion, or stand up for a quick stretch without an audience of people walking by and sometimes stopping to stare or ask me what I’m doing. I had a micromanaging boss then who pressured me to not eat at my desk and to look professional at all times (aka, always smiling) since I was so visible — seems easy for her to say when she had an office with a door, and my job was not a front desk manager or receptionist so I wasn’t expecting to be “on” in that way, it was just the way the room was set up. I asked to move desks because I found the pressure to smile 24/7 to be too distracting but was brushed off. It was a strange environment, mostly because of my boss’s smiling thing and also partly because I personally didn’t love working inside a fishbowl.

Now the concept of highly visible workspaces has become a fascination of mine. I’m at a new job and have a cubicle so it’s less of an issue (though I still feel a little awkward if I need a stretch break). My new colleagues with offices have fully glass doors/walls. (It is not at all soundproof but that’s a different issue.) Is it only me that would feel uncomfortable and distracted in a highly visible office? How do people deal? Maybe it does work well for some people?

It is definitely not only you! Loads of people dislike highly visible workspaces.

Generally, people do adjust at least to some degree, and there are a lot of of workplaces where visibility and lack of privacy is built into the model (think, for example, of newsrooms, call centers, factories, etc.). Usually people function by mentally assuming a sort of cloak of invisibility around some activities, or just get used to it and don’t think about it much after a while. But some people don’t adjust and are never quite comfortable with it.

Sometimes there are physical changes you can make to your work area that will ameliorate it a bit, like tweaking the direction your computer faces, strategically blocking passer-bys’ view with some files, or agreeing with your coworkers on a “do not disturb” signal.

But your set-up was made worse for two reasons: the lack of any break room, so you had to do everything at your desk, and the smile-obsessed boss. Either of those would make the situation worse, but the boss in particular was ridiculous. Expecting someone to smile through the entire workday (and not just when, for example, a client approaches them) is bizarre and out of touch with the reality of human faces and displayed some really weird priorities.

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{ 116 comments }

{ 116 comments… read them below or add one }

  1. FunkyMunky*

    i used to work in a visible spot like this until 2020 and now we are remote and I DO NOT miss being in a fishbowl. massive amount of noise, distributions, gossip etc

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    2. Miss Chanandler Bong*

      I work from home and I absolutely do not miss being visible, especially since I’m neurodivergent. I need to get up and walk around more than most people, and I keep fidgets at my desk. I don’t need people watching me and thinking “Oh, she’s up AGAIN?” And meeting are so much better, especially since we keep the cameras off. I can sit there with a fidget and pay much more attention than I ever did in person.

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    3. Random Tech Worker*

      This is exactly how I feel!

      After 15 years stuck in open plan offices I’m happily working at home where I don’t have to constantly wear headphones to drown out the loud coworkers.

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      1. Nicosloanicota*

        Yep. I had a cube right by a main aisle and from the angle virtually everyone was cued to glance over if I so much as moved or shifted. So many cow-eyes just staring at me. People also couldn’t help lingering to bug me – ‘howzitgoing,’ etc – if there was any backup at the nearby breakroom/bathroom hallway divide (I was also maximally far away from any form of natural light; it must have been one of the single worst cubes in the entire office of crappy cubes). I … ended up quitting for a very lateral job that had some degree of WFH. I remember almost bursting into tears one time trying to concentrate on a complicated spreadsheet while everyone chattered and gabbed on the phone all around me.

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  2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

    Oh wow. I know that I have a furrowed brow most of the day, but when I worked in open spaces like that I just didn’t care what other people thought. I’m guessing those interactions are heavily gendered – women are often face-policed and men generally aren’t.

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    2. The Bigger the Hair…*

      Face-policed is my new favorite term! This is so gendered. Has anyone in business ever told a male to “smile more”. Who cares what one’s facial expressions are while working. This stuff makes me crazy. It’s especially egregious that one female face-policed another female.

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      1. CV*

        Not smiling specifically, but somewhat related: one job told my programmer husband that he wasn’t being social enough with the rest of the team.

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      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Yes but infrequently enough that it’s worthy of note when it happens. And the times I know of, it was a man in a majority-wimen role.

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    3. Le Sigh*

      I don’t care that I have RBF when I’m working on my computer, but lord help me other people sure did. And they would interrupt me *all the time* to ask what was wrong. “Nothing’s wrong it’s just my face.” Now I wfh and my main interruptions are a cute cat demanding cuddles. I will take the trade off.

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    4. Unkempt Flatware*

      I contort my face into the ugliest snarl I can muster when told by a man to smile. Then I drop my face back to neutral and it scares them away forever.

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    5. Ms. Eleanous*

      Not sure if this is still true, but Disney used to require employees to smile at all times. Even people customers would never see, like accountants.
      Apparently it was a fireable offence.
      I doubt I would last long there.

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      1. XF1013*

        I can confirm that it was not true in the late 2010s, even at the theme parks. I was lucky to be gifted a backstage tour of Epcot for a birthday, and it took place in the morning before the park opened. The tour guide warned us that other than him, any “cast member” that we encountered was not yet “on stage” until the park opened and thus had no obligation to smile at us or interact with us, and we were to leave them alone. We saw them milling about quietly in their uniforms, just like regular workers with neutral expressions. Then the clock struck 9am and it was like a switch flipped; everyone was suddenly big smiles and high energy as guests started pouring in. That was one of the most mundane behind-the-scenes details that we learned that day, but it was still an interesting glimpse into the company culture.

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  3. Justme, The OG*

    Yes! My first actual office working in higher education had three glass walls. So while I technically had privacy in the way of being able to shut my door and shut out noise, I was basically in a fish bowl. I hated it. I basically kept nothing personal in view of anyone else.

