6 ms·
The Headphones Rule
- sublimit 14y agoReally, Hacker News? Is this what you want to see on the front page?
- RossM 14y agoEvidently
- timmillwood 14y agoDoesn't quite work when working from home, alone.
- duqee 14y agoSaw this as a funny meme a while ago, share it around. As for the need of a website with this on i'm not so sure its worth the domain cost to create this. Unless I am missing something. I thought this would be some cool project that detected my headphone jack input and play some music or a error message if not detected.
- Aardwolf 14y agoTwo headphones? How does that work?
- gosub 14y ago1 headphone = one ear covered 2 headphones = both ears covered
- afandian 14y agoOr a set of earphones + a set of headphones. You know, for maximum something.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- miahi 14y agoWell, I had to bring industrial earmuffs (30 dB) while working for one customer, as there was such a noise in their office (lots of people shouting at each other) that strong in-ear phones were not good enough.
- afandian 14y agoI had to do that when there wasn't enough space in the office and had to work with the designers. Interesting discussions to be had about the acceptability of background music through speakers. You'd be surprised just how wide-ranging and deeply-felt opinions can be!
- cbs 14y agoMaximum channels! I've been there, I needed program, preview and multiple intercom lines. Never again!
- afandian 14y agoI'm not sure if you're being serious or not. But it sounds exciting and dynamic whatever it is.
- rimantas 14y ago> 1 headphone = one ear covered Then no headphones is better. I love my music in stereo.
- cbs 14y ago"Rules" like this are silly to write down. By telling people that wearing headphones is a signal that someone wants to be left alone, you're asking people to make assumptions about those of us wearing headphones with no intention to make a statement about our availability. I wear headphones constantly, as do two of the guys I work with directly. We simply want to drown out office white noise, and wearing just one ear doesn't work for that. If Ryan is wearing headphones, that means he is secretly watching The Daily Show on the clock and there is no better time to interrupt him today. Sometimes my department will focus on changes to system audio, then everyone has headphones on. Try learning how to ask someone to leave you alone. Or, put a sign up on your desk that says "I'm "not here' today, email me instead", one of our guys does that, its pretty unambiguous.
- carlisle_ 14y agoI am pretty sure whoever put that site up is being highly facetious.
- jaredmcateer 14y agoI wouldn't be so sure. I know a handful of passive aggressive people out there that would think this is a great thing to print off and post above their desk so they can point at it when someone breaks the 2 headphone rule.
- Dystopian 14y agoI've worked with someone before who had this rule. It was great for company culture. /s
- bmj 14y agoWhy is this passive-aggressive? Many of us do work that often requires some period of concentration, yet most office cultures are built around constant interruption. And, many of us don't have office doors we can close that indicate to others that we are busy and would prefer not be interrupted. Is it unreasonable to make yourself unavailable to your co-workers all day, every day? Yeah, probably. Is it reasonable to have some period of uninterrupted work time? Most definitely.
- af3 14y agomonetization plan?
- coldarchon 14y agouseless post is useless.
- william_uk 14y agoWhen is Sean Parker joining your board... "Drop the 'The.' Just 'Head Phones Rule.' It's cleaner."
- ajack 14y agoHeadphones rule! Yeah!
- PommeDeTerre 14y agoThat would significantly change the meaning, at least in American English. Instead of "rule" being the noun and "headphones" the adjective, "headphones" could then easily be taken as the noun and "rule" the adjective with the change you propose. "The Headphones Rule" more obviously means "a regulation pertaining to the usage of headphones". "Headphones Rule" is very common slang meaning "headphones are superior".
- vixen99 14y agoWhat a waste of time and space.
- andypants 14y agoAgreed. Is this supposed to be funny? Serious? Interesting? I can't tell. Also, I don't think 'one headphone, two headphones' is quite right. Maybe the site means earphones?
- tehwalrus 14y ago> 1 headphone, you can talk to me if i like. How is someone supposed to know in advance whether you 'like'? isn't that the whole point of the headphones? or was this supposed to say "if you like"?
