I'm shocked at how many people here find loud environments to be totally OK, some even preferring those to quiet ones.<p>If you are working in absolute silence and start to feel uncomfortably, you can always introduce some custom noise, be it a rain sound or ocean shore or noise of any color you like. Feeling chatty? Take Bob to a cooler and chat what you want, he's a chatter, too. On the other hand, it is very problematic (and really rarely effective) to just stand up in the middle of the noisy room and ask everyone, however kindly you manage to do that, to shut up at least for ten minutes, because you absolutely cannot concentrate in this goddamn noise that's been driving you nuts since said Bob came in at 9:05.<p>The point being, I want to be in control of my sound environment. Preferably without the need of earplugs or bulky headphones or other extreme measures like showing up at 7 a.m. or staying late just to get some shit done when the office is finally empty. I cannot concentrate, cannot even think clearly if there is almost any kind of noise - chatter, music, phone talks nearby, traffic noise from the street when the window is open or almost anything else, including my own voice. I know a lot of folks that, like me, would rather spend a night in the forest than an hour in the open space office.<p>From some comments I presume that it is probably impossible to convey to some lucky people with their extreme tolerance towards loud sounds how excruciatingly painful constant, unavoidable noise may be, but let me try anyways: it is a real damn torture resulting in days of not zero but of negative productivity. It's been my worst enemy at every place that I've worked at (close second are constant distractions, but I think these two are cousins), to the extent that my only special requirement for any job or workplace now is: please, let me sit in a quiet place.
Americans don't value silence the way other cultures do (I'm an American btw). I'm not sure if it has to do with the ratio of introverts to extroverts, or if it's simply that we're an individualistic culture, but often I strain to hear in a restaurant these days. Anecdotally, I've noticed that the higher end restaurants tend to be quieter. Not sure if this is because of clientele or the higher quality construction of such places blocking more sound.<p>While I was in Japan, I noticed that it was quite possible (and many did) to take a nap in McDonald's. Conversations indoors tended to be very reserved.<p>As a country, I think we're getting louder. I've brought a Decibel Meter with me before and seen it hit north of 70dB. This constant level of noise everywhere we go can't be good for our hearing.
I'm amazed that this post has proven to be controversial. Let me relate my perspective as a profoundly deaf person working in an open-plan office space.<p>When I bring up the fact that the environment is too noisy, the number one suggestion people make is "why don't you turn off your hearing aids?" This is not practical for a number of reasons.<p>With my hearing aids off, I will not hear you. Which you might argue is kind of the point, but the moment you want to engage me in conversation, you'll wish that I somehow "just knew" when to make an exception, and respond, rather than (unintentionally, I assure you) treat you rudely by ignoring you. I've been ignored before, and I know other (hearing) people who have been ignored. I know how it feels and wouldn't wish it on anyone.<p>Then there's the isolation. This may sound familiar to you: there was a link on HN pointing to David Peter's "Being Deaf" (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4001727" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4001727</a>). If you haven't done so, be sure to check it out. The big takeaway is the feeling of isolation he feels in the workplace. That isolation is real. I have to fight it too. Turning off my hearing aids makes this worse, not better.<p>Turning off the aids is unsafe too. With my aids off, I will not hear a fire alarm. I speak from experience -- I had someone come to fetch me because I didn't have my hearing aids in when the alarm went off.<p>Some of you may have read Mike Mackenzie's "My journey to a cochlear implant" (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4883252" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4883252</a>) The big takeaway here is how much effort is needed by someone who is deaf in order to 'signal process' their way through a conversation. Even with my aids on, I have to make a strong effort just to get through conversations.<p>Hearing isn't a skill I could get better at if I just practice. The signal I hear is garbled; if I can't ungarble it, then my choices are to get you to repeat what you said clearly (not loudly), or give up.<p>So. If I should ever get the opportunity to work with any of you noisy, chatty, extremely talented people, I hope you won't mind so much if I ask you to follow ‘library rules’.
Is it too much to ask everyone to get used to it? I used to think that "this is just the way I am" and "I can't change" until I was forced to be adaptable, so here are some of my personal experiences:<p>I used to not be able to sleep if there was any light at all. Even regular curtains were not good enough, they had to be the ones that blocked out all light from outside. I sometimes would wake up just because someone turned on the light in the hallway, because it leaked under my door. I also had to turn my computer off, because the whirring of the fans would keep me wide awake.<p>And then I entered college.<p>People here are up 24 hours a day. Even I, during some weeks, am nocturnal due to homework. I never had a roommate, but I would wake up due to my neighbors roommates. I HAD to adapt, or else I wouldn't be able to survive. With this mentality, I was able to adjust myself so that I could sleep wherever, whenever. (reminds me of the "Everything is my fault" article from yesterday")<p>I feel like this situation is similar. If you find yourself not to be able to concentrate in a certain environment, find something you must do and do it in that environment. Train yourself so that you can concentrate any time and any where. Give less excuses for yourself to procrastinate, and feel awesome at the same time for being so productive.
At this moment, I have earplugs in with headphones over them. All because our tech support guy does not have an "indoor voice." It's very hard to be creative sometimes with nonsense going on around you.
My local library observes "coffee shop rules." People sit with their laptops and take phone calls from wherever they receive them. Even the librarians are loud. It's fucking bullshit.
Imagine working for a company that makes a conferencing product that likes to eat it's own dog food. Imagine lazy coworkers who sit next to each others cubicles yet dial into said conference call product and proceed to have their meetings from the comfort of their seats. Annoying doesn't come close to it.
