S1E12: Noise in the Workplace

Be vewy, vewy quiet!

I’m increasingly aware lately of the noise in my work-from-home environment. It’s hitting me hard, like a hammer on a nail. Which, not coincidentally, is one of the sounds I am hearing on a consistent basis in my daily work life. ????

I suspect many of you are experiencing the same, especially those now working from home and dealing with things like children and school work being blasted over the computer and all the sounds in the neighborhood that maybe you didn’t have to worry about when you reported to an office. ?? ??????? ???? ????

My husband was home for several weeks during the early days of The ‘Rona lockdown. He is super quiet, but even so, it was sometimes hard to concentrate in my home office. When we get accustomed to a certain environment, anything different can bring out a hyper-awareness. ??

I’m probably more sensitive than average to noise in the workplace on any given day. I don’t play music while I work unless my task is brainless and repetitive (or if I’m having a very stressful day…60-second dance party anyone?).

When you report to an actual office, there is some control. A lot of companies pump in white noise to drown out the general murmur. You might not hear Karl clipping his fingernails three cubicles down and you can’t quite make out Olivia’s heated phone conversation with her teenaged daughter. ??

You also have the strength-in-numbers effect.

???? If someone is playing music without headphones, chances are at least 50% of your coworkers are ready to throw that fucking radio down the stairwell.???

???? Sometimes you have to lay the smack down on the loud-ass people in the break room, channeling your inner Karen to remind them that some people still have to work through lunch. The other people in the break room and nearby cubicles will silently thank you. You won't hear the gratitude, exactly, but you'll see it in their weary but appreciative eyes. They might even give you a subtle fist pump with their tuna sandwich. ??

???? Your aisle-mates will build an altar and worship you after you ask the asshat contractor to NOT broadcast his insecurity out into the aisle with his loud, obnoxious voice and inflated ego. No one thinks he's as important as himself.

Generally, the office environment is fairly quiet.

?? However, at home it’s a whole different story.

I can usually control what’s going on inside my house. But I can’t control what goes on in my neighborhood.

??It seems as though The Covid has inspired a lot of people in my subdivision to catch up on their landscaping and yard work. In addition to the normal summer mowing activity, there has been a lot of tree trimming, grinding, driveway resurfacing, and deeper clean up. ??

There are motors running almost every single day.

The other day I was dealing with constant chain saws and woodchippers and leaf blowers.

My neighbor Ed was having some heavy yard cleanup done, and someone else was getting trees cut down.

The entire day was one loud noise after the other. Buzzing, sawing, grinding, blowing. All fucking day.

And I have no control over that. ??

I know what you are thinking. Beth Anne, this isn’t really about the noise, is it? It’s about you being an anal-retentive control freak.

I know that! I know! It’s beside the point. I am a control freak, I readily admit.

It’s still loud.

What am I supposed to say? Sorry, Ed. You can’t blow your leaves or mow your lawn? I cannot and would not do that. I’m a control freak, I’m not a dick.

My neighbors on the other side have been doing extensive renovation. Thank goddess it’s starting to die down, but for weeks and weeks all I heard all day long was hammering and a table saw.

I can't ask them to not remodel their kitchen. Hi, I’m an uptight, noise-sensitive, work-from-home control freak, please set your new cabinets and floors aside to accommodate my neurosis. Thank you.

? It doesn’t work that way.

Noise is fascinating to me, not only in the context of my current WFH situation. My husband and I have been looking for a house to buy, so it’s something I have been thinking about for my future home office. ??

If we end up in a residential area or subdivision, will I be dealing with this same yard shit all summer long? Will it be worse? Will I have motors going off or dogs barking every day? ??

?? Or do I opt for something super-quiet, but in the middle of nowhere with shitty internet and 30 minutes from the nearest gas station?

And am I making myself MORE sensitive to noise if I isolate?

I have friends who live in the middle of big cities. They leave their windows open in spite of heavy traffic all night long…cars beeping, bass thumping, sirens going off. Yet they sleep just fine.

I grew up in the country where I would be jolted out of sleep by the sound of a morning dove. That little coo would tear me from a deep sleep because in the country it’s deadly quiet. You can barely hear your neighbors’ cows because they live half a mile away. ?? ??

The ironic thing is, I don’t hate loud natural noise. ?

It was very windy the day my neighbor Ed and someone else nearby were having their all-day small engine competition. That evening the wind got very loud, whistling and rustling through the trees. It was kind of nice. ??

I don’t mind loud rain or thunderstorms. I find the sound refreshing.      

I can take white noise all day long, and is that really much different than a leaf blower???

There is no real lesson here, just observation. Noise is very subjective, and therein (I suspect) lies the problem. I’m okay blasting Pearl Jam in my own car but it annoys the shit out of me when someone else is playing their music loudly.??

It makes no sense.

?? What do you all think about noise? 

I put a post out on social media and got a lot of responses. Apparently, I am not the only person who has some quirks when it comes to noise tolerance in the workplace. Here are some of your comments.

From Kimberly:

I have contemplated murder over pen clicking. Just sayin'.