- adrianhoward 14y agoFor me it's more like (in a work environment) No headphones, I'm sitting in a quiet productive environment and you can talk to me 1 headphone, I need to pay attention to the world while I'm trying to focus on a podcast or something 2 headphones, work environment so fouled up and loud I cannot concentrate and I'm not in a situation to fix it / am feeling too lazy to fix it.
- johnchristopher 14y agoI wonder what the ratio of programmers suffering from tinnitus is going to be in 10 or 15 years. Being almost literaly forced to use headphones/earphones to perform one's job definitely says something about the working environnment. I think/believe it's a given we - programmers, sysadmin, or computer guys* - should be given a noise-free environnment to work in. Personnaly I can't focus on programming or any cognitive task (except my playing the guitar) while listening to music (even classicial, lounge, etc.). * in fact, everyone who needs to think hard about problems should be. Heck... everyone working in an office should be entitled to a noise-free environnment when needed.
- Cthulhu_ 14y agoI can't focus on my programming if it's noisy / there's people talking, but I don't feel right when it's dead silent either, :p. I like music while working. Also, having headphones on does not imply high volume / risk of hearing damage; using noise-cancelling (passive or active) headphones or earplugs, you can even lower the overall volume of noise you get daily; the din of a busy office room can be quite high in terms of decibels. And hearing damage is a factor of decibels * length of exposure.
- oftenwrong 14y ago>almost literaly forced AKA not forced. I use earplugs instead of loud music to counter outside noise. I rarely need them, though.
- johnchristopher 14y agoAKA almost literaly forced because while there may not be any bullet points in the contract forcing one to use headphones you'll get fired if you don't get your job done. And to get your job done in a noisy environnment you need to stick something into your ears. A tacit unwritten condition to get a job done is still a condition. On a side-note I find earplugs don't really work on the long-term. Sound is drowned out but not enough (for me). Moreover, if one has develloped tinitus, earplugs will make bearing it worse over time.
- muyuu 14y ago
- jbrooksuk 14y agoI can't focus without my music, it doesn't have to be loud but it has to be there, with bass and snares usually. You'd think it's pretty obvious though that when you have earphones in you're focused, you don't want to be interrupted, sadly though, that's not the case for where I work. I'm still spoken to even when I'm not listening, I'm working, it's okay to email me or poke me but don't keep talking. I'm not listening.
- tshadwell 14y agoIt's just wasteful to wear two headphones when you could give the other pair to someone else.
- Jgrubb 14y agoI'm printing this out as soon as I get to work.
- cardamomo 14y agoI work part-time as a barista, so I'll offer this version of the rule: The Barista's Headphones Rule Wearing headphones while ordering your drink? * No headphones, you get your drink as you wish * One headphone, I make your drink and shoot you a meaningful glare * Two headphones, I secretly make your drink decaf
- eloisius 14y agoLuckily, as a software developer, your primary function is not to respond to interruptions; they're just a career hazard. If you sell me a decaf drink, you're doing a bad job and deserve to lose it.
- thoughtcriminal 14y agoI disagree. Judging by his comment I think he would make a great barista: smart, lots of personality, and commands respect. Good on him.
- omni 14y agoAlternatively, if you're being a jerk to service staff, you deserve bad service.
- Foomandoonian 14y agoI have my own headphone rule: If I can hear your headphones over my headphones, then your headphones are too loud.
- DanielBMarkham 14y agoHere's my trick to using headphones without injuring my hearing over the long term: Wear earplugs. Put in some good quality shooter's earplugs to block out most of the room noise. Then headphones. Turn the headphones to the minimum volume necessary to hear the music. So now you have no background noise, and a nice, low soundtrack to help kick out some work.
- mleonhard 14y agoA more comfortable solution is to get some good noise-cancelling headphones. I have used Bose QC15s for about 3 years and QC3s for several years before that. They are indispensable to me. Audio-Technica makes some less expensive models that block nearly as much noise but are less comfortable to wear. I also hear good things about noise-cancelling earbuds.
- hagios 14y agoIn my case, this couldn't be more wrong. One needs only wave their hand in my periphery to get my attention--this encourages others to come to me to bounce ideas, get opinions, etc. Listening to music is definitely helpful to me when it comes to focusing on the task at hand, but it shouldn't come at the price of diminished capacity for collaboration.
