Recently, two of my colleagues pulled off a surprise baby shower for me, all while sitting in an open office environment. Needless to say, I was completely surprised! As you can probably imagine, a lot of work goes into planning a surprise party. Granted, some of it can be done through good ole’ e-mail communication, but at some point, all that scheming has to occur somewhere beyond that.  

So, how did two people that sit immediately to my left and right, without any walls or workstation panels separating us, pull this off?  This can’t be easy in any work environment, but somehow they were able to keep it a secret. So, does this mean it’s possible to have private conversations and work on top secret information in an open office environment without your surrounding colleagues hearing or seeing your work? Well, it definitely seemed to work in this situation.  
As my colleague Jodi Williams and I continue to embark on a journey to debunk open office myths, here we present you with busted myth #1: You can’t have private conversations or work on confidential information while sitting in an open office work environment.
 
Now, I know some of you out there may still find this to be a challenging issue, especially if you are sitting in an open office and shouldn’t be because of the nature of your work OR because you don’t have access to private spaces, etc. We heard you…we’ve been reading all of your comments and blogs on the internet [...]