Until a few weeks ago, I was a technical writer at a corporation. The corporation in question had an open-floor plan, and all of the employees could hear and see each other. The company only had about 30 technical writers, and everyone else (about a thousand employees) developed the software. When I started there, and I found out that I was expected to sit at a desk surrounded by everyone else while still expected to write --!! I quickly had to get an iPod so that I could pretend to be alone.
When I worked as a copy editor at a newspaper, though, I did all of my editing at home, because how dreadful are newspaper offices?
On the other hand, I most wish that I had real-life writer friends with whom I could talk about writing. I think that my writing would improve a hundredfold if I had cohorts.