- gbog 14y agowhat I prefer is don't disturb by default and ping by irc if you want to talk.
- t4nkd 14y agoThis reeks of immaturity. Not since high school has the sentiment of "I'm wearing headphones to be left alone" been a popular or reasonable one. At least during those years, peers could look at you and make the mistake that you're so deep that music has more influence/meaning than the world around you. If this is, as I feel, an attempt to legitimize this kind of "signal" to other professionals who want to collaborate with you, I feel pretty sorry for the kid who's hosting this. I can appreciate individuals who don't have the capacity to swap context throughout the day, but only when they can be mature enough to explain themselves to me like an adult; and I certainly don't need a visual accessory to que my interaction with them.
- jmj42 14y ago>I can appreciate individuals who don't have the capacity to swap context throughout the day, but only when they can be mature enough to explain themselves to me like an adult... But even that is a context switch, and context switching is expensive. Your 30 second interruption results in 15 minutes of lost productivity (these are just made up numbers). A passive signal that you are not to be disturbed at this time sends the same message without the context switch or, more important, the need to switch back into the work. For me, there's no workplace behavior more obnoxious than someone walking up to my desk and blabbing on about something while I'm in the middle of a critical section of code or on the verge of a breakthrough (these are the cases when I'm usually wearing headphones). Headphones, at the very least, signal that you should get my attention before speaking, and that I'll be with you in a moment because I can't afford an immediate context switch for your "problem." Edit: Spelling
- nickmain 14y agoEven a 3 second interruption can have consequences: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-a-3-second-interruption-doubles-your-odds-of-messing-up/267008/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-a-3-...
- GBond 14y agoRelated HN thread of a post from the PoV of the "other side": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3909409 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3909409 (spoiler: for MBA types, headphones = bad employee)
- masto 14y agoI made a geeky version of this using an industrial stack light, an Arduino, some MOSFETs, an RFID card reader, and node.js. Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/dX33N http://imgur.com/a/dX33N Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bButG4EWSfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bButG4EWSfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQK0fW6-7jA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQK0fW6-7jA As my desk is in the far back corner of the office, and the light is visible from anywhere in the room, people know if I'm heads-down on something, away from my desk, or available for interruptions without having to come over and potentially interrupt me by asking. I can change the light by scanning my building ID card or using a web interface. Note that this was done as an experiment to learn a bit about electronics, and a bit of an evolving joke to see how much random technology I can cram into a project. While I may be socially immature, I'm not as bad as "YOU CAN'T TALK TO ME WHEN THE RED LIGHT IS ON". I think it is useful, nevertheless, as an ambient cue when I am really trying to focus on a problem.
- ringmaster 14y agoA more sensible rule: If I'm wearing headphones in/over both ears, it's possible I can't hear you, so you might want to make sure you have my attention before you talk to me from behind for ten minutes then get upset when I don't respond. Actually, forget the headphone part of that rule.
- rvkennedy 14y agoHow about: no headphones, I can talk to you. 1 headphone, take it off: I require your full attention. 2 headphones, you're fired.
- ishbits 14y agoWhen I was younger I could enter the zone regardless of office noise. Now that I work at home I find I often have to add noise.
- jrs235 14y agoSo a few people like it, a lot of people don't. This has made HN front page. Regardless of whether it's suppose to be serious, funny, or facetious, I think it's working [by causing us to discuss it]. Look this discussion is actually a great thing we are having... some folks think this is a great idea while others don't. Many may have gone on never thinking that others might disagree. For those that despise it as passive/aggressive... this is your chance to let those who like this idea know it's not as cool as they may think.
- hdra 14y agowhat does wearing two headphones even means?
- visualcsharp 14y agoITT: Butthurt extraverts who can't imagine why anyone would want to be left alone. No, I don't want to hear about something your cat did last night. Leave me alone; I'm working.
- aj700 14y agoOk, maybe it's a troll. (What isn't?) 1. I don't understand. Is the wearer of 2 headphones not allowed to talk, or is he not allowed to be verbally addressed? 2. If all the girls are wearing headphones, how the fuck...? Am I RIGHT?!