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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

#111
post #59
post #48

I am curious about this. Do people who work in the open plan office, feel bothered by clicky mechanical keyboard sounds (cherry mx blue, greeen etc)?

Yes, mechanical keyboards are noisy and inappropriate for a shared office.

I'd argue that the real issue is that shared offices are inappropriate for programming.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#112
post #48

I am curious about this. Do people who work in the open plan office, feel bothered by clicky mechanical keyboard sounds (cherry mx blue, greeen etc)?

Depends entirely on the "culture" of your team. I have pretty strong misophonia that's been nothing making my life very difficult since I was a kid but switch noises are actually satisfying to me. A lot of devs feel the same. Mechanical switches sound like concentration, good work, precise engineering. It's all about the consistency of the background noise and the mental associations.

On the other side of things, the sound of a door closing too strongly will ruin my concentration and put me in a mood.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#113
post #7

People put with noise far more than they have to. Here are a few of my experiences: - moved into an office where a very noisy dot-matrix printer printed out every opening and closing of a door in the building. Nobody ever looked at the printouts. I unplugged it and put it in a dumpster. Nobody ever complained. - working for an oil company, my boss was sitting next to a big HP plotter that was horribly noisy - he wore…

I worked in a place where my team of 8 was right next to a door that loudly clanged shut whenever one of the 150 people in the company used it, and they did 90% of the time as most of the desks were closer to that door. Well, it was kind of annoying, I had to constantly re-prop the door, and we weren't allowed to put signage or a door stop...maybe due to fire hazards or regulations? The main issue: Upper management d…

I can top that. I sit right next to a Very Important Executive, who has an office with a door that closes (I, of course, as a very unimportant peon, sit in a noisy open office next to QA people who are testing voice-activated devices all day). However, VIE’s office gets hot if he closes the door, so he leaves it open all day. He also doesn’t like to use his telephone headset, so he leaves his phone on speaker. All day. Every day. And the thing is, he’s actually a really nice guy - it’s like it never occurs to him what an inconsiderate officemate he’s being to everybody around him.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#114
post #7

People put with noise far more than they have to. Here are a few of my experiences: - moved into an office where a very noisy dot-matrix printer printed out every opening and closing of a door in the building. Nobody ever looked at the printouts. I unplugged it and put it in a dumpster. Nobody ever complained. - working for an oil company, my boss was sitting next to a big HP plotter that was horribly noisy - he wore…

My biggest hurdle—aside from undocumented code—at my new company, is fucking mouth noises from coworkers and the sound of crumpling snack bags in an open office. It's to the extent where I have to leave the area and regain composure before mentioning it. If I can't find a way to manage, I'll leave, but I'm not in the financial position to have that luxury yet. What will probably happen, is I'll work up to a slow comp…

When noise gets bad for me, I put in foam ear plugs, wear large headphones and use the following command to summon a pleasant oasis somewhere under a tropical waterfall far from the misophonic hell.

alias noise='play -n synth brownnoise synth pinknoise mix synth sine amod 0.02 80'

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#115
post #33

After living in Europe for some years now, I find whenever I am back in the US, it is really irritating (not misophonia-level, more just a "what the fuck are you thinking") how unnecessarily loud everyone seems to be by default in the US. Seems common that people are speaking easily twice as loud as is necessary to accomplish the communication required. Lower your voice.

Americans are a blessing compared to our beloved Italian and Greek brethren :)

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#116
One compounding problem is that (in my experience) we haven't worked out socially acceptable ways to negotiate noise levels in offices.

I.e., it's not always clear what the standard is that everybody is expected to meet, and there's no risk-free way of asking somebody to be quieter.

And so, in addition to anger at the noise itself, we also have a recipe for simmering resentment and impotent rage.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#117
I think that the open plan office trend is stupid. It is not good for productivity and it is not good for noise.

People collaborate less in open plan offices compared to traditional private offices. Yet open plan offices are promoted as strengthening cooperation.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#118
post #100

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. Colleagues next to me eating hard carrots, chips, anything crunchy. Or Chinese expats who slurp their soup and coffee (normal in their culture; rude in mine)... it drove me crazy. The singing one drove me insane at my last job. An office la…

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…

If they ever have a sequel to Office Space, this could be a funny addition.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh geez, yeah, I'm definitely not endorsing self-medicating with nicotine, just saying, that I did, and that if nicotine helps you concentrate, you might wanna get evaluated for ADHD. I was never a smoker, and I vape the lightest dose nicotine available (3mg/ml). I have definitely developed a light addiction over the years, but I can go all day without needing my vape. The worst my cravings get are a feeling of "Man,…

Huh.. your experience sounds similar to mine, although I was a heavy smoker for ~10 years. I currently vape 3mg and a) my vape never leaves the house (I never vape at work or around town) b) I often forget about vaping c) I left on a two week vacation, forgot my vape at home and nothing happened. I have the exact same craving sensation 'would have been nice to have a vape right now', usually when I'm bored. But I am…

It does. A very fun hobby, with lots of cool toys. I already mix my own juice. Originally that was just to save money, but now mixing is its own hobby. What do I feel like this week? My usual apple-flavored juice? Do I want to throw a little cranberry in this week just for fun? Or maybe I'm in the mood for something minty, my wife likes mints so we've always got an array to choose from.

I haven't even gotten into the world of rebuildables or anything like that. I use a basic Smok sub-ohm box (a T-priv), that I'm probably going to upgrade to the latest model in a few months, but I know there's an entire world of vape devices out there I've barely even glimpsed over the horizon, let alone explored. Luckily it's not too hard to talk myself out of fancy new hardware ($$) when my current mod gets the job done.

But flavors? I went and spent around $70 on flavors a couple weeks ago. Sounds crazy, but it's still cheaper than spending $100/month on commercial juices. And now I have a vast array of cool flavors to play with, and design my own recipes from.

Vaping can absolutely become a dangerous hobby.

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