At every job you go to there’s the expectation of having a desk, computer, phone, post-it’s and sometimes even a red stapler if you’re lucky. But how the desk area is configured depends on the company… sometimes you get a full-on office, sometimes a cubby and sometimes you’re out in a ‘bullpen’ type area known as the open work space.

In all of these scenarios there are obviously pro’s and con’s, but in my humble opinion the open work space area carries with it the most con’s as you truly don’t ever get to unplug from your coworkers. Now depending on what your job is and what you’re being asked to produce, this might not be a bad thing, but I have to say I think most people need a little “me time” even during their work day.

But besides needed/wanting to unplug there is one other big negative to the open work space… the chatty Cathy. (You know who I’m talking about.) The coworker that doesn’t know when to stop talking and over-sharing. I think we’ve all know someone like this and it truly can create a problem within a team because productivity stops while rambling Rita regales all of us with her stories from the weekend.

However being that you work in close proximity and have to see this person every day, it’s not really appropriate to say, “I don’t care about; your significant other, your pets, your vacation plans, your family problems, the new restaurant you just tried or what class at the gym you’re going to take this week. Okay??”

So what can you say? Well first off, my advice is to employ the stray cat analogy of “don’t feed it”. If you don’t pay attention to this person and engage, at some point they will realize they don’t have an audience and (hopefully) put it on mute.

If that doesn’t work and/or you really do have a friendship with this person, try saying, “You know I’d really love to hear this story but could we talk about it over lunch?” Again hopefully you’re not dealing with someone who is so daft they can’t pick up on hints and after doing this a few times will realize that you are trying to focus on work during work hours (you know, the whole reason you’re there) and that chit-chat time is for coffee break or lunch time.

Now onto the good things about open work spaces… to the pro’s list!

On the upside, being able to quickly gather the troops and have an informal meeting is by far the biggest plus to having your whole team within arms reach. I would say this is especially helpful for social media teams who need to react to news in real-time and if you can do a quick chair swivel to get feedback and/or approval for the perfect tweet. Bonus!

Another positive side-effect is being able to hear other conversations going on that might not have included you, but that you need to be apart of! Example: brand manager is talking to graphic designer about collateral for a new campaign. Let’s say you are the web master and overhear this, it’s the perfect opportunity to say, “Are you going to include the website on the collateral? If so we can add a CTA to the homepage that correlates with the messaging on the collateral.” Boom! That’s a win-win and now the campaign completes a full circle from static piece to website.

So now I want to hear from you – leave a comment and let me know what experiences you’ve had with open work spaces (good or bad).

Happy typing!