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One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Drives me bonkers. Maybe it's half that we don't have societa

One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Drives me bonkers. Maybe it's half that we don't have societal etiquette around open offices.

coldtea 10y ago
>One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Nothing that some clever electricity trap on the headphone exterior can't fix.
aclsid 10y ago
Just tell him it is annoying, half-jokes work wonders for this kind of stuff: hey, you should watch out for this guy, he will drive you insane with his headphone assault, as if he was testing a mic or something. I worked with this great guy once but he had this tendency to fart from time to time, until during lunch with the team, I just said, jesus, I'm going to install a fart detector under every chair to see who is the sucker farting all the time and then just call him out loudly. Not going to say that it worked 100% but, it was like a 90% improvement, plus we all had a big laugh every time we hit the topic.
BoorishBears 10y ago
One of my colleagues starts huffing about once a second when he's working on something "intensive (from what I can tell)" (to simulate what I mean, inhale, hold your breath, then suddenly force it out of your mouth against your throat, incredibly loud, and even disrupts my own breathing sometimes) It could be some sort of tic that he struggles with. He's single handedly the reason that I started bringing headphones to work and my morale since he joined us has never been where it was before, except days when he's not in. In fact, on more than one occasion I felt in a really good mood, tried to reflect on why, and realized "oh! he's not here today!" But how can one approach someone about something like that? It drives me insane and if I left the company tomorrow it'd be in the top 3 things that made me leave, but it could very easily be a medical condition! I don't even want to bring it up with a third party because of how immature it sounds "That guy's breathing patterns make me upset", and because I have my own breathing problems (chronic nasal congestion), and sometimes my nose makes whistling sounds! I wonder how many coworkers have been annoyed to the high heavens since I started wearing headphones to cover up that guy's breathing, and was unable to hear my own nose whistling (if I hear it I can usually go to the bathroom and clear my nose a little and it goes away) Sometimes I eat a late lunch or I eat certain foods and my stomach gets really noisy. And I don't mean passing gas, just the sound of my stomach growling loudly. I'm sure it's incredibly annoying to deal with, but how would someone approach me about that? "Hey, could you quiet down your stomach when I'm focusing?" Stuff like that is why open offices are horrible. For every positive interaction I have because the guy I talk to is "right next to me", there's some glaring horribly stressful part that wipes out any gains. I think people use open offices as a crutch for poor communication culture anyways, the fact someone isn't "right next to you" shouldn't mean they have a hard time interacting with you when they need to. To me it feels like a zoo, there's no privacy, almost never a quiet moment, and I'll definitely be reluctant to work at a company with open offices again. There are things between "every office is a sound isolated box with no windows" and "every desk is so close you can hear your coworkers food digest".
- lamontcg 10y ago
  Yeah, when you work in an open office you learn every tic that all your co-workers have. Leg jiggling alone can be super annoying. I also get annoyed by the floor bouncing around at work as people walk around (which might be related to open office plans since there's fewer internal walls so that the flooring acts like more of a drum? or it may just be old construction at the past 2 offices I've been in).

One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Drives me bonkers. Maybe it's half that we don't have societal etiquette around open offices.

coldtea 10y ago

>One of my colleagues constantly taps my headphones during webmeetings when they want to hang out. Nothing that some clever electricity trap on the headphone exterior can't fix.

aclsid 10y ago

Just tell him it is annoying, half-jokes work wonders for this kind of stuff: hey, you should watch out for this guy, he will drive you insane with his headphone assault, as if he was testing a mic or something. I worked with this great guy once but he had this tendency to fart from time to time, until during lunch with the team, I just said, jesus, I'm going to install a fart detector under every chair to see who is the sucker farting all the time and then just call him out loudly. Not going to say that it worked 100% but, it was like a 90% improvement, plus we all had a big laugh every time we hit the topic.

BoorishBears 10y ago

One of my colleagues starts huffing about once a second when he's working on something "intensive (from what I can tell)" (to simulate what I mean, inhale, hold your breath, then suddenly force it out of your mouth against your throat, incredibly loud, and even disrupts my own breathing sometimes) It could be some sort of tic that he struggles with. He's single handedly the reason that I started bringing headphones to work and my morale since he joined us has never been where it was before, except days when he's not in. In fact, on more than one occasion I felt in a really good mood, tried to reflect on why, and realized "oh! he's not here today!" But how can one approach someone about something like that? It drives me insane and if I left the company tomorrow it'd be in the top 3 things that made me leave, but it could very easily be a medical condition! I don't even want to bring it up with a third party because of how immature it sounds "That guy's breathing patterns make me upset", and because I have my own breathing problems (chronic nasal congestion), and sometimes my nose makes whistling sounds! I wonder how many coworkers have been annoyed to the high heavens since I started wearing headphones to cover up that guy's breathing, and was unable to hear my own nose whistling (if I hear it I can usually go to the bathroom and clear my nose a little and it goes away) Sometimes I eat a late lunch or I eat certain foods and my stomach gets really noisy. And I don't mean passing gas, just the sound of my stomach growling loudly. I'm sure it's incredibly annoying to deal with, but how would someone approach me about that? "Hey, could you quiet down your stomach when I'm focusing?" Stuff like that is why open offices are horrible. For every positive interaction I have because the guy I talk to is "right next to me", there's some glaring horribly stressful part that wipes out any gains. I think people use open offices as a crutch for poor communication culture anyways, the fact someone isn't "right next to you" shouldn't mean they have a hard time interacting with you when they need to. To me it feels like a zoo, there's no privacy, almost never a quiet moment, and I'll definitely be reluctant to work at a company with open offices again. There are things between "every office is a sound isolated box with no windows" and "every desk is so close you can hear your coworkers food digest".

lamontcg 10y ago
Yeah, when you work in an open office you learn every tic that all your co-workers have. Leg jiggling alone can be super annoying. I also get annoyed by the floor bouncing around at work as people walk around (which might be related to open office plans since there's fewer internal walls so that the flooring acts like more of a drum? or it may just be old construction at the past 2 offices I've been in).