Microsoft used to do this. Famously, they had private offices for a long time while all the competition was open-office plans. They've scaled this way back in recent years though (to much complaining, albeit totally ignored, from employees). Whether this means the brainworms got to them too or they actually have the numbers to prove that private offices aren't worth the expense, I don't know.
In my first job after college, I worked at a federal agency where people had cubicles carved out of traditional large offices. It was actually kind of nice, because you worked with people in your office, but had some separation from them as well.
The peons all had desktop computers, while middle management had clunky laptops with docking stations. You knew who the executives were by their small laptops that were clearly designed for traveling by the jet setting class.
I’ve come to think that the ultimate power move for the movers and shakers at a company, would be to have a traditional office with a desktop computer that they cannot take with them. I remember being excited the first time I was issued a corporate laptop. I felt like I had finally arrived, and finally was one of the powerful and privileged. Now, I look back on those days of desktop computing, where I could not take my computer home, and where there was no expectation that I would randomly work from home as the very height of luxury.
Same. Got a laptop and Blackberry at my first job out of college. Didn't take too long for me to realize that it actually sucked.
Later worked as a govt contractor and could leave my laptop at the office 90% of the time. Never realized how good that was until I switched back to a job with an on-call rotation.
To contrast this, I’d say that the “few cubicles in an office” is my least favorite approach. It makes every little noise much more noticeable, and if you get stuck with a loud talker, their voice on on virtual meetings is going to echo a lot more off of the office walls. I’d prefer a regular cubicle in a large floor where the background noise all just kinda blends together.
In my case, the cubes were in large-ish rooms with doors. This was kind of great in that if things got loud you were either shutting the door or asking two or three office mates to pipe down. There was no cut-through traffic or hallway conversation. Not as excellent as the one time in my career where I had a traditional private office, but definitely the runner-up.
Nope, cubes were reviled back in the 90s because they were a pale shadow of what knowledge workers had lost in terms of offices. Management heard our lamentations about cubicles and sent us to a deeper, colder level of hell—the open plan.
