Did you ever retreat to the cafeteria because it was (after rush hours) so much quieter than office space? Sign of a culture killer at work. You may have found two, three or four people around one of the empty tables discussing some work-related matter. Several tables might be similarly occupied, and you would have noticed that they are well spaced apart.
What’s going on here? The answer is simple: people have come to the cafeteria because there is nowhere else in the building that is quiet enough to have a sane meeting, or their desks are so close together that they cannot meet without disturbing their uninvolved workmates.
In such companies, management has an unspoken rule: