I’ve never checked my emails when doing a queenside castle, or really any time I’ve played chess
Had a 3pm call myself, but at least the host apologized for it. Manager at my first job used to have impromptu department meetings at 4pm on Fridays; needless to say there was lots of turnover under her.
Took me more than 15 years before getting my first office. Next office after that was twice the size. Back to a cube in my current job, but I’ve had good bosses the whole time so I’m ok. If I could arrange to work in another location I will most likely get an office with a scenic view, but that’s not enough of an incentive to get me to sell my house and move.
I have had interior cubes, interior offices, an office with a nice city view, and current cube at work is along a north-facing window wall into the woods. At home I have a south-facing window, so blinds are normally drawn due to sun. Not really a big deal to me (reorg may eventually move my current cube, but COVID put those plans on hold). The plus of the cubes is more interaction with coworkers. I have to say I have been very fortunate to have had good coworkers consistently. The closest to annoying was an intern who didn’t realize his singing along to his headphones could be heard. I mentioned it to him and he almost turned red he was so embarrassed. It stopped, so the whole thing ended up being amusing.
I had a cube for about ten years. The first one was like 30 years old and pretty sad, but after about two years the company built a brand new office, and I got a cube near the wall of glass. With minimal effort I could overlook the pond. Then I switched companies and went back to a sad old cube, and after a couple of years I got a big cube with a window overlooking a park. Then an office, but it looked out onto the parking lot, not much upgrade. My last office in the Denver 'burbs looked due west to the front range, which was awesome but super bright in the afternoons (worth it).
Then I quit and got a remote job, and moved. My office is a bedroom on the second floor, no amazing views but we live in a neighborhood built mostly 1900-1920 so there are lots of big trees and old homes, and I like the view.
Cubes can be annoying if you sit near a compulsive laugher - that was the case in my first year with the company. After she left the biggest issue was someone in accounting pounding on the stapler. I’m hoping that the virtual environment we are currently in will be carried forward post-pandemic so that I won’t be hearing it when I get back.
In fairness to the stapler pounder, it really sucks when you try to staple a chunk of papers and it almost makes it through, and so satisfying when it cleanly goes through.
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It’s been years since I’ve fed a stapler - I prefer clips so that whoever looks at the documents can move the pages around freely,
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I find myself incredibly sensitive to sound. To the extent that my wife has questioned if I have an actual disorder. I commonly wear earplugs at work, home, or other public places with a lot of sound. When I was younger I used headphones, but I prefer something more subtle now (no one can see the ones I use). cube life can frustrating; 80% of the office has been WFH for the last year, so I have enjoyed a very quiet office for a while. But before this I was in a open (and uncomfortably tight) office space with ~50 people close enough to hear on the phone.
There are staplers that are designed for thick stacks that have a lever arm, so no pounding needed. See if your office manager will buy one. Training the accountants is probably more difficult than getting it purchased 
At my old office there was a little electronic stapler that would go right through a good chunk of paper that I’d have no hope of doing manually, was sooo satisfying with my study stuff. Although I would say it was a bit of abusing the stapler function, wasn’t so easy to fold the pages over because so many pages were stapled together.
Best way to do that is to depress the stapler as far as it will go before the stapling mechanism kicks in. Then a quick pounce. Works great on thick stacks.
Glad I don’t work with paper anymore. There’s rarely any reason for hard copy. I might print a few pages every few months for temporary use, but almost nothing is worth keeping a permanent hard copy of.
Agreed, I usually have one hand priming the stapler and then the other hand literally pounds ontop of the priming hand 
What would I put in my filing cabinet!?
Food
our biz has been virtual always, but we also went paperless many years ago. Scanned entire filing cabinets of documents, put everything into a crm. One guy wouldn’t use it. I’d get a call from a client, pull up the file for a history, no idea what they’re talking about. Call the guy that’s in Ottawa and he tells me oh yeah, it’s in ‘my’ files. WTF? you know I can’t read your files in your closet in ottawa, right? I want everything put online, as we’ve discussed repeatedly and you’ve been trained.
His solution? Keep two sets of records - our cloud records, and his paper records in his filing cabinet in his closet in Ottawa. Sigh.
My filing cabinet is just my notes really, plus personal stuff that has birth certificates, tax stuff, etc etc
yawwwn… its that time…
I’m GAFing today because now I know what the **** was going wrong with some actuarializing that’s been causing me grief for the last little while!!!
ETA: Now my ****in’ report isn’t picking up my changes!!! 
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