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Just Wear Headphones

mattblodgett.com

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Re: Just Wear Headphones

#41

Post by vonmoltke »

rtpg wrote: post #35
masklinn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm personally more or less a fan of open offices, but the noise really is a problem and unfortunate -- I wish the social convention were to treat an open office like a library, and louder conversations happened in private offices. Then what's the point of open offices outside of penny-pinching?

You say penny-pinching, but not all companies can afford the office space for all their employees from the get-go. At least where I work, we do get an implicit understanding of when it's quiet time, and when it's discussion time. Unfortunately the understanding isn't always in sync, but we're most of the way there.

> You say penny-pinching, but not all companies can afford the office space for all their employees from the get-go.

With the caveats that is is one situation and we are in Dallas, my company could afford to give everyone a private office in the building we currently occupy for less than the cost of my salary alone. IMO, if you have enough money to pay developers market salaries you have enough to give them their own office if you wanted to. In fact, I would take a pay cut to get one.

Obviously some markets like SF proper and Manhattan are stupid expensive and this likely isn't true there. I'd wager that most of the world i closer to Dallas than SF, though.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#42

Post by BFay »

calpaterson wrote: post #28
gcv wrote: post #25

The rules of thumb about "60% of maximum volume for 60 minutes" and "if you can't hear your surroundings, it's too loud" are nonsense. Dangerous volume settings depend on a headphone's sensitivity, the output device power, the headphone's isolation ability, and the recording. These parameters vary. Wildly. A well-fitting isolating IEM can slice off 25dB of noise, more than enough to (mostly) eliminate background conv…

It might be helpful if you could offer citations for that. I find it hard to judge these competing claims

None of that comment seemed unreasonable to me - I've had large over-ear sets of headphones that require me to turn the volume up pretty high. It takes more to drive them, that's why some people own headphone amps.

Compare that to IEM's like the Sennheiser cx 300 - 5% of max volume at my computer might be too loud.

And it would surprise me if headphone usage at reasonable volumes is worse than going to loud concerts, even if you use headphones for long periods of time. If I'm at a concert or a loud bar for an hour or two, my ears feel really fatigued afterwards, everything seems quieter. I've never turned up headphones loud enough to experience that.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#43

Post by madcaptenor »

vtlynch wrote: post #12

Interesting question: How many companies who use open offices style floorplans have executives who still have their own offices? Maybe this is just another permutation of the out of touch boss problem. Nothing makes it harder to understand the downfalls of an open office than not working in one yourself.

In many cases where the executives don't have their own office, there's a conference room that serves as their de facto office.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#44

Post by binxbolling »

kqr wrote: post #20
Gonzih wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another problem here. Most executives are extroverts, so for them being in the environment like that feels right and good. Does not really help with understanding in my experience.

Also might matter that open floor plans make interacting with people convenient, and it's a large part of their job to interact with people. I really only need interaction with people for well under 10% of a normal work day. What makes perfect sense for their kind of works does not make as much sense for my kind of work.

For me it makes interacting with people even more inconvenient. Now instead of having a conversation with one person, I'm effectively having one with a dozen or more. So everyone's booking entire conference rooms just to talk 1:1—even if the topic is fairly benign or banal, nobody likes eavesdroppers.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#45

Post by Raphmedia »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #30
Raphmedia wrote: post #22

Wear earplugs and then put your over the ears headphones over them. The sound of your music should still get through (mostly from around the ear, through your skull). I do that with classical music and it makes the music sounds like it's coming from very far. It's very zen. Like sitting in the void while having music come to you from a distant area.

You shouldn't be using earplugs, though - I take it you're talking about something you actually put inside your ear. If you ask your doctor, they'll tell you never to put anything in your ear that's smaller than your elbow (I think it's an in-joke in the medical profession ;-)

Reusable (and washable) quality earplugs, those that are a bit cone shaped so that they don't get stuck in your ear. The kind you use at a shooting range.

I would warn not to use them all the time. Let those ears breath. I only use them when I need to focus very hard or when it's very noisy.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#47

Post by GBond »

I hope the open office trend dies soon. I've been to some swanky open offices with awesome perks but there are all designed to keep you in the office. I would not trade any of it for my current setup. I work from my home office and travel to a nearby coworking space to get an occasional dose of water-cooler level of human interaction.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#48

Post by kazinator »

hoggle wrote: post #29

At age 32 my hearing is apparently at the level of a 66 year old. I'm not much of a concert attender nor drug user so the only real explanation the doctor could give for my disappointing audiogram was my habit of regularly working with headphones on (I always took care of moderate volume, mind you). I wasn't expecting this result at all, I actually thought my hearing was perfect but hearing loss starts at the highest…

Get a second opinion. Maybe they are trying to sell you on expensive hearing aids.

It's also possible you didn't ever have great hearing. (Do you have any "before" audiogram to compare against, from when you were a child?)

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#49

Post by darkmighty »

WallWextra wrote: post #38
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be using earplugs, though - I take it you're talking about something you actually put inside your ear. If you ask your doctor, they'll tell you never to put anything in your ear that's smaller than your elbow (I think it's an in-joke in the medical profession ;-)

There are a lot of things about working in an office that are unhealthy, but you have to do what you have to do.

Isn't one of those over the ear muffs a lot better?

http://www.amazon.com/Protection-Professional-Folding-Padded...

Judging by how it seems to be the most used in industrial applications.

Re: Just Wear Headphones

#50

Post by JoshTriplett »

darylteo wrote: post #3

The "being watched" feeling is the big one for me. I don't mind wearing headphones because I love listening to music and I don't listen to it that loudly, but the sensation of feeling someone's eyes on you (to catch you on the split second you've refreshed reddit or facebook or something) is incredibly profound on the time it takes to zone into zen mode. Anecdotally funnily enough, the opposite seems to happen for me…

I've had the same experience with pair programming: when done with someone you get along very well with, and with the same goal in mind, one or the other of you might get stuck but rarely both at the same time. (And on those rare occasions, observing that we were both stuck was a good sign to more quickly treat it as a problem requiring deep thought, rather than staring at a screen for a while.)
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