Open office plans are promoted by non-technical people who claim they 'foster collaboration' with little appreciation of their negative effect on concentration and productivity for employees in technical professions. Companies and space planners rely on specious studies to claim all kinds of benefits from open office plans. As you've found, they're great for people whose job (or personality) requires then to jabber all day, but that's about it. Companies salivate over the chance to reduce real estate square footage and furniture costs.
In my experience, only the most air-tight headphones will block all distracting noise....and they'll make your ears sweat. Ear buds won't do the job completely, unfortunately. And you have to choose your music wisely (on the plus side, I discovered Amon Tobin and Blockhead). And headphones - no matter how good - won't block visual distractions which can be as much an issue as noise.
A better option may be to commandeer a vacant meeting room to spread out and work in peace...if you have that option. The downside is that you have to drag all your stuff to that room, and may have to fight to maintain that space if someone else needs it.
Working from home - as many of us have found out during the pandemic - can solve some of the distraction problems.....or can just swap them for others (kids, dogs, etc.). Collaboration during work-from-home can be maintained with Teams, Zoom, and IM'ing. But I've also found that it seems the number of coordination meetings has increased out of necessity. Long and short - you might consider working from home if you have that option for times when you have a need for complete concentration that you just can't get any other way in the office.
On the topic of working from home, I recently read an article that the mass work-from-home that has occurred during the pandemic has benefitted from - and is spending down - saved relationship capital that was built up from people working together and building relationships in offices over many years. The takeaway was that companies shouldn't necessarily take the current apparent success of mass working from home as an indicator that it is a long term solution or that near-complete-elimination of offices is a good idea. The impact of mass work-from-home on long-term company culture and relationships is an unknown.
As for your final question - 'should I just quit?' - know that the grass is not necessarily greener on the other side. Companies have been blindly jumping on the open office bandwagon over the last 5-10 years so you may find that most other firms have the same type of office....or will be enticed to change to it in the near future. Take into consideration if you like the work itself, the people you work with (are they qualified and good to work with?), and the compensation. If you truly find the office unbearable and that's an overriding concern, then look at other options. Admittedly, open offices are not a selling point for many people other than corporate execs and corporate real estate managers.
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Greg Thein, PE
Cleveland, OH
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