How many tarmac earmuff people do you see getting promoted to a senior position? This sort of thing, even if it's unfair, absolutely lowers your status in the

How many tarmac earmuff people do you see getting promoted to a senior position? This sort of thing, even if it's unfair, absolutely lowers your status in the company. In one previous job with a noisy open-plan office, I actually tried wearing some factory-grade ear plugs, small little yellow ear plugs that you couldn't see unless you came up close. They weren't perfect, but the ambient noise was so distracting that I gave them a try. Within a week, my boss had a 1-1 meeting with me to tell me that some people thought it was very rude that I was wearing earplugs, and that it made it seem like I was unwilling to participate. I was actually training an intern and helping a team of three others with a software tool I wrote for them, so I was far from not participating, and all of my peers were vocally supportive of me wearing the ear plugs if they helped. I learned later that one of the C-level executives had made a walk through of the research work space and he just simply "didn't like" seeing someone with ear plugs. Headphones == acceptable, possibly even sexy cool start-up geek. Ear plugs == tacky, borderline Aspbergery nerd who isn't being good enough office eye candy