Wednesday, August 5, 2009

please talk louder, I can't hear you

The personnel manager of my company is seated in an office near my cubicle. This morning, when I arrived, she was engaged in what turned out to be a lengthy conversation with her assistant. The conversation was loud, and large pieces of it drifted into my consciousness. Quite a lot of it was of a personal nature. At times the conversation would become muted, at which point I surmised they were talking about something (possibly work related) that they didn't want others to hear about. This was an indication to me that they were aware of the fact that people sitting nearby could hear every word of what they were saying.

Later, around 10 am, the guy in the cubicle adjacent to me began having a loud and detailed telephone conversation about his car loan. This went on for about five or ten minutes.

Then at around 2 pm, a guy further away began having a rancorous phone conversation, apparently with a car mechanic, about the unsatisfactory service he'd received. Despite the fact that he is two rows away from me, I could hear every word.

In between all this was the incessant chatter from two nearby cubicle dwellers who can't seem to stop free associating about non-work related topics for a large part of the day.

I think my number one complaint about my current job is the incessant noise due to inconsiderate coworkers who have different standards about what constitutes appropriate workplace discussion and the volume thereof.

I am a programmer, working at a software company. That means I spend long hours thinking in front of a computer. Ideally, I'd be sitting in an almost noise-free environment, with infrequent interruptions. For example, right now I am at home typing at my computer. There's a bit of noise from the apartment across the hall - I sometimes hear a child making, well, child noises. Sometimes there's car noise from the parking lot. Overall, it's pretty quiet, and there's no sound of people talking. At home, this is true all day long.

Normally, I am a very focused person, and I find I can frequently block out the conversation noise at work. After about a year at my current place, that no longer seems to work. I've noticed that several coworkers use headphones. I don't like headphones; they eventually begin to hurt my ears. Further, I do not focus well with background music drilling into my brain non-stop. I work much better with quiet, and it's frustrating being forced to take steps to block out noise which should not be there in the first place. Because these people are not even having work-related discussions. They are just blabbing about personal stuff during work hours.

The company culture overall encourages this. I'm within earshot of a couple of more senior people who have loud phone conversations (work related or personal) from within their offices. These are not cubicle dwellers, but they still find it necessary to leave their doors wide open when talking on the phone. What's amazing to me is that these people do actually sometimes close their doors when on the phone. Presumably this means something particularly private is being discussed. Don't they realize that no one wants to hear their non-private discussions, either? Just be considerate and shut the door when having a conversation, for crying out loud!

In my list of grievances at my current job, this ranks pretty high. The noise is bothersome, but just as aggravating is the apparent lack of consideration by numerous employees. Sometimes it seems like these people are deliberately talking loudly as a way of showing how important they are. Or maybe they're just thoughtless blowhards. Either way, I wish they'd STFU. But I guess that's not going to happen, so I need to put my ass in gear and start looking for a new job.

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