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Open-plan offices, prized for encouraging collaboration and flexible space use, frequently suffer from poor acoustics that undermine concentration. Sound travels freely across open floors, meaning a single phone call or loud conversation can distract dozens of nearby workers. Acousticians address this through a combination of strategies: absorptive ceiling tiles and carpeting reduce echo, while sound-masking systems emit a low, steady background hum that makes speech from distant desks less intelligible without adding noticeable noise. Furniture placement also matters, as tall partitions and strategically positioned bookshelves can block direct sound paths between desks. Despite these interventions, surveys of office workers consistently rank noise as one of the top complaints about open-plan environments, suggesting that acoustic treatments, while helpful, rarely eliminate the underlying problem of shared space with minimal sound barriers.