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    1. MCL*

      Ugh we are preparing to move to a brand new building next summer (also higher ed) and the rumor is that it’s all glass offices and meeting rooms. I hope we can at least get frosted glass. Enough to know that a room is occupied but not a fishbowl. There’s a lot of noises that leadership are making about the benefits of sunlight but I just want some dang privacy. I can get plenty of natural light behind a nice frosted pane of glass.

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      1. Ghee Buttersnaps*

        When I worked in an office that had a floor to ceiling pane of glass beside every door many people put up a curtain. It was normalized when some employees started using their office to pump and then it just caught on.

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        1. Justme, The OG*

          I’m in an office now with a full height window next to the door, and shades are standard. Others have also added frosted plastic to make them more opaque. I don’t mind the shades.

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      2. Le Sigh*

        When my office was remodeled, they did the glass panes in the door thing and glass walls for the board room. It wasn’t a huge issue for the most part, but it was amusing that only *after* we moved back in did they realize that the HR folks had almost no privacy, which is kind of a problem when you’re dealing with sensitive issues. Sure enough, they had people back to frost their doors.

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      3. Love to WFH*

        A friend’s company moved to new space, and all the office and conference room walls were glass, and the employee’s desks were all open plan.

        EVERYONE HATED IT.

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  4. Snarkus Aurelius*

    When men and my mother tell me to smile, I always ask, “Why? Is something amusing?” I really want to know!

    Smiling without a reason will make other people uncomfortable. It’s weird or at least it makes me feel weird. When someone asks you why you’re smiling, you’ll come off as even more weird because you have to say you don’t have a reason.

    Smiling under those circumstances is so unnatural. There’s a reason Smile and Smile 2 are horror movies.

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    1. Juicebox Hero*

      I lean into the horror movie aspect. I slowly pull my lips into the creepiest rictus I can while gazing expressionlessly at them over my glasses.

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      1. Ally McBeal*

        I have never done this, but I have always wanted to look at the person and use my two middle fingers to push up the corners of my mouth into a smile. Obviously not work-appropriate (at most jobs anyway) but it sounds so fun.

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    2. Empress Ki*

      I am the one who is smiling a lot of the time. I don’t think this is weird and I don’t need a particular reason to smile.
      Requesting you to smile is wrong, but expecting people to have a reason to smile is also wrong.

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    3. Distracted Librarian*

      Smiling without a reason is creepy to me. I’d be weirded out by a co-worker or customer service person who was permanently smiling.

      Reply ↓
    4. Chapeau*

      I lean hard into the “Smile, people will wonder what you’re up to” side of things. Not an evil smile, kind of a Mona Lisa smile.

      Reply ↓
  5. 888 Pocomo*

    I have two massive monitors on my desk, and I’m short, so no one can make eye contact with me anymore. I freaking love it.

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  6. Chantal*

    I had a desk where to the right there were windows to a hallway used by the whole building. We put up a frosted film and I felt SO much better.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      I was just coming here to say that anyone near an interior wonder should ask for frosted film to be put up. It really makes you feel less like a zoo animal.

      Reply ↓
  7. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

    The details of your letter made it seem like your question might be rhetorical, but as someone who works the front desk in a Library, I do have tips for handling the high visibility.
    1. lean in to the idea that you are on stage and this is a performance. this is the most helpful for me, although I AM a former theater kid so your mileage may vary.
    2. Keep track of how your location makes you indispensable and how that, in turn, improves your social standing and self esteem. I’m the person everyone comes to for hard questions and that makes me proud.
    3. Veg out after hours. Let your face rest. Have friends you share the “real” you with.

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    1. Formerly Retailed*

      I made it through five years of retail by pretending I was an actress going undercover to do research for a big role.

      Reply ↓
      1. Raisin Walking to the Moon*

        YES. I feel like non-artists sometimes really don’t get it, but living in any community involves not being your 100% authentic self for tons of reasons that ultimately benefit everyone.

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      2. Glad I'm Not in the Rat-Race Any More.*

        Seven years, two of them as an associate manager, with undiagnosed ASD. I’d unlock the public doors and think, “Showtime!” a la Roy Scheider’s character in “All That Jazz.” I also had scripts for the start of almost every customer interaction. (Probably drove my coworkers a bit crazier listening to me say the same thing to customer after customer.)

        After every shift, I went home and shut myself in a dark room for an hour. The children were warned that there’d be more hell to pay than usual if they got up to shenanigans during my “time out” from the world.

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    2. ThatLibraryLady*

      I’ve worked in some form of either retail or libraries my whole life. I think I incidentally developed a resting pleasant face, judging by the fact that I get approached for help in other random places in public.

      I know other people have done things like get those privacy filters for their computer screens. For me, I just stopped caring. I’ll make weird faces at my computer sometimes, but people tend to mostly not care about what you do.

      I’ve also become really good at tuning things out, which is mostly bad when I’m supposed to be making sure kids aren’t skipping classes, but keeps me sane.

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      1. Paint N Drip*

        I have a RBF but I also have some kind of born-with-it wholesome ‘please do talk to me in public, stranger’ face (which doesn’t actually align with my personality, but sure yeah let me give you directions)

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      2. Annie*

        Yes, I can see having frosted windows, but I also agree to your point that most people don’t really care that much what you’re doing at your desk, if you’re making strange faces at the computer or eating a snack.
        Those people who do care and make you uncomfortable are the problem, and need to learn some manners and to mind their own business.

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    3. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Interesting idea but working at the library front desk is completely different than what the OP described. Their desk just happened to be very visible but they weren’t someone that would need to be on in that way.

