The reality is hat someone will always complain. When I worked at Nike in a cube type set up, people complained, when we moved from a high wall to a low wall cube in Converse, people complained, when I was at frog and we had an open studio, people complained. Heck, in all three cases I was in with the complainers! Now that I’m in a leadership position and I happen to be in charge of the space planning, we have three different set ups. In design and marketing we have open studio, in finance we have traditional cubes, in operations we have a mix… In all three cases people complain. I’ve gone back and talked to former bosses to get advice and try to do my best to solve these issues. At the end of the day it seems that there is a percentage of people who will always complain. So what I’ve had to do is pull back and decide what kind of work place do I want to have. How do I want it to function? At the end of the day an employee might be there for a period of years but the company will be constant, so deciding how we want to set it up as a living organism, as a lasting microcosm, is more important that ensuring every single individual is 100% satisfied. The most important thing is that the overall system is intact and suits he long term cultural goals.
I’ll use an anecdote to put it more bluntly, as a speaker company we have music playing always, usually loudly. When people interview in design and marketing it is typically in the open studio conference area with music going. We want to test to make sure they can handle the environment. We had someone new start and he kept turning down the music… Not cool. So I let him know the music had to stay on. He told me he preferred it quiet to which I had to tell him that working here might not be the best idea then. We were not going to change the culture and character of the entire studio to satisfy a single person, and I asked him to try to adapt if he would like to stay on. 2 years later he is totally fine. He wears noise cancelling headphones a lot, but so do I and a lot of the team. It is a bit of an unspoken rule that when someone has a big pair of vans on you try not to disturb them. I make a point to practice what I preach. I’m out in the open studio too (I hate offices) with a connected speaker literally right next to my desk (I like the music loud, it is like a screen for me)
Conclusion, no system is perfect, individuals will always complain because it is impossible to satisfy everyone and make a cohesive culture (and stay in budget). The most important thing is to have the right system for the long term culture of the company and really only the long term leadership can steward that. I recommend not complaining and instead seeking to find personal solutions. Communicate them. Tell your boss you have a hard time concentrating so you would like to wear noise cancelling headphones, that you are not being rude, just productive. As if you can work from home 2 days a month or something. Find and propose solutions that don’t disrupt the larger culture. Make a point of having time where you joke and mix with the team. It sounds like having a dynamic and social culture is important there. Be a part of that.