I never understood why people don't like cubicles or just the office in general.
The only thing I can't stand is the commute and area around the office, unless you are very fortunate to be working in a woodsy location with a lot of parking and open space.
I once worked for a few months (thanks to an acquisition) in an open-office plan a few stories up a tall building.
Whole floor was open except HR (team room along the outside, with windows), a few meeting rooms (along the outside, with windows) and managers' offices (along the outside, with windows). All those closed-in rooms around the perimeter were fully glass, since otherwise the rest of the place would have been really damn dark. One of four walls of exterior windows was part of the main, open, office area.
The specific situation at my desk: my back to my skip-level manager's glass-walled office, whose desk faced in at my back (else other people would be able to look over the manager's shoulder as they worked, and obviously that's horrible), area behind me also a major walkway for ~1/6-1/5 of the total floor, desks were truly-open cubicle-system-construction thingies–so, "walls" are the same height as the desks, nothing resembling an actual visibility- or noise-blocking wall anywhere. The woman whose desk was directly across and facing mine often hummed to herself while "in the zone". In my line of sight, just top-left of my monitor was a large TV mounted on the central pillar (bathrooms, elevators, tiny break & coffee room) playing (muted, mercifully) company propaganda and announcement-videos and slideshows all fucking day. The floor shook when anyone walked anywhere on our ~half of it, which meant my monitor shook. Probably 150 people on that floor. So, my monitor was shaking much of the time.
There were also some pretty astounding cultural problems that overlapped (the fucking nerf-fights the balding 40-year-olds a couple desks down from me would engage in daily, to pick maybe the most minor problem), but I'm sticking just to the problems with my desk per se. I have no idea how anyone was expected to get anything done in that environment. It was hell.
I have experienced remote work from my bed for 2 years now and I can confirm that I do prefer working from my bed in every circumstance.
But if push came to shove and these employers decided literally everyone must come back to the office (and not this bullshit where select politically alligned teams dont have to), then for $150,000 a year I can survive just fine in a cubicle.
yeah, when I went from retail to the cubicle, it was awesome. You mean, I can leave something here and it'll be right there the next day without anyone complaining? Finally!
My employer's open office is so loud. They literally just built a new one, bragged about how great the design is, and it has the same problems as the old one.
How am I suppose to work when I can hear every sound made by 100 other people?
The only thing I can't stand is the commute and area around the office, unless you are very fortunate to be working in a woodsy location with a lot of parking and open space.