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    4. March*

      Also, remember because it’s just the facts: people can THINK whatever they want about your faces and demeanor and lunch menu, but as soon as they SAY anything, THEY are the ones making it weird. It’s simply not manners, or indeed professional, to make remarks about others’ life-living ways.
      It’s not an egregious faux pas on their part, but it’s really embarrassing for them, and its best to just pretend they said “hello” instead of whatever gauche thing they did say, nod to them, and go about your day.

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  8. Lily Rowan*

    Ugh, the first time I had an office, my back was to the glass door which had a straight view through another glass door into the conference room, and it was a hot mess. But also, I was young and didn’t think, so my boss had to specifically tell me not to play solitaire on my computer during a board meeting. (I was on lunch!)

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    1. Lily Rowan*

      Oh, as for what to do, I figured out a way to shift my monitor so that everyone wasn’t looking at it all the time, so I would think about stuff like that.

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  9. HonorBox*

    I have exterior windows on one side of my office and have had people knock, wave, stare in, and even stop to pick their teeth using my window as a mirror. I have blinds, but like to have the daylight shine in versus sitting in an office only lit by overhead fluorescents. There have been more than a few occasions when someone has watched me eat. Well, not watched per se, but definitely they’ve seen me stuff a sandwich into my maw very quickly. I hate that I’m on display to an extent, but I choose to keep my blinds open because I like that alternative over the other. While I know it is different than working in an interior bullpen setting, I think my advice would be the same… do what you do, recognizing that you may be observed. And just don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want someone else to see if they were sitting next to you. If you don’t have an alternate place to eat, just eat at your desk. Probably don’t slurp soup or challenge yourself to see how many hard boiled eggs you can fit into your mouth. But if there’s nowhere else to go, I find it really difficult to suggest that someone not eat at their desk. And then forget the smiling part. Act normally, just as you would if you had an office. That means feel free to make whatever face you need to make while reading an email. If you need to stretch, do so. I don’t know the boss in this situation, but I’d just take whatever suggestion HE (I’m assuming) made about smiling and round file it. If someone challenged me on that, I’d gladly point out that I’m a human being and there is no possible way – even for those in customer-facing roles – to smile consistently every second of the work day.

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    1. Librarian*

      Put up a sign with your job title, the Latin translation, what your natural range is, your feeding habits, and other information zoo-goers…um…office-goers might want to know. Be sure to put up a sign asking people not to knock on the glass.

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      1. Hazel*

        I once worked on a ground floor with floor to ceiling windows with reflective coating so people couldn’t see in. It didn’t work in all light conditions so occasionally people would lean on them or walk by admiring their reflection and then jump because they saw us inside (what did they think the large office building was, a fish tank?!). But the worst was one evening working late, a guy sidled up to the concrete pillar right outside by cube, looked around, didn’t realize I was inches away inside, and took a pee.

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  10. leeapeea*

    My current office was formerly a reception area and has large glass sliding windows. While I do some support work, I am not reception or an admin assistant, but everyone kept treating me like I was. Not only that, but the kitchen and a bathroom are right outside my office and I felt like I was learning way too much about my coworkers! My solutions that helped: I moved my desk away from the windows and facing a different direction. I then put up frosted privacy film on all the windows so the light can still get in, but people can’t see me or my computer screen. Finally, I put house plants along the windowsill with the sliding glass window so it’s very awkward to open it. I do have some HR related responsibilities, so I was prepared to combat any complaints from management with “data privacy” but luckily there was no pushback. I realize these are not solutions that work in every office, but really the privacy film was a game changer and people who have been working in this office building for 14 years barely noticed.

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  11. Bananapants*

    Oh man I was just talking to a friend about this! Best solution I’ve come up with so far is to wear headphones most of the day and just get outside as often as possible at lunch + for coffee runs. I genuinely miss having an assigned desk in a cubicle, and I think a lot of companies kind of jumped on the open-plan trend without thinking about whether it suited the type of work they did (plus I figure there was a cost-cutting element). My current office (language services field) has pretty much everyone at one long table, and we do hot desking. It’s sometimes handy for collaboration but my most frequent project collaborators often aren’t in office with me. Also I usually wind up having to sit with all my project managers + department head + company CEO next to me, which makes me nervous as hell.

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  12. Yup*

    I haaaaaaaated it. Hated. X 10000000. My coworker was on speakerphone all day long and my job was coming up with concepts and copy and it was impossible. I hated not being able to have a private or even semi-private conversation, or people looking at my monitor (nothing to hide, but hated being watched as I worked!), and feeling like I was on display.

    My work absolutely suffered from it, and I’m guessing the ad industry at large doesn’t realize that their very hip open spaces are costing them time, money, and ideas.

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  14. Decidedly Me*

    I don’t think I could personally handle an open environment – all my coping mechanisms for random things would come across weirdly. The few times I’ve had to work from the office vs from home, I’ve had to change my processes. It’s fine for a bit, but I don’t think would be good long term.

    My partner turned down an offer out of college that had an open office and took one with a private one. He now works in an open office and loves it. People all have their very unique, sometimes odd, set ups and no one bats an eye. I think culture goes a long way in determining how comfortable a set up is for people that don’t naturally gravitate to that sort of thing. People seem to respect each other’s spaces as their own – not hovering or staring unless actively collaborating.

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    1. Paint N Drip*

      I just turned down a job this week that was a glass-walled office, right behind reception, with several cubicles inside all facing the hallway and lunchroom. I know I could do the job, and I’d be into the profit sharing! But same, my copes would make my office mates hate me and I’d also look insane probably

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  15. Generic Name*

    My office building is an open office plan with low-walled cubicles. While I thankfully have a private office, the entire front is glass, so there is still a lack of privacy. I agree with Alison in that there is a bit of a culture of “don’t stare into people’s workspaces as you walk by”. Fortunately my office has plenty of meeting rooms, focus rooms, and phone rooms. They all are also glass-walled, but there is at least 1 or 2 phone rooms tucked away in corners that feel more private, so if I’m feeling “people’d out” I’ll go take a break in one of the phone rooms. We also have wellness rooms that one could theoretically retreat in to take a break from being on display.

