Co-workers can sometimes be the best and worst of your job
on any given day. In PEter's role it's
fair to say this is a daily situation in which our unsung Hero has to find the
courage and patience to not be destructive.
For a better visual and understanding I sat with PEter for a
week, and found that the irritating noises and volume levels are excruciatingly
painful to deal with. Even worse he has
made several please in writing and verbally to management and HR, but this echelon
of guarded and self-absorbed mid to high level paying positions and managers
only have deaf ears when asked to assist with a problem preventing productive
work being done. If only PEter had those
deaf ears it could be a blessing for his career future.
So here is what exists.
Imagine you are sitting in the center of a circle and you are surrounded
15" out from your center by a metal and glass open cubicle that only runs
four feet high. "It's infuriating
to have to list all the annoyances since many also come from not even directly
attached to my cube", PEter says.
"Visualize this, the first and most annoying instances of people
around me". PEter is clearly
beginning to increase his speech volume and hand signals are getting twitchier;
the high level of irritation this must cause him and those around is extremely
apparent to any general observer. PEter continues by explaining the primary
"Noise Intruders" he calls them.
"Close your eyes and visualize these personalities sitting just
within a few feet of you for 6-12 hours a day, also in the same ill-conceived
cubicle environment. The digital noise
guy; the worker who finds that he needs all devices in his control to have
annoying and varied sounds for all transactions. Such as email, calls, texts,
IM. Oh yeah, and also has the habit of
leaving all devices at overly necessitated volumes and leaving said devices on
his desk even when not there. It's like
in the current day we hear car alarms constantly and yet because they have
become such nonsense and useless, no one even turns their head other than to
scream how annoyed they are". I
feel bad for PEter and realize it's not fair that he has to be the one to quit
or leave his job because of this. He is
absolutely more than capable of performing his current position at very high
levels but the level of ignorance, distraction, and low level busy work has him
chained to low production and low quality since he cannot get the focus he
desires and needs to match his personality and obtain focus.
Here he has only discussed one individual but we see much
more is coming. In-bound now is the
Medical cougher, hacker, clear your throat constantly guy. "Don't
mis-understand I'm not talking about the
every couple hours someone coughs. I'm
certain this dude has a medical condition though I can't begin to imagine what
it is, nor can I even understand how he is not in pain. Throughout every day it's every couple of
minutes quite literally that he is making some weird throat noise and follows
with the clear your throat cough of sorts.
It's loud and it's constant and does not help much to drown out the
digital noise guy. Well, I guess at least they are different sounds which do
help white noise generators to work slightly better".
Whew he's just getting started. I intently listen to him continue and already
can feel my own fist and teeth clenching at what this must be like in
person. Perhaps if it was once in a
while it could be tolerated a bit easier. However, I also know there is a noted
disorder issue called Misophonia. This
is a very legitimate issue and sadly has many sound triggers, it also develops
into rage within a person. I'm
personally concerned for PEter and where this is headed in the days, months, and
years to continue if he does not get assistance from his employer. Soon!
I'm just infuriated with the lack of importance that this
company takes with issues that impact productivity and creative solutions. They pour millions into R&D but give a
shit about QA, I mean what kind of company prospers in that environment. It's the disposable generation; rather than
QA something for long term and customer satisfaction, they'd rather just
release a new version or technology. "Ok,
where was I, Ugh! Sorry, every time I
start talking about this I get just intensely annoyed to the point I have to
actual remember to breathe normally".
We have covered the Digital Noise Guy, The Throat Sufferer, now onto the
Non English Speaking Laugher.
"Yeah" PEter goes on almost apologetically as he knows to most
people they see this as trivial. Not
him. For him this is a severe and
chronic problem that obviously is going to be dealt with one way or another; I
fear that we don't know in what direction though.
PEter talks about the Laughing guy. This one's annoying because it's a person with
an office that has a real door. Imagine
that, you can close your door to keep your personal shit personal. Though it's clear they don't care. We've done all our research and sincerely we
don't have an issue with open environments, and it seems to work for a lot of people. Collaborative and socially communicative
environments have their place.
Unfortunate though is that issue for these locations that don't provide
alternative environment or arrangements to those who need it is detrimental. So he tells me the Laugher guy is often
having social visits and laughs loudly.
Great for him that he is amused, "but picture this" PEter
retorts. "This guy is not necessarily
an 'I live to Work' person, though we'll get into that one later'. 'He comes in on regular shift hours and is
pretty consistently talking his alternate language to the Digital Noise Guy who
sits in front of me. It's just plain
rude and I want to throw the hardback edition of War and Peace at his
head!". Rage is starting to make its
ugly rearing in PEter's story. The
laughing guy will spend his work day with the office door open all day, which
is less than three feet from PEter's chair.
He will socialize, laugh loudly and more than half of his speech is in
some other language openly to the Digital Sound Guy. Here now I understand why this one gets
frustrating. PEter explains that the
Laugher then works quite late most evenings in nice solitude. Meaning that once everyone leaves the office,
he finally shuts his cake hole and actually works. How do I know that? Well when shadowing PEter I saw this on
several occasions where PEter had to also stay late just to try and get
something accomplished when all the noise variants have left the premises. The fucking Laugher decides to use office
hours for his social day where it surely irritates more than just our subject
here. To stay later after hours though
is just insulting, why can't he just walk the walk like the rest of the damn Lemmings
in the office building.
SO, are you still with me here. We got the Non English Laugher who uses after
hours’ time to work, the Digital Noise Guy that keeps everything on audible
noises and has frequent instances setting it off, and the Throat Sufferer. PEter laughs as I re-iterate what I'm
hearing. He tells me how he wishes
that's where it stops. To the despair
and desperation of PEter it only continues.
Onto the old IBM386 Keyboard clacker guy. This is another gem. 'The only thing that helps me tolerate this
one even a little is that every time I see him I can't help but get an image in
my head of the Alien from MIB who is the tall scraggy dude and lumbers
around. I pretend this is all not
real... that is until he sits down and stars banging on those keys from his
1960's style keyboard. You know the
one's, they used to come only with those desktop PC's that had 80MGb hard
drives and weighed about fifty pounds"
For whatever reason that's his choice of keyboard. To probably help himself drown out that
incessant click-clack, he also has a 70 desk clock radio sitting next to
him. I want to get up and yell at him,
'Hey Fuckhead, you’re in an open cubicle environment. Take a look around you, all of us are wearing
headphones, it's called respect for your fellow co-workers!". He's not done explaining this guy. Hmm, so he click clacks, listens to his radio
(thankfully it's jazz at least so a bit easier and no bass thumping) and the
cu-de-gras loves to argue with his teenage son on the phone. It doesn't take much for anyone to realize he's
not the type of father you want to have.
Loves to berate his child and argue in his 'adult' voice and must not
care what all of us are thinking of him as he does this. He never apologizes and it's not just an
unusual occurrence.
PEter is getting annoyed even towards me it seems now as he
has to relive the moments. Let's take a
break I tell him. Going outside to try
and find a non-populated or noise place is challenging from his work location
but it's a much needed break at the moment.
We'll get back to the Co-workers after a break... Stay Tuned
