3 ms·

A lot of people (in this thread, CEO of my company) say "just wear headphones". Noise should be opt in; not opt out. Recently all of marketing went to a confere

by lmiller1990 7y ago

A lot of people (in this thread, CEO of my company) say "just wear headphones". Noise should be opt in; not opt out. Recently all of marketing went to a conference for a few days; the difference in the quality and quantity of work done was noticeable...

baot 7y ago
>Noise should be opt in; not opt out. That's a great way of putting it. One of my pet peeves is along a similar line. I have a quiet voice. When I was younger, I had a quieter voice. The change happened because people were happy to ask me to repeat myself or, in a more blunt way, that I need to speak up. That's fine, it's my problem, it's me failing to communicate properly, and I've learned to be loud enough most of the time because of it. But it doesn't happen the other way. It's not 'OK' to tell someone they talk too loudly. You can try, and they may temporarily adjust (while, actually, thinking it's your problem) but they won't change their voice for good, like I had to. If it's a failure of communication for me to be heard by the person stood next to me, it should also be a failure for a person talking to someone at the same distance if I can hear them on the other side of a busy office or a train carriage. And if someone has a bassy vocal fry that penetrates walls, they should raise their pitch. I don't want to have to opt out of their conversation and, if I do, I have to be confrontational.
- ben509 7y ago
  You have to pick your battles. I've found I can politely request that people not have meetings standing three feet from me, and I can generally get people to not yell across the entire room. But every now and then this womans let off her ear-shattering "AHHH HUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUH" laugh and not once has my muse inspired me with words that would convey a gentle, face-saving admonishment. It's ultimately because she's laughing. Her laugh sounds like someone torturing a seal with a jackhammer, but my company policy is that it's a fun place to work. And that means people get loud, and if I don't like it, I can look for work elsewhere.
- jarofgreen 7y ago
  Very interesting. The autistic community refer to the "double empathy" problem - and now I'm wondering about parallels. Basically, when there is a failure to communicate between two people the blame should lie on both people - the person trying to communicate in the more common way in society shouldn't be able to put all the blame on the person trying to communicate in the unusual way.
afarrell 7y ago
Thats a problem for the individual to deal with, not the company. If your CEO has an employee who is bothered by the noise, they can just put that employee on a PIP if the employee is not able to focus and execute.
- afarrell 7y ago
  To clarify: I think a good company will deal with this problem as part of caring about its employees. I think the default though is for a company to say “we’ll worry about this when it becomes a problem” and for leadership to never notice it is a problem because 1) Those it bothers become the low-performers who have less psychological safety and influence. 2) Hiring good managers is hard and so managers who have the caring to listen to these concerns won’t have time to prioritize them amidst those of the 7-12 other people they have 1-1s with.

baot 7y ago

>Noise should be opt in; not opt out. That's a great way of putting it. One of my pet peeves is along a similar line. I have a quiet voice. When I was younger, I had a quieter voice. The change happened because people were happy to ask me to repeat myself or, in a more blunt way, that I need to speak up. That's fine, it's my problem, it's me failing to communicate properly, and I've learned to be loud enough most of the time because of it. But it doesn't happen the other way. It's not 'OK' to tell someone they talk too loudly. You can try, and they may temporarily adjust (while, actually, thinking it's your problem) but they won't change their voice for good, like I had to. If it's a failure of communication for me to be heard by the person stood next to me, it should also be a failure for a person talking to someone at the same distance if I can hear them on the other side of a busy office or a train carriage. And if someone has a bassy vocal fry that penetrates walls, they should raise their pitch. I don't want to have to opt out of their conversation and, if I do, I have to be confrontational.

ben509 7y ago
You have to pick your battles. I've found I can politely request that people not have meetings standing three feet from me, and I can generally get people to not yell across the entire room. But every now and then this womans let off her ear-shattering "AHHH HUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUHUH" laugh and not once has my muse inspired me with words that would convey a gentle, face-saving admonishment. It's ultimately because she's laughing. Her laugh sounds like someone torturing a seal with a jackhammer, but my company policy is that it's a fun place to work. And that means people get loud, and if I don't like it, I can look for work elsewhere.
jarofgreen 7y ago
Very interesting. The autistic community refer to the "double empathy" problem - and now I'm wondering about parallels. Basically, when there is a failure to communicate between two people the blame should lie on both people - the person trying to communicate in the more common way in society shouldn't be able to put all the blame on the person trying to communicate in the unusual way.

afarrell 7y ago

Thats a problem for the individual to deal with, not the company. If your CEO has an employee who is bothered by the noise, they can just put that employee on a PIP if the employee is not able to focus and execute.

afarrell 7y ago
To clarify: I think a good company will deal with this problem as part of caring about its employees. I think the default though is for a company to say “we’ll worry about this when it becomes a problem” and for leadership to never notice it is a problem because 1) Those it bothers become the low-performers who have less psychological safety and influence. 2) Hiring good managers is hard and so managers who have the caring to listen to these concerns won’t have time to prioritize them amidst those of the 7-12 other people they have 1-1s with.