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    1. Insert Clever Name Here*

      My office is similar, but I’m in a cubicle. There is definitely a culture of not staring at people’s workspaces. I do occasionally meet the eye of someone walking by when I’m looking around to rest my eyes or think, but it’s not our culture to acknowledge each other.

      It’s fine. It’s not my favorite office set up, but I’ve gotten used to it over the past 8ish years and come up with coping strategies when I get overwhelmed. It’s easier to deal with now that I’m working from home a few days a week, too.

      Reply ↓
    1. Paint N Drip*

      When I took over my current job, there was an UGLY artificial plant on the desk – as a plant nerd and lover of aesthetics, I was not impressed. After moving stuff around, eventually getting new monitors, etc. I decided to toss the plant – immediately learned how wrong and dumb I am the next day as EVERYONE walking by made eye contact with me (facepalm)

      I no longer judge ANY plants or decor anyone has in the office or on the desk, you just never know what it’s actually accomplishing

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  17. I'm great at doing stuff*

    I worked in an open office, and it was the worst. Fortunately I was mostly remote or in the field and I didn’t have to be there often, but when I did it was annoying. The worst was a coworker would track me every time I got up, work related or not. I felt like she was checking if I was doing work or not…it was super irritating.

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  18. Honoria Lucasta*

    I worked as a receptionist for two years and had a highly visible workspace. Even though the public nature of the job made having my workspace visible an expected element of the job, it still came with some of the challenges you describe.
    I approached the issue in a few ways:
    *Some things I just gave myself permission to do, as long as I could make them relatively small or discreet, knowing that they had to be done. If I had to blow my nose, I had to blow my nose. As long as it was a small discreet blow, I would just do it (it would have been weird to ask someone to cover the desk for that!). We had a bottle of hand sanitizer on the desk, so I would just use that afterwards. When our weekly volunteer brought cookies and offered me one (every week!) I would accept it graciously and eat it at my desk using a kleenex as a “napkin”.
    *Some things I made adjustments for. I had a colleague who worked nearby who used to do my job, so I could ask her to cover phones and the door for a second while I dipped down to the restroom if I needed to to loudly blow my nose. Part of her job description was to be my backup–e.g. she was expected to cover when I was at lunch–so this wasn’t an imposition. I made sure my desk was completely reset to a perfectly clean state at the end of every day, rather than leaving projects out. I kept almost all my personal items in one of the desk drawers, rather than out on the desk (just one family photo next to my monitors).
    *Some things, I just accepted I wouldn’t be able to do. I couldn’t have personal phone conversations at my desk, for example, even if I was on my lunch break (and I wouldn’t have taken my break at my desk anyway, because if you’re a receptionist at the desk you’re assumed to be ‘on’). We did have a break room, so I was able to eat there and take my breaks elsewhere in the building.

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  19. Rock*

    I’ve arranged my monitors so that one can only be seen if you walk past in a certain direction (totally not watching YouTube videos about dinosaurs on it, nope). I’ve also just made my cubicle as cozy as possible with decorations so it’s very clear this is my space in the middle of the office.

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  22. Dances with Code*

    About a year ago, my employer consolidated two buildings worth of office space into one, converting to “hoteling” workstations, AKA no one has a place that is theirs in the office. We don’t have lockers or any other way to keep anything at work. All the workstations are very visible, with no privacy available except by going to the restroom.

    Additionally, the HVAC system is loud, and gives me low grade tension headaches. I’ve measured it at a continuous 90 Dbs, which is above OSHA recommendations for day-long exposure. Cue the recommendations for noise cancelling headphones. Um, no that won’t prevent hearing loss effects.

    The one nice thing about the office option is they put in very nice sit-stand desks, but it doesn’t overcome the other shortcomings, especially the background noise.

    My team almost entirely work from home rather than subject ourselves to these working conditions. and our leadership continually tries to get us into the office with pizza parties or other free lunch. Furthermore, I have a restricted diet (gf, low carb) but I get little traction on this issue even if I make a point of bringing it up. Again.

    None of my leadership have ever asked me why they don’t see me in the office more often. They just tell me they’d like to see me, applying mild pressure. And all this seems depressingly “normal” for workplaces in my experience.

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    1. lizzay*

      If it weren’t for the 90 db HVAC system, I would ask if we worked in the same place (in my last job, not the current one, phew)!

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  24. Elevator Elevator*

    For about a year, a former manager of mine had a direct view of my desk and screen from her desk and would constantly comment on things I was doing, most frequently what I was eating. Once, a day or two after Halloween, she loudly commented how shocked she was to see me eating my fifth piece of candy of the day. I wasn’t counting, but she clearly was!

    I luckily don’t have any issues around weight or food, so I knew this was deeply messed up behavior from her but it didn’t actually bother me more than anything else about our terrible relationship did. However, I’m a fundamentally spiteful person so eventually I just started getting a massive cheesesteak to eat at my desk whenever I was annoyed with her.

    I also had a One Direction calendar up at my desk – February was a photo of just Harry Styles, and she kept loudly complaining that she couldn’t stand him looking at her all the time. I changed my computer background to be a rotating selection of the most off-putting Harry Styles closeups I could find, so he’d be staring at her long after his month on the calendar was up. This ultimately backfired when IT needed to remotely access my computer to fix something and I had to spend an agonizing half hour watching the desktop cycle through pictures, mortified that the tech could see everything.

