It’s amazing how the smallest things can be so amazingly annoying in the tiniest of environments. If you thought the foot tapper during a test in school was annoying, try sitting next to question man or loud conversation lady. But those two aren’t nearly as bad as the following.
Like a phone going off during a dinner party, a phone going off at work is one thing—if it is immediately silenced. “Opps! I didn’t know it was on ring, I’m sorry!” That is usually enough for the incident to be forgotten. If you like to keep your phone on ring at the office, great. Just don’t walk away from your desk or set alarms to go off every five seconds.
Moving on. Now that we’ve addressed phones, let’s chat about music. Not everyone has the same taste in music. That seems like a rather duh statement, but it’s often lost on people. Some offices get around this by not having music. Others play only one station. That can be just as bad as a phone constantly going off. When was the last time you listened to the same station for nine hours? I think you would be amazed at the sheer number of times a single song is played. The repetition in an hour alone is mind-boggling and beyond irritating.
I try to get around these things by keeping my phone on vibrate. Yes, because I have AT&T that means my computer gallops (and if anyone knows how to prevent this, please let me know), but that buzzing noise is a bright spot in the cell phone noise world. I also only listen to jazz or jazz-esque music approved by those around me if I forgot my headphones for the day.
How do you handle the little office annoyances?