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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

#351

Post by hnick »

john-radio wrote: post #266
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…

I have this quality too and I'm surprised it isn't more common. Maybe people don't like to talk about it because we're worried people will think that we have something to hide. I don't even like to have conversations about more-than-superficial topics in crowded places. If a restaurant seats me across the table from my dining partner but elbow-to-elbow with random other diners at parallel tables, I will hate it and n…

You just made me realise that it might be related to why I like to sit on the same side of the table as my wife when going out (apart from easier food-sharing).

I think there's this interplay between privacy and intimacy. I don't want to give too much to strangers but want to get close when I decide to.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#352

Post by phyrex »

BurningFrog wrote: post #342
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…

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying this to be a jerk. This is not uncommon. There is a fair chance that your core annoyance is something else. That is, if you somehow got a perfectly sounds proofed workroom of your own, you would after a while realize that you're still irritable, find it difficult to concentrate etc. Often, we don't want to face our real problems and assign discomfort to some external thing we have no power…

Or it is actually the noise. For some people that is really how it is - I am one one of them

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#353

Post by tylerjwilk00 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #342
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…

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying this to be a jerk. This is not uncommon. There is a fair chance that your core annoyance is something else. That is, if you somehow got a perfectly sounds proofed workroom of your own, you would after a while realize that you're still irritable, find it difficult to concentrate etc. Often, we don't want to face our real problems and assign discomfort to some external thing we have no power…

It is also not uncommon for overcrowding to cause stress and irritation. Some people really do need lots of quiet personal space and time alone.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#354

Post by wenc »

waterhouse wrote: post #350
ken wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve never understood how some people believe that the problem of too much noise could be solved by adding more noise. There’s too much light in my eyes, and dark glasses are uncomfortable. Well, have you tried shining another light at your face? Maybe a different color of light would help.

Your comment seems a bit tongue in cheek and you probably know, but anyway... Theoretically, the brain can get used to certain kinds of regular noise and filter it out, and then, if the disruption is a small sound that occurs irregularly... if you add constant white noise that's louder than the sound, then the sound should get quite literally lost in the noise. There is an analogy to light that actually applies. Imag…

White noise is actually very harsh. When people say "white noise" they usually mean softer variants such as brown noise.

I sleep to brown noise (have done so for the past 8 years -- so this is not a fad thing for me), and I use a different brown noise with headphones at work to help me concentrate in a noisy office environment.

I use Noisli profiles to generate these noises, but any number of apps will do the job.

I won't claim it works for everyone, but this combination works very well for me.

p.s. Ear plugs at work also work amazingly well. Low tech and effective.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#355

Post by flocial »

peteretep wrote: post #336
magduf wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, you can use noise cancelling headphones but: >2. They don't really block all the noise and you live in anxiety waiting for that one blaring ringtone to squeeze through NC headphones aren't designed to block all noise, only repetitive noise, basically white noise. Other noises, like ringtones, actually are louder or easier to hear on many models of NC headphones, as is speech around you. Noise-cancellation's pur…

Probably not a particularly PC comment, but occasionally I am jealous of people who need hearing aids to hear that they can turn off if they need quiet

Considering the link between hearing and cognition I wouldn't be. Hearing loss is linked to cognitive decline and mental health issues.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#356

Post by ben509 »

brailsafe wrote: post #36
zabzonk wrote: 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…

I've been driven crazy by all that, and I won't say what else because I'm afraid that you'd notice it too.

What I'd suggest:

1. You're going to harp on it. It starts with the annoying sounds, but then you're telling yourself about how rude they are, how gross they are, the injustice of it all.

Yes, here and there you've got a point, but 99% of it is you trying to rationalize your feelings, and then it wants to assign blame because people are the perpetrators of it.

2. Take breaks to stop harping on it. I vape, so that's my excuse, but you don't even need one, you're just taking five minutes every hour or so to stretch your legs. Deliberately do something that occupies your mind and gets your stress levels down.

3. See if you can work from home a day a week, or even a half-day. Take vacation as regularly as possible.

I think it's both made worse by stress and increases stress levels, classic feedback loop, so my approach is to avoid it as much as possible and use other means to get my stress levels down.

You'll have good days and bad days, if you're really down and ready to yell at people, maybe talk to a shrink.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#357

Post by anon9001 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #191
magduf wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not even real milk...

"What's wrong with by bones? I always drink plenty of... malk?"

I thought that was absolutely hilarious when I saw it as a kid. Fast-forward a couple of decades and now this is on store shelves: http://malkorganics.com/

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#358

Post by purplezooey »

Foam ear plugs? Headphones? If you employees have to pull that just to get some quiet time to hear themselves think, something is wrong with your office. When can we go back to walls and thick oak doors... don't worry, we'll still have slack and email and Twitter and...

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#359

Post by dredmorbius »

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…

Raise the point with your partners, and the co-working space.

Consider alternatives. Libraries can be excellent work environments, if quiet. And talk to staff about getting a quiet area -- many libraries are tending increasingly to "conversations allowed", which can be annoying.

I'd find lack of access to my own frequently used materials, notes, papers, etc., to be frustrating, though.

Many academic libraries (ranging from community college, to public or some private colleges and universities) have quiet spaces.

Off-hours / off-season spaces may be findable, though that can get creative.

I'm rarely out without a few pair of high-efficiency earplugs myself. These can block much (though not all) noise quite effectively. You'll want the ones which block speech specifically, not just high-frequency sounds.

Re: Office noise bothers some people more than others

#360

Post by flukus »

BurningFrog wrote: post #342
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…

DISCLAIMER: I'm not saying this to be a jerk. This is not uncommon. There is a fair chance that your core annoyance is something else. That is, if you somehow got a perfectly sounds proofed workroom of your own, you would after a while realize that you're still irritable, find it difficult to concentrate etc. Often, we don't want to face our real problems and assign discomfort to some external thing we have no power…

> There is a fair chance that your core annoyance is something else.

People desiring quiet places or isolation to think isn't a particularly new phenomenon, so there's a good chance that this is the core problem.

That said there's a lot of things that can add stress and in isolation this one particular one might not be too bad. But then it becomes an optimization problem, there are many sources of stress that are hard or difficult to solve but the work environment is low hanging fruit and easy to solve so we focus on that.

This is why touring the office is an important part of a job interview, the places with a good environment will be happy to show you around. Fortunately some companies are so clueless they'll even advertise their modern open plan office, you don't even need to apply to those.

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