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  25. Pretty Pumpkin*

    I used to work in a visible spot where everyone had to walk by my desk to get anywhere and my screen was visible. One thing I found draining was feeling obligated to say good morning to every person that walked but mostly my nosy coworker looking over my shoulder at my screen to ask what I’m doing (especially when I was just reading AAM).

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  26. HugeTractsofLand*

    I work at a pretty visible spot and have found a couple things helpful. Firstly, like Allison mentioned, I’ve positioned my two monitors so they largely block out my face to anyone walking by, like a wide, open book. When someone asks for my attention, the small act of me tilting my head around the computer to look at them creates the illusion of “space.”

    Secondly, I created an “In a Zoom meeting” sign that I stand up on my desk next to my monitor when I’m taking a video call. That’s been a great cue for people approaching me/walking by to keep their voices down, know that I’m not talking to them, know to come back later, etc.. Just be conscientious about putting away the sign when you’re NOT in a meeting or people will start to assume it doesn’t apply.

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  27. lizzay*

    Ugh, you are NOT alone! My current job has very open cubicles (the desks are mainly those with a 120 angle, and the only walls are one the backs, but at least the walls are a good 2 feet above the desk space. My last job moved into the open office / hoteling space, which I HATED. I finally found a cube that nobody else apparently wanted and that was facing most of the team. We were also provided with privacy screens for the monitors (thank goodness for privacy concerns these days!), so you really had to be directly behind someone to see what they were looking at. I still hated it so much.

    I talk to myself a lot, too, even if I’m just moving my lips with no sound & have natural RBF. Not caring about how you look by those around you can be quite empowering! If nothing else, it makes them too scared to tell you to smile! Though, sorry LW, it doesn’t sound like your boss falls into that category. Maybe work on your RBF??

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  28. Designerly*

    OP, were you my colleague a few years ago? I won’t name names, but there’s a hint in my username.

    Assuming we were not colleagues, I’ll explain (with a few details lightly changed) that I previously worked in an open office space with a lot of foot traffic, glass walls everywhere, and a controlling supervisor. She used to stare at me from her office while I sat at my computer, and I only reported to her for one-third of my work! It was *so* weird.

    When our team relocated within the same building, I advocated for a subtle frosted window treatment over two feet of the glass wall where the assistants worked. I somehow managed to do this appropriately without including this particular supervisor in the process (it wasn’t her purview, and people more senior than both of us approved it).

    When the window treatment was installed, the surprised supervisor freaked out. She said people walking by wouldn’t know they could ask us for help, but that didn’t really make sense to me as people know how to knock on a door and could still see around the window treatment. I believe she was upset that her direct line of sight to stare at her assistant was cut off.

    I remember her assistant teared up the next day (in an assistant-only meeting) and spoke of the toll that the constant staring had taken on her mental health.

    Whew! I do *not* miss working in that environment.

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  29. It's Marie - Not Maria*

    I’m in HR, and ended up at a company that was 100% open office concept. Even the President of the company did not have an office. All of HR were in low sided, grouped desks, in a main traffic area (not sure whose brilliant idea this was). We constantly had to shield our monitor screens as people would walk by slowly, craning their necks, trying to read what we had on our screens. Privacy protectors were pretty much useless. If we needed to speak privately with an employee, we had to go into a glass sided break out room – so everyone knew who was talking to HR or being talked to by HR.

    After a couple months, the company had a major data breach, which originated in HR (not me, thank heavens, but the HR higher ups tried blaming me for it). I burned every bridge with that company with a scathing email to the company’s President (ccing the VP of HR and my Boss), explaining exactly what had happened with the data breach and who the responsible parties were – I had nothing to do with where the data was stored and why it was stored incorrectly. I also called the VP and my Boss out for trying to pin it on someone other than their pets (who were 100% responsible for the breach). I then submitted my notice and was walked out immediately. I heard from an acquaintance at the company a couple weeks later the next few days were not good for the VP and my former Boss. Both of them left the company shortly after. I saw recently on LinkedIn the VP landed at an absolutely awful company to work for in our area. Karma is beautiful sometimes.

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  30. Abogado Avocado*

    Here’s my “Okay, Boomer” reminiscence:

    When I worked in newsrooms, virtually everyone was in a highly visible space except for the editor and managing editors. (And by highly visible space, think desks jammed together in rows and without cubicle dividers.) One of my colleagues, a lowly reporter like me, would announce, when she was on deadline, to those around her: “I’m in the Cone of Silence.” (Which referred to a very old TV show you can look up on Wikipedia called, “Get Smart”.) So latecomers knew she wasn’t to be bothered, she’d put up a sign she drew on a manila folder, “_____ is in the Cone of Silence.”

    And, because we were all Boomers like her, we got the reference and left her alone.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      Not quite a boomer, but, thanks to reruns, I, too, had a sign that said “Cone of Silence in use – come back later.” I thought it was funny because the Get Smart Cone of Silence never actually worked…but people did leave me alone to finish what I was working on.

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  31. Distracted Librarian*

    I’ve seen colleagues in open office areas use artwork or plants (small ones on their desks, large ones on the floor) to create a screen. Also reorienting the desk so you’re sideways rather than facing out can help a bit.

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  32. Baska*

    I worked a job like this once, where my desk (and ONLY my desk) was in the middle of a large, highly-trafficked area, where people walking past could see my screen, my workstation, etc. I lasted about 4 months before I quit. It wasn’t only because of feeling like I was in a panopticon, but that certainly didn’t help things.

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  33. Media Mouse*

    I was in a visible spot – main hallway, right after elevators and in a management role. Guests acted like I was the receptionist and I’d shrug and say, “I don’t know” or ignore them while pointing to my headset if I was on a conference call. The funny thing was how people waited only for me to say, “I don’t know, you may want to ask your point of contact on-site” (which all Guests had to have one for our building).