It's a nice sentiment, but I must quibble with one assertion: "Everyone knows how to behave in a library."<p>I can say from experience in many libraries that not everyone understands library rules. There's an old stereotype about black people not shutting up in a movie theater. There's a lot of truth to it, but it's not just black people, and it's not just in movie theaters.<p>And then there are the libraries, growing in number over time, that have simply abandoned the ideal of silence. Most libraries still ban loud talking, cell phone use, music, etc. but now some of them tolerate it and some even encourage it. Some of these noisy libraries designate a quiet area, but it tends to feel like an anachronistic throwback, designed to mollify the people who aren't coming to the library just to hang out.<p>I think in the future the phrase "library rules" will not mean what you might think, if it still means anything at all.
This is essentially a one-line blog post and is basically just spam. Even as a developer I've had to spend significant portions of my day on the phone, which you can't really do in a library-quiet voice. Many offices don't have adequate amounts of dedicated rooms for this, and it is not very practical to abandon your desk for a significant portion of the day to do work.
I personally would find this oppressive and unpleasant. That's not to say that my concentration is better served by working at a rock concert, but "library rules" are robotic, not particularly humanity-affirming.<p>The offices in which I've gotten the most work done had a low to midlevel din of casual conversations and banter, like a place that lets humans be the social animals they are, while still encouraging some kind of collective respect for the idea of getting work done. It's a hard balance to adhere to consistently, but I'd rather struggle with the vacillation than work in a library.<p>In fact, this is the very reason I gave up working at home after two years: it's too quiet. You can hear a pin drop. A library to me has the ambiance of a funeral home, and encourages similarly dark thoughts. Needless to say, I got a lot more done in an office with an officemate, where we were both banging away at our keyboards and casually chit-chatting all day.
It's perverse to put people in a collaborative open plan office and make them be quiet. Quiet, focused employees do not need to be there; they can work from home or a closed office. And they should absolutely be empowered to do so.<p>This smells like a "hurry in and shut up" situation. While it's better to have <i>quiet</i> crammed mandatory office hours than loud ones, it's even better to keep people who need solitude out of the bullpen entirely.
Sometimes I've wished for this, but I think it would ultimately stifle collaboration. Instead it would be nice if more open floor plan offices had study carrels -- places you could go when you need quite to focus.
I prefer a loud workplace to a quiet one.<p>A single noise grabs your attention in a quiet workplace.<p>In a loud one, it all just becomes background noise and is easy to ignore.
Meh! To each their own. I turned down a job at Nintendo's branch office in Tokyo because it was too quiet.<p>Quiet = boring to me. On the other hand most of my experience comes from games and the teams that were the most fun were the ones where we were all in the same room and could look over each others shoulders and collaborate on design.<p>We weren't loud but we also weren't quiet.
The problem may be down to their poor conversations.<p>We have both wide ranging general knowledge and focused technical conversations in my office involving groups of people and I would be sad to lose that.<p>Talk about something that can deliver value or engage people and then the conversations are worthwhile.<p>"
Sarah Houghton 10 Dec 12<p>The ironic thing is that as a librarian, I can tell you that for the last decade (at least) most libraries don’t enforce “library silence.” We encourage people to talk, to collaborate, to discuss. As long as you’re not annoying the hell out of the people around you, we encourage a low level of conversation and noise.
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How about this, a library with grownup, sensible rules. I've worked in library rules offices before and it often seems to discourage random chats and conversational runoffs that can help push code forward.<p>Loud offices = not a great work environment, learn to understand when silence is needed, give people the space they need to work.
Sounds like an awful place to work. While i'm all for productivity, I have never seen it correlated with office volume, either positively or negatively. For as long as phones sit on desks, this policy sounds ridiculous.
I wonder, how do people do pair programming in quiet offices? Those two things, both regarded by many as desirable and positive, seem to be at odds with each other.
Not a sensible idea due to the fact that a library is about reading books, an office is about doing work. Office work requires communication - on phone, in person. The nature of high-pressure business environments means lots of passionate conversations, debates, having a laugh to ease tension... I cannot think of anything worse than blocking the natural office environment with artificial rules designed for a completely different purpose.
As can be seen there are people who like noise and those who like quietness. Actually this problem can be resolved as long as a company has enough sound-proofing rooms: for type 1, just lock yourself in a big room with those who like noise, if there isn't enough people, there are a lot of noisy local/Internet radio stations to play with. For type 2, the solution is the same, stay in the room for quietness.
Ugh. I'm working in an office now that's library-like. It's totally oppressive. I'm afraid to open my mouth, because anything I say will be heard by absolutely everyone else. As a result, no one asks any questions, no one discusses problems, and I can go a whole day without any human interaction. It's really torturous.
I would like to disagree. I have found that an office that is too quite is an office where people probably don't communicate much, and is not a healthy environment. And it's the office where people sit by each other's desks all the time is where work gets done. Of course there are extremes to everything, though.
I listen to headphones almost the entire day, but when I want to have a conversation with someone, I sure as hell don't want to have to go to some meeting room to have it. It just seems like asking your employees not to communicate...
get a pair of noise canceling headphones and get to work. I like quiet space to work in as well and I see need for work places where people can communicate in the most comfortable way. I suppose there should be quiet working rooms for people that do really need the silence. I use AudioTechnical ATH-ANC23 and they are fantastic: portable, enegry efficient and work well without battery power to get to a quieter space within noisy working environment.
We tried aromatherapy and soothing water sounds - they helped immensely. Our productivity went up. Particularly effective were gingerbread aroma and brook sounds.
I'd like to have a look at such office. That's strange that such an idea is not popular, I have yet to see a person that doesn't enjoy working in library.