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People put with noise far more than they have to. Here are a few of my experiences: - moved into an office where a very noisy dot-matrix printer printed out e
by zabzonk 7y ago
People put with noise far more than they have to. Here are a few of my experiences:
- moved into an office where a very noisy dot-matrix printer printed out every opening and closing of a door in the building. Nobody ever looked at the printouts. I unplugged it and put it in a dumpster. Nobody ever complained.
- working for an oil company, my boss was sitting next to a big HP plotter that was horribly noisy - he wore industrial-strength hearing protectors all the time, which didn't help if you wanted to phone him. I suggested that moving the plotter would be a good idea (there were lots of places to put it), but as usual with engineering companies, a sensible solution is not top of the list.
- howling air conditioning - that place I left after a couple of weeks.
Bottom line, there is no way you have to put up with noise - stand up for yourselves and just say "no".
- jagged-chisel 7y agoThe linked article doesn't mention noise as the subject of the article - the word appears once on the page. Are you in the right place?
- zabzonk 7y ago> The linked article mentions noise I guess so.
- gnode 7y agoAlthough not about noise pollution, it does bring to mind the question of how well some of these studies might have controlled for the effect of noise pollution, which would likely have an effect on cognition, and correlate with air pollution.
- jagged-chisel 7y agoNot sure how controlling for noise pollution affects studying air pollution - can you elucidate? Still, I don't understand how noise pollution anecdotes are relevant to an article on air pollution.
- gnode 7y agoI think the anecdotal comment was actually meant for a different discussion (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841).
- jagged-chisel 7y agoI think you're right. But commenter disagrees: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21566256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21566256 Likely because they didn't actually check the context.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- redblacktree 7y agoI want to ask you the same question. I wonder if it's a bug? The link I see at the top goes here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191115-office-noise-acceptable-levels-personality-type https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191115-office-noise-a...
- jagged-chisel 7y agoI double-checked myself every time I came back. And now, this is on the "Office noise" article. I don't have screenshots, so I have no idea what happened.
- redblacktree 7y agoYeah, could be a bug. I was confused by your comment for a while.
- tempguy9999 7y agoThat was a very, very stupid thing to do. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-parable-of-chestertons-fence/ https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-parable-of-chestertons-fen...
- flatline 7y agoThe logical conclusion to this is that we should not take any action in the face of incomplete information or uncertainty. This is typical of the dogmatic approach to reasoning that you find in many religious texts. The action of taking down the fence may not be based on ignorance, so much as curiosity. This could be viewed as subversive, and we can’t have that now can we?
- tempguy9999 7y ago> The action of taking down the fence may not be based on ignorance, so much as curiosity While I sort of agree, it's not about a fence but getting as much info as reasonably possible before acting. Next time you change something you don't understand because of curiosity, there may be injuries or deaths. > This is typical of the dogmatic approach to reasoning that you find in many religious texts That's pretty much what you've done here; taken the extreme view of what I'm trying to say. Back on the subject: the dot matrix printer was not the guy's property and it may have been streaming a hardcopy of some server's intrusion log. That would explain why it was there but nobody looked. It's there in case someone ever needed to. (edit: it's printed door movements, not server stuff. If the doors are opened by badges, it's still movement detection, at least of the most basic, people-y, sort)
- charliesharding 7y agoThat isn't at all the logical conclusion. You're projecting your dislike of religion and ironically being just as dogmatic in your dismissal. They were responding to the TLC poster saying they threw away a piece of machinery just because it was loud and they didn't see anyone using it. Given that characterization, would you say they were acting out of curiosity? Curiosity would be asking people what it was for before throwing it away - which is what the parable implores.
- 7y ago
- debt 7y ago“I unplugged it and put it in a dumpster. Nobody ever complained.” Amazing. Good work.
- tenebrisalietum 7y agoDid you mean to post here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565841
- Kye 7y agoThat's what I was thinking. I had both open in tabs from the front page. I can see someone getting mixed up doing the same.
- dang 7y agoWe've moved it to the noise thread from the air pollution thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21565624, where it was originally posted.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rdiddly 7y agoThe first story gave me a real laugh, thanks & well done! You dared to innovate!
- WhompingWindows 7y agoI worked in a place where my team of 8 was right next to a door that loudly clanged shut whenever one of the 150 people in the company used it, and they did 90% of the time as most of the desks were closer to that door. Well, it was kind of annoying, I had to constantly re-prop the door, and we weren't allowed to put signage or a door stop...maybe due to fire hazards or regulations? The main issue: Upper management didn't care, they all had their own offices that were removed and much nicer. The rest of us peons were in an open office hell, my team was on an island that anyone could walk around at any time...we were unmoored and near a clangy door, it was very hard to focus.
- commandlinefan 7y agoI can top that. I sit right next to a Very Important Executive, who has an office with a door that closes (I, of course, as a very unimportant peon, sit in a noisy open office next to QA people who are testing voice-activated devices all day). However, VIE’s office gets hot if he closes the door, so he leaves it open all day. He also doesn’t like to use his telephone headset, so he leaves his phone on speaker. All day. Every day. And the thing is, he’s actually a really nice guy - it’s like it never occurs to him what an inconsiderate officemate he’s being to everybody around him.
- PuddleOfSausage 7y agoIt probably doesn't occur to him. What's the worst that could happen if you let him know?
- Avamander 7y agoUsually door closers have a setting to slow down just before the door really closes, it can be adjusted to slow down the door further.
- eitland 7y agoThat said, it is still probably the correct place to put my observation (unless original author comes around to post it too ...): At one point I sat for months in a radio room, next to a really noise rack. Temperature was often 30 degrees C. The reason I sat there was because the sound of the fans were much easier to block out than people (without support contracts : ) popping in to ask questions while I where supposed to help people who had support contracts.
- dang 7y agoWe moved this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21566305 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21566305 to be a child of the post it is actually a reply to.
- brailsafe 7y agoMy biggest hurdle—aside from undocumented code—at my new company, is fucking mouth noises from coworkers and the sound of crumpling snack bags in an open office. It's to the extent where I have to leave the area and regain composure before mentioning it. If I can't find a way to manage, I'll leave, but I'm not in the financial position to have that luxury yet. What will probably happen, is I'll work up to a slow competency with their codebase, and they'll fire me before I get to quit. Optimistically I'll find a way to cope, either by dampening the noise or leaving the office for a coffee shop; something I've started doing.
- tempguy9999 7y agoWow, you're even more noise sensitive that me. Suggestion: noise cancelling headphones. Good ones are really effective.
- lowercased 7y agoThey do - bose qc20 have changed my life for the better. I did work short term in an open office where someone suggested it was "rude" of me to wear earphones. Same person chewed with their mouth open while eating crunchy food at their desk all day, within earshot. But.... I'm rude somehow.
- brailsafe 7y agoThat is absolutely bananas
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoYour situation is so absurd that I'm immediately reminded of the film "Joe vs. the Volcano". I think everyone here wishes you the best of luck.
- 1shooner 7y agoI know he can get the job, but can he _do_ the job?
- dilyevsky 7y agoAnecdotally, when I'm playing speed rounds on lichess if there’s any kind of background noise my score drops by 200 point instantly. I find that a good proxy for high-concentration activity and this realization made me change my routine to spend at least half of my office hours when there’s no one around.
- pkamb 7y ago- Asking your co-worker to mute their computer speakers whenever a "Slack Chime" plays loudly in the open office. (the better solution of course is to fully mute these notifications in Slack)
- kylecazar 7y agoI'm curious about this door access printer. Wonder if it was some attempt at building access logs, or if it was the product of some engineers having a slow day.