    As for eating, stretching and other things – I adopted an “I don’t give a flying f—” mentality and did them regardless of who was watching (and hilariously enough, had a security camera visible in my location). Since the pandemic and other departments moving into our building, I got moved to a location that was still an open floor plan, but now with a corner. I still occasionally get people wandering to me since I am still somewhat of the first desk people see when they get off the elevators, but I still adopt the habits I kept when I was in the highly visible section.

    One caveat I do have was that if anyone played loud music without heads in our open office plan, I’d end up going up to them to ask them to wear headsets or earbuds.

    It’s mostly a polite ‘we-don’t-see’anything’ going on with our open floor plans in our office.

    Reply ↓
    1. It's Marie - Not Maria*

      When I worked at an open office company, we had someone who would wear headphones and would sing along LOUDLY to the music they were listening to. They had an awful singing voice and it drove everyone up the wall, but since their boss was in another country, they didn’t feel like they needed to listen to anyone when counseled about this.

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      1. yirna*

        The kindest thing our IT did was to make it so that if our laptops are connected to the corporate wifi, the speaker drivers magically disappear. I.E., if you’re in the office, the speakers *just don’t work.* It’s so necessary.

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  34. Emperor Kuzco*

    I completely sympathize, I’m currently sitting at a desk that is right next to a high-traffic entrance, while just 1o ft away is another high-traffic entrance that cuts in front of my desk. So basically I’m out in the open and exposed 24/7 (or 8.5/5 technically). It really sucks and feels awkward when I’m just plugging away at work and then look up randomly to see someone walking by staring at me.

    But even the people with offices have glass windows/walls on 3 sides of their offices!! And their doors have windows!! So unless you’re a top-level executive, you’re on display ALL THE TIME. People have asked for white-noise machines just so people can’t hear sensitive conversations. It’s wild.

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  35. pally*

    Just a few days ago, a recruiter hit me up with a position they hoped to fill. An open-office facility was touted as one of the perks.

    No thanks. I’ll pass.

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  36. Waves sandwich*

    I’ve grown used to it…I am an admin assistant (in higher ed)…my desk is in the near the pathway of getting from one side of the floor to the other. It’s pretty open with desk study spaces and near two tutoring spaces (in which I work). People stop by to talk, students stop by with questions, etc. I also eat at my desk. I just don’t care anymore! Most of the mornings are quiet so that is when I do most of my work and some of my work is confidential like approving student time sheets – which I do in the mornings before a lot of students arrive to hang out/work/study, etc. I also turn down the brightness on my screen so it’s not as visible to everyone behind me. I usually hang out on the internet in the afternoons as the noise increases as the day progresses. Or I just go home early. I used to be able to tune it out better but sometimes it’s just too much!

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  37. AMH*

    My desk is directly along the hallway that leads to our kitchen and right down from the bathrooms; people walk past me all day and although I know no one is actually staring at me I feel like I can FEEL their eyes even as I keep my own on my monitor (I say good morning or hi to people of course, but people pass by multiple times). It’s a tough desk assignment that I’ve mostly gotten used to.

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  38. Jonathan MacKay*

    Technically, as I work in a warehouse setting attached to our local office – (still a small business, usually only 3-4 of us here on a given day) I’ve had the opposite problem…… . things are often quiet enough I’ll come around a corner and jump 3 feet out of my skin because someone is there!

    It’s open concept enough in the office… but the warehouse has enough corners that this happens at least once a week!

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  39. C in DC*

    I worked in an office where one side of our cubicles was a glass wall overlooking a hallway. It was great for getting natural light into the space, but there were a lot of distractions. Some of my colleagues bought paper shades to block the windows at vision height from their desks to avoid exactly the behavior the writer describes.

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  40. That's a Big NO From Me*

    I had an interview many years ago for a position at a financial website, and I knew as soon as I walked in I’d be turning the job down because all the employees were in one huge room, with their desks pushed up against the walls, facing into the wall, backs to the huge empty space, side by side. I’m creeped out thinking about it to this day. They offered me the job and I turned it down. NO regrets.

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  41. HigherEdEscapee*

    Years ago in the before times, I worked in a small non profit where there was the office for the ED, the front desk, the glass walled room for the sysadmins, and then A Room for everyone else. While I worked at the front desk I was ok. I had high desk walls, a full wall at my back, and often nobody else was in the front lobby. When I moved into the large room I couldn’t handle it. My anxiety went to 11.
    We all sat in a wide U shape, we each had our own desks, and there was no privacy whatsoever. We were not customer facing and didn’t often have visitors, it was just 6-8 people or so, but the complete lack of privacy was so bad that my rate of panic attacks skyrocketed. It wasn’t the people I worked with, other than the president of the board, it was the complete lack of cover.
    One of my very kind colleagues actually built walls for me out of cardboard and foam board, and that helped, but that also opened the discussion around how other people were also uncomfortable. They were just able to hide it better than me.
    Ultimately we chose to get cubicles and things got SO much better for my anxiety. We also ended up with more actual work space as we weren’t working on just a desk and we had space to keep our things. I work remotely now, and I will never willingly go back into an office, but an open floor plan is an absolute deal breaker for me should I ever accept an in office job again.

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  42. StruggleBus*

    I have PTSD and recently found out it is very aggravated by being in an open office.

    I’ve never worked in one before, always had a cube or my own office.

    I don’t have any advice (other than quit), just solidarity.

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  43. El*

    I worked in an open-plan office for eight years, and absolutely hated it. The feeling of being constantly on display was exhausting. In addition, I was part of the management team, and every time the director and I spoke to each other, people would freak out that someone was “in trouble” or something was happening. (Which was a whole other problem with that director and that team, but we don’t have time to unpack all of that.)

