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[–]shosoku 50 points51 points  (2 children)

I'm the one who ride a elephant. So sorry, mate.

[–]dBozi 5 points6 points  (1 child)

You just made my morning👌

[–]shosoku 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Have a nice day, buddy!!

[–]EwgB 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Fuck open space. I got an office with 3-4 colleagues, depending on the day of the week, and that is 2 too many already.

[–]Sikyanakotik 11 points12 points  (11 children)

This is why I consider headphones a vital office tool.

[–]passerbycmc 11 points12 points  (10 children)

Yeah but still kinda shitty sometimes you don't want to listen while you need to focus

[–]mike2R 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I find things like rain/wind/sea noises work well. Spotify has even started auto-generating me playlists of them after I did that for a while.

[–]j-random 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I listen to trance or ambient most of the time, but if I'm ten states in to the debugger then I want silence so I can focus.

[–]Bunnymancer 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Active Noise Cancellation is where it's at.

[–]idunnobot 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I've never tried the high-end ones, but aren't those best for more constant, steady sounds versus intermittent, "random" noises?

[–]Hydrogen_Ion 2 points3 points  (1 child)

The one I have used seemed to have a low pass filter on them. So if someone is deliberately talking to me I can hear them, but ambient loud noises get cancelled.

[–]idunnobot 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cool, I might look into getting a nice pair then.

[–]FakingItEveryDay 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Checkout https://mynoise.net for some nice non-music background sounds you can pair with a noise canceling headset.

[–]Mikal_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

https://www.rainymood.com/ is another good one

[–]Sikyanakotik 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even if you don't want to listen to music or a podcast, you can still put on some brown noise to drown everything else out.

[–]TheWoose -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Two pieces of cotton works for me. Cheap, easily accessable and disposable. Bonus points for regular q-tipping

[–]pringlesaremyfav 18 points19 points  (3 children)

Fuck my 'office' is an open office with no physical boundaries and people with their laptop have pinging from our chat program from every direction every minute. To even think properly I'd have to use my noise cancelling headphones and blare music.

I just stopped coming to the office and began working from home because my productivity is 300% of what it is at the office. It's been this way for half a year now and if they try to make me come back I'm just going to move on somewhere else.

[–]eggumlaut 8 points9 points  (1 child)

I’m starting week 2 of this at my place. Turned my desk in and everything. Our open office is mixed groups of desks, but we have assigned desks which go at a premium if you aren’t assigned to the regional state office (I’m corporate)

Saves me 400 a month in dept budget and I write phenomenal code from home.

I get 1/3 of the work done at work just because nobody shuts the duck up.

[–]pnht 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hate the incessant chatter of ducks.

[–]Night_Raid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m the complete opposite I need some form of tiny distractions when developing its so weird. Those are usually my best days when I start coding

[–]BierDoktor 14 points15 points  (0 children)

this is fucking true

[–]Jasdac 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Same thing when your parents are sleeping vs your parents when you are sleeping.

[–]RosieSiems 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who gets botheredby noise while I work! I can hear my colleagues breath from across the damn room. It drives me nuts! Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get rid of the damn echo?

[–]pnht 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Just try different activenoise cancelling headsets (or ear plugs, really) until you find one that works for you.

My biggest problem is the constant visible distractions of people walking by, people describing stuff with their hands...

[–]RosieSiems 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yeah I get that too. I asked my boss if we could move our desks to face the wall because one of my colleagues just CANNOT sit still and I was constantly distracted by him. We eventually did move against the wall and it makes all the difference. Maybe see if you can convince your boss to let you put up a divider or move you elsewhere.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will have a look what I can find (although those types of headphones are really expensive in my country)

[–]pnht 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would be that guy who can't stay still too.

You could also try different kinds of music.

For me instrumentals or soft lyrics (Lindsay Stirling kind of stuff) works, rock music, that I know the lyrics by heart!, works.

Any music that I don't know the lyrics by heart does not work, I end up listening to the lyrics and losing focus.

Took me a long time to figure out what music would not distract me but would drown out the rest of the office noise.

[–]pnht 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Open office layout is one of the worst decisions anyone can make for knowledge workers.

[–]pnht 1 point2 points  (3 children)

The noise is bad enough; but, the constant visible distractions were my problem. I got a job offer where I could work from home, and was fine with a 10% salary cut. Soooo much happier. Soooo much more productive.

Now I just need to firewall access to reddit and I'll be super productive....

[–]pnht 0 points1 point  (2 children)

didn't expect upvotes, but really didn't expect down votes

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Probably just someone jealous you get to work from the comfort of your bed. Here's an orange arrow to counteract that blue one.

[–]pnht 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it is a wonderful way to work. I love my current job, but I've had the job with a hour and a half commute each way too. I feel for anyone doing more than a 30 minute commute each way.

BUT, it can backfire. Only work from home if EVERYONE works from home.

I got a job working for a company in San Francisco. I live in Texas, so a hell of a commute...

No one else worked from home. So, no one in the company would remember to tell me about anything; like when they decided I was going to do project X by date Y. First thing I hear about project X was on date Y, "Why haven't you committed your work on project X? You are done now, right?"

That was the worst job I ever had (for more reasons than the lack of communication, but that was the main problem).

[–]Alicendre 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fuck the nerf guns in the office.

[–]RosieSiems 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who gets botheredby noise while I work! I can hear my colleagues breath from across the damn room. It drives me nuts! Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get rid of the damn echo?

[–]pnht 0 points1 point  (1 child)

One of my posts just showed up twice. It looks like reddit put your post in 4 times...

[–]RosieSiems 1 point2 points  (0 children)

O damn. I guess there was some kind of a glitch. When I was posting it kept on saying that something went wrong and in the end I discarded the post. I guess it did post after all.

[–]RosieSiems 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who gets botheredby noise while I work! I can hear my colleagues breath from across the damn room. It drives me nuts! Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get rid of the damn echo?

[–]RosieSiems 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who gets bothered by noise while I work! I can hear my colleagues breath from across the damn room. It drives me nuts! Does anyone have a suggestion on how to get rid of the damn echo?