Fragrant food doesn’t bother me, but what does bother me is people who marinate in their perfume or cologne. The Scent Violators. Even if it’s a good scent (and it is NEVER a good scent), it is cloying. Remember, people...spritz out in front of you and then walk into it. That’s plenty.

If you think you no longer smell it…trust me, it’s there.

Melissa says:

I feel your pain. In my neighborhood they all mow on consecutive days, and just when you think they are done, it starts all over again.

If you are lucky enough to have a gap, you’re thinking “Yes! Finally! A few days of silence!”

Nope. It always gets filled by the seasonal maintenance like leaf blowing, tree trimming, and of course, someone needs a new deck or roof. Every freaking week.

This one is from Cathrine:

If you haven’t checked out S1E05 Egos and Asshats, I describe just such a person—Jorge – who would sit in the aisle face out and talk loudly like a fucking used car salesman.

You know why people do that? Insecurity. Because it’s never a benign conversation. It’s always bragging or trash talk. Every person I’ve heard do this is complaining about the company or a person; or they're talking to someone higher up and they want everyone around to know it; or worst, they are in a position of power themselves and exercising their authority in some way (yelling at a subordinate, barking out orders, etc.).

From Leslie:

Just the other day someone’s house alarm was going off in my neighborhood. Trill-chirp, trill-chirp for about 10 seconds, then silence. Then it would start back up again. Those are the ones that trick you. You think it’s done but then it starts again.

It’s like when you hear bass thumping and you pray it’s a car. The vibration stops and you rejoice, but then it starts back up again and you realize it’s either coming from a house or the car isn't moving. Please, god, no.

From Caroline:

Normally ticking clocks don’t bother me unless I’m in a super-boring meeting and I can hear one. At my last job some conference rooms had old-school clocks and if it was really dry meeting material, it would drive me batty. The ticking was a constant reminder of how slow time was actually progressing.

Noise at night isn't usually problematic for me. But light is.

My husband Sean usually goes to bed after me so I am sleeping when he plugs in his watch charger. A few hours later I'll wake up. Even though I’ve successfully snoozed through at least two REM cycles with the little blue light on, if I wake up and see it, I can’t deal, I just..cannot..deal. I can’t get back to sleep. I have to throw a sock or something over the light to hide it.

Sean has pointed out (rightly so) that it cannot possibly bother me because I slept with it on already, but it still does. It doesn’t make any sense. I know this.

From Jodie (check out the podcast audio for my brilliant imitation of a basset hound barking, link below):

Yeah, for real. The occasional barking dog doesn’t bother me. Probably because I had dogs for 13 years. But if your dog goes at it for more than a minute, get your ass outside and pull it in. No one wants to hear that. It’s a violation of the social contract.

I don’t get how people who own the dog can tolerate hearing the barking. When my dogs would bark, they wouldn’t go more than a few seconds because I couldn’t stand it myself.

A classic from Karen:

NO! Receptionist…hear me: Absolutely not. This is a top violation. Just NO! I would go apeshit.

Look. I like Disney tunes. That Little Mermaid song? I sing it in the shower.

But I don’t want to hear it over and over and over. And I don't want to hear it at ALL in the workplace.

Actually (being passive aggressive) I would probably bring in a boom box and blast AC/DC or KISS over the little fucking mermaid and I guarantee everyone would be cheering.

But seriously. Do people have no sense of the social contract? EARPHONES. For the love of all that is human.

And finally, from my high school friend Amy:

I shut mine off. I shut off all my visual and audio notifications. Which can be problematic because if something doesn’t reach out and punch me in the face, sometimes I’m so head’s down in 50 different things that I miss it and then I’m late for a meeting.

But I had to shut it off. There’s nothing more embarrassing than presenting during a meeting and having a private notification come up where you can read the first line or two. As a manager, it could be something confidential. Or, worse, it will be my husband asking if we are going to binge-watch Supernatural later.

?? “ARE WE GONNA CATCH SOME SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER TONIGHT?”

??Thank you again to the Social Media family for their words of wisdom and profound insight on Noise (and other distractions) in the Workplace. ??

Epilogue

I just want to note that as I am writing up this written version of S1E12 Noise In the Workplace…on a Sunday afternoon…I am listening to the "lovely" sound of my neighbor’s fucking leaf blower going off for the last half hour. It's one of the fun things about living on a mountain in the middle of the woods. And by “fun” I mean “I’m going to break someone's window.”

?? Maybe I need to move my office to the basement. ?? ?? ??

Grit whisperers, thanks for indulging me in my rants. And many thanks to the social media tribe for once again providing awesome perspectives on important topics like damn noise in the workplace.

I would love to hear more of your thoughts about noise or any other topic, so shoot me a DM or comment. For more corporate fun, follow #cafegrit.

I’m also on Instagram @thebeann67.

We do have a Facebook group - Café Grit - where we continue these conversations in a private setting. Look us up!

Links to your favorite podcast platforms are available at the Café Grit Buzzsprout website here: https://cafegrit.buzzsprout.com/

Thank you again and may your working days, whether at home or in an external office, be filled with exactly the right amount of silence for your sanity.

Talk to you soon…Take it easy.