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Office noise bothers some people more than others

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Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#391

Post by reificator »

hinkley wrote: post #104
liquidise wrote: post #40

I'm a data point that favors surrounding noise. For years, my most productivity-dense time of the week is when i bring my laptop to a local sports bar for prime time NFL games. Something about the consistent noise, available momentary distractions and wandering eyes keeps me on-task and cradled in thought in a way no office (home or formal) does.

I think you've got some cocktail party effect going on there. Conversely, one of the most distracting things for me is barely hearing people talking. My brain keeps trying to interpret the murmuring as words before it can reject it.

> Conversely, one of the most distracting things for me is barely hearing people talking. My brain keeps trying to interpret the murmuring as words before it can reject it.

Same! My family loves calling each other on speakerphone. Asking however politely and considerately for them to use a headset or hold the phone is a mortal sin.

Coincidentally, when I moved out on my own, my ability to focus suddenly shot through the roof. Like putting on glasses for the first time when you're nearsighted.

Going back home I don't lose that sense of focus. Until the phone calls start again...

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#392

Post by learc83 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #300
learc83 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's because people working in open offices are self selecting to work in open offices?

No, because non-open-plan offices pretty much don’t exist anymore.

There are plenty of companies without open layouts, add remote workers to that and self selection is a big factor. Add to that the possibility that people aren't comfortable complaining to someone who is very obviously pro open layout.

Also every survey I can find says that employees don't want open office layouts by a large margin. There's clearly something else going on beyond autistic programmers complaining.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#393

Post by afarrell »

lmiller1990 wrote: post #244

A lot of people (in this thread, CEO of my company) say "just wear headphones". Noise should be opt in; not opt out. Recently all of marketing went to a conference for a few days; the difference in the quality and quantity of work done was noticeable...

Thats a problem for the individual to deal with, not the company. If your CEO has an employee who is bothered by the noise, they can just put that employee on a PIP if the employee is not able to focus and execute.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#394

Post by ben509 »

drngdds wrote: post #247
magduf wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is no longer true. Most younger people in engineering/CS fields are the "communicator" type and like to work in noisy, open-office environments, and frequently side-by-side. It's usually older and/or more introverted people who complain about the open-office craze, but there's absolutely no shortage of programmers who will strongly defend it.

I've yet to meet a programmer who strongly defends open offices. They seem to range from "doesn't mind it" to "literally unable to tolerate it."

I was on a team where the team jointly decided to convert their half-cubes to an open office. There were two hold-outs, myself, and another guy next to me who just wanted to keep his cube. (He had a loud voice to begin with, but now he would have long conversations by yelling across the office.)

Like any strongly held belief, you're going to find like-minded people and convince yourself that you're a majority. And, especially, we're unhappy and that means we want to justify our unhappiness, and if we were the majority we'd obviously be justified.

But I think all these things are true at the same time:

1. There is a minority of people who are genuinely miserable in open offices.

2. A sizable group of people dislike specific things (too much chatter, clicking pens, etc.) but they don't think about it much.

3. A plurality are oblivious to the noise and are having fun at work.

4. And open offices decrease everyone's ability to focus and are no better for collaboration than any other design.

5. The raison d'etre of an office is to get work done and silence facilitates that.

So we're a minority, but regardless there's a solid case against open offices.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#395

Post by flukus »

meddlepal wrote: post #278
irrational wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I work for a Fortune 150 company in not cramped offices in a not dense, not expensive city that is definitely not in the middle of nowhere. Its a great working environment in a great location with great benefits and pay. Such things do exist, you just have to get out of the bubble and look for them.

I suspect everyones definition of middle of nowhere is a bit different. For example, to a NYer or Bostonian anything outside their respective cores is "nowhere". To people further south and west it seems to be a much more expansive definition.

For me it's more of a suburbia vs inner city thing. I want to live where I'm a few minutes walk from a grocery store, a few bars and other amenities along with easy public access (walking, riding, public transport) to work. I could live in a large rural town if they catered to this but few seem to.

The other big thing is the lack of job opportunities in smaller cities, solvable via working remotely but still relatively uncommon, particularly for new hires.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#396

Post by undergrowth54 »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #108
tzs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a guy who narrated whatever he was doing, in third person. Let's call him Bob. Suppose Bob needed to FTP a file from a server, print it, staple the pages together, and then give it to me. During this entire process, Bob would talk, saying something like this: > Bob is starting the FTP program. Bob is typing his name and password. Bob is starting the file transfer. Bob's exiting. Bob is selecting the file and p…

I'm curious if Bob had reasons for doing that. Most everybody has some private struggles and coping mechanisms / life hacks.

This sounds like a way to maintain an Instruction Pointer in working memory. Keeping track of one’s current task can be a challenge. I find it better to type that into a notebook app like Bear.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#397

Post by throwawayjava »

navs wrote: post #135

I currently work for a startup and all three of us are hotdesking. We're constantly moved to new spaces in the hotdesking space because a new company is leaving/moving in. I've sat beside recruiters, property managers and salespeople. There's no "quiet" room. The meeting rooms cost a few hundred and need to be pre-booked. My home environment isn't a quiet refuge either. Beside a busy street, more flatmates than their…

THREE employees? Y'all should just rent a studio apartment. Or a garage.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#398

Post by afarrell »

wdb wrote: post #154
arthurfm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My biggest triggers are people who eat crunchy food with open mouths; people who slurp their drinks; people who are oblivious to their environment and sing loudly in open offices. For me it's people who talk while eating and who read emails aloud while writing them. So annoying! I have had to resort to taking noise cancelling headphones to work.

Eating at your desk is a pain point of mine. Why not go to the canteen?

It is more difficult to focus in a noisy office, so you might get into the habit of trying work more hours in order to avoid getting fired.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#399

Post by [deleted] »

commandlinefan wrote: post #189
navs wrote: post #135

I currently work for a startup and all three of us are hotdesking. We're constantly moved to new spaces in the hotdesking space because a new company is leaving/moving in. I've sat beside recruiters, property managers and salespeople. There's no "quiet" room. The meeting rooms cost a few hundred and need to be pre-booked. My home environment isn't a quiet refuge either. Beside a busy street, more flatmates than their…

> I'm considering quitting my job and running away If there were an alternative, we'd all run with you. There isn't, though. Something to think about when they say there's supposedly a "talent shortage" and they're having trouble "recruiting top performers".

[deleted]

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#400

Post by flukus »

hnick wrote: post #240

I'm definitely sensitive to noises and am a stereotypical introvert. One thing they didn't mention that gets me is not related to noise. It's privacy. I have an extremely strong innate need for privacy and I'm not sure where that comes from. I never liked sharing personal details or preferences (like favourite bands), and the idea of someone watching me work just makes me uneasy. It's not even a fear of being caught…

> the idea of someone watching me work just makes me uneasy.

Isn't this nearly universal? Aside from some exhibitionists no one speaks about that "feeling of being watched" in a positive light and there are all sorts of social norms developed around how long it's appropriate to stare at someone, the people that stray beyond these norms are generally labeled as creepy.

There's also the extra visual stimulus of people moving around, headphones don't solve either of these problems.

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