Yahoo

Free food, free transportation, free gym, more free stuff.

If you come to Yahoo! by shuttle, you're pretty much stuck on campus. If you're trying to write code, it means dealing with constant conversations, bright colors, visual distractions, being crammed in with lots of people in an open office plan, no acoustic controls in the building design, and lots of mandatory fun.

There is no escape.

The net result is that it is difficult to concentrate and stay focused. It is not the sort of environment that allows me to do my best work, which is a shame because there's a lot of work to be done.

Put up some partitions to dampen the noise, spread people out more, and establish some basic etiquette regarding noise. Seating people according to role would help too.