Question for all of you who work in an office setting

This won't help much, but I was in the same boat. I work on the noisiest floor. I have learned to ignore it. It took a few months. I use a box fan at night in my bedroom to drown out sounds. I bought a small desk fan about the same time because I start to feel claustrophobic when there is no moving air. I wonder if it helped me at all.

It truly is a mental task on your part and your anger only amplifies it. You could try mindful techniques. Or, let your coworkers know when they're being noisy. I had a coworkers bring a small radio to play with headphones. My conservation with him:

Me: "IT has headphones if you want to listen to music."

Rude Boi: "I'm fine."

Me: "The music might disturb others. There are cube etiquette rules around here that frown on playing music without headphones. Let me get you some headphones anyway.".

The Rude Boi dislikes me now, but I don't give a fuck. His neighbor's were happy I said something.

In a seemingly joke fashion, you could print out noise level cards and hold them up with your headphones on whenever it gets loud. Print out one and in front of them, pin it to their cube. I have answered people's loud questions to illustrate how far the noise travelled. I'm an ornery fuck and have a reputation for being a jokester so it can be easy for me to "get away" with it. Print up Maximum Noise Level sign like the max. occupancy signs and post them at the coffee stations and noisy cubes while wearing a Hall Monitor band on your arm. At your next meeting, have an OE moment and bring up a cube etiquette slide or find a humorous cube etiquette video. Then, reenforce it with the previously mentioned stuff. Be that guy.

/r/intj Thread