I've worked in a semi-private office, a pod, and a cube. Just before Bear, Stearns spontaneously combusted, they had us working on long tables, 15 programmers at a table with nothing but a PC in fron of us, and a rollable three-drawer cabinet between us.

Another row was parallel to ours (with a programmer immediately opposite us), with four such pairs of rows duplicated three times on our floor. It was the closest I've ever been to being a literal cog in the machine.

Hence my including "shoulder to shoulder". 8-)