    Then we went remote for the pandemic.

    When we returned to the office, it quickly became apparent how absolutely intolerable it was to work in that environment. Aside from the COVID-based aspects of being crammed into a space with no windows or fresh air flow, I was fully unable to function. The amount of noise, distractions, people monitoring each other–unbearable.

    I changed teams and now luckily have my own office with a door that closes and I love it.

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  44. Perihelion*

    Makes me think of the Natural History Museum that has an “exhibit” where you can just watch paleontologists works on fossils. I had an IT role there for a while and occasionally had to work on the computers in that exhibit. It was supremely weird to install updates with a dozen people staring at me, I don’t know how the scientists got anything done.

    Reply ↓
    1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      You’ve got me thinking about restaurants with open kitchens. I’ll bet the cooks don’t love that either. (I know I wouldn’t.)

      Reply ↓
  45. Watry*

    I was in a similar position in my last job (as were all my immediate coworkers). There should be a polite fiction going on here that passersby can’t see whatever face you’re making or the fact you’re eating lunch, other than maybe “mmm, smells good!” from people in the same area. It strikes me as a bit bizarre that people were stopping to ask OP what they were doing when they were stretching, like it’s something abnormal.

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  46. juliebulie*

    My office went to an open plan, with glass around the few offices that remained. The reason for this was “collaboration” but it’s not collaborative at all. If you want to discuss the project with someone you have to find somewhere to talk that won’t disturb others. (Or, more often, go ahead and disturb others anyway.)

    They also did away with our individual wastebaskets. So this is really all about saving money (don’t have to pay as many people for time spent emptying all those wastebaskets). They have made it clear that nobody gets to claim exclusive use of any given cubette, so you’re never quite sure where the people you need to talk to are sitting, and there’s nowhere to keep personal effects from day to day. If you use special peripherals (e.g. trackball) then you need to tote them back and forth each day.

    Everyone hates it. And there’s no reason for it; there’s plenty of room for everyone to come in on the same day. I’m not sure what it will take to convince them to let us return to a normal seating situation.

    And how I deal with this is that I now work almost exclusively from home. No, actually, I can say it’s totally exclusive because on the rare occasions that I go to the office, I don’t get anything done. If they made me come to work in the office again, that would dramatically lower the bar on what I would consider for a new job. (We have lost a lot of people, so I know I’m not alone!)

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  47. JPalmer*

    A mistake I made and regret looking back at the ‘before times’ was to not complain about a snack bowl being located RIGHT next to my desk.

    Around 1-4 PM, people would wander by in a semi-regular stream after their meetings ending and they considered an afternoon snacks. I’d see a person approach and briefly look at them before categorizing them as “snacker, ignore and don’t lose my focus”. They would then see me look at them and start a conversation, even if I had headphones on or made increasingly direct attempts to indicate I didn’t want to talk.

    I wish I had asked them to relocate the snacks because it was such a consistent distraction. It’s worth being a squeaky wheel or trying to make adjustments to defend your productivity and perception of yourself. Standard “present it as in the best interest of the business” when you do it. Like I could’ve made a case about ‘The snack bowl being located here disrupts my productivity for multiple hours every day’

    But Pandemic and WFH solved that problem.

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  48. learnedthehardway*

    I worked for a tech company for a while that had an entirely open office – even the CEO and leadership team shared desks.

    It was supremely weird to do HR and recruitment in public. Every time I had a call from a candidate or an interview, I had to run over to one of the little closed office rooms. It was weird, because there were about 20 of those little rooms that nobody used, but everyone had to sit together.

    I wore headphones and did everything I could by email, rather than talking to people. I would organize my work so that I’d get my paperwork done at my desk, and then would make calls for an hour or 2 in one of the office cubicles.

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  49. Rebecca*

    For people who have managed to adjust to visibility – it’s interesting what mental gymnastics you can do to convince yourself of ‘privacy’. I’m a teacher, which means that, by definition, I am always watched when I’m doing my job.

    I managed to convince my brain that the students in the room didn’t count as having an audience and could get comfortable, but any time any other adult came in the room – a support aid, the secretary bringing permission forms, a parent volunteering – I suddenly felt very watched and my whole demeanor changed. It shouldn’t have been different, but it was!

    Reply ↓
    1. Former Gremlin Herder*

      Former teacher, and same! Having students around didn’t feel like I was being watched, but if there was even one parent volunteer I’d feel so on edge. I actually feel like I had more privacy when teaching than I did in other jobs, but I also had two planning periods and a duty free lunch, which helped a lot.

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  50. TassieTiger*

    Pharmacy technician here. It’s so distressing to be in the zoo display where ppl stare while I work. Yesterday I needed to look through a pile of labels to find the order for steroid cream while the patient literally paced back and forth at the counter in front of me. Click click click went her heels. It was wildly stressful.

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  51. Former Gremlin Herder*

    After leaving education, where I had my own classroom that I could shut the door to during my planning periods, adjusting to a cubicle where my back was to an executive’s office was ROUGH. I constantly felt on edge and anxious that I didn’t look productive. I solved this by finding another job (for many reasons) but in the short term I used headphones/white noise to help feel insulted from people and also took a lot of short walks around the building to get away from it. I also liberally booked conference rooms for certain tasks or meetings. I’m not self conscious around eating, thankfully, otherwise I may have lost my mind.

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  52. LabManagerGuy*

    OMFG, that workspace sounds like a nightmare to me! My private office is one of the absolute perks of my job, and I’ll always fight for my direct reports to get and keep their own private offices whenever possible. I remember interviewing at a place some time back where the workspaces for people at the level at which I would be hired were some oddly-shaped (like, if a boomerang and a kite had a baby) desks barely big enough for a keyboard and monitor that were joined together side-by-side and facing each other (with no dividers at all) in an open-plan office space. Basically, I would have been working facing directly at one person and all but in the laps of two others. These were not call center or newsroom positions, mind you, but ones for PhD-level research scientists; you know, the kind of career that often attracts introverts with distraction-sensitive ADHD like me? I was not offered the job and was not particularly sorry about it; the wretched office situation, nigh-intolerable though it appeared, was not the worst part about the job.

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  53. Late40s*

    Honestly what has helped me at my new workplace is that my eyesight has gotten so bad as I age that I have my progressive lenses that I wear for distance and reading and I have computer only glasses for the reading. The computer glasses makes all the distance a blur so when people walk by I can’t tell who they are. The progressive lenses are great for distance but I don’t get a panoramic view from them so the sides are blurry as I walk down the halls, so I get kind of a tunnel view unless I turn my head to look to the side. Benefits of being old.

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  54. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Former coworker had an all glass office on the corner of two high traffic hallways. She started by adding some strategically placed posters and photos but was told she could not have any personal materials on her office windows.

    Challenge accepted. She went and found every kind of corporate motivational poster, announcement etc and posted it facing outward. Safety protocols, Department of Labor postings, Building map. Anything that was posted in the breakroom went on her windows.

    Soon people found that since her office was positioned where nearly everyone in the company walked by multiple times a day, they started asking if they could put up announcement for work events, workshops, etc.

    It took less than 6 months before she was an official posting site for all bulletins.

    6 months later her boss noticed that all the flyers made her office look “unprofessional” from the inside and ordered panels that covered her windows up to 6 ft.

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  55. GoodNPlenty*

    I was assaulted in my youth, grabbed from behind. I’m permanently twitchy about being startled by people walking up behind me. My last two gigs were cube farms that required each employee to sit facing in. I could not get an accommodation. I hung wide angle mirrors on the pseudo wall behind my monitors. It really helped me to see who was approaching.

    The universal gave me a big fat bonus when Covid required my company to allow us to WFH. I spent my last 2 years in WFH bliss, missing the return to office mandate by 3 weeks. There is no greater feeling than exiting via email. Serenity now!

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  56. yirna*

    I work in an open-concept office, and while it was an adjustment, all of us have had to make it work. One thing that a lot of people (well, at least those on the ends of the rows) have done is get rolling whiteboards that just happen to also provide a sight-blocking function AND don’t violate the fire prevention guidelines. Prior to the mysterious trend towards whiteboards, we used IKEA leaves (I think they’re meant for cribs), but the fire warden cracked down. I swear, they had to throw out hundreds of IKEA leaves. We’re lucky to have a standardized desktop setup with three monitors, too, so another way to block vision is a conveniently placed monitor.

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  57. CubeFarmer*

    I worked in a highly visible cube for eight years, and then for the past 17 I’ve been in a high-walled cube (which was nice–because it didn’t seem like my colleagues were on top of me–even though we were all in cubicles.)

    Now, however, for the first time since the late 1990s, I have my own office. It feels luxurious.

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  58. Theninjakiwi*

    I currently work at a mall kiosk with no break room and a very distant bathroom, so in order to cope, I’ve invested in earbuds that muffle sounds since the mall can get really loud but still let me hear people talking so i can keep a modicum of my social battery for longer. It still stinks to not have a break room, as I can’t lock my stuff away except in a tiny cabinet but at least I still have my sanity (for now)

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  59. Bookworm*

    I have always worked in high visibility offices! Through the 90s, I worked in offices with no cubes, just desks together. At the most I’ve had a 4ft high wall. With the cubes, at least I faced inward, not outward.

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  61. Nelson*

    Our safety policy has an ergonomics section that states an employee should not have their back to a doorway or window since the employee will be startled any time a person comes by. It’s not just you, it’s human nature to avoid being a in position where coworkers approach from behind. It can also be a safety issue for public facing roles in contentious offices (ex: social workers) if people are intending to cause harm to the employee.

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  62. Quinalla*

    Yeah, my pre-COVID in office setup was not as bad as yours (open office, but with at least shortwall cubes so at least we couldn’t all see each other while sitting), but it was bad enough. I didn’t realize how much of my energy was being taken up by tuning people out and being in on-display mode all the time. I dealt with it by basically pretending there were invisible walls around my cubical and acting as normally as possible, but ugh, it was such a HUGE energy drain for me. WFH this is the best thing about it is not having the giant energy drain all day long. Not having to commute is a close second :)

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  63. Wot, no sugar?*

    I would like to murder the creep who initially came up with the idea of cube farms and open work spaces (though I suspect ey’re probably already dead). Nobody can tell me that this work style is conducive to superior productivity.

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  64. Strive to Excel*

    I work in a very tiny office (there’s 6 of us in the room) with a sort of half cube farm? In that most of us have wall on 3 sides, and then for two of us we’ve got a wall on two sides and are back to back with each other. We definitely don’t have room to put in more walls. Things that help:

    * Headphones
    * A culture of “you don’t look at someone’s screen unless you’re asked to”
    * Everyone having roughly the same information clearance (our HR guy is in a separate, smaller office)
    * Having our own desks and the flexibility to customize them rather than any sort of hot-desking nonsense

    But really, having only 6 people in the office helps a lot, because while it’s technically open office it’s quite small.

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  65. ADHD brain monster*

    I keep muttering and moving my mouth while I think/read/dissociate. I don’t know what to do about it! My best approach is to make sure I have as much political capital as I can by working super hard and trying to make sure I’m warm, friendly, professional.

    But I’m sure people notice and it wonder if I’m ok.

    I’m ok but my brain races and I disconnect from where I am. I don’t know another way to work. (A lot of my work is reasonably creative, writing blogs etc.)

    Reply ↓

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