Figured it out

[greenstorm]

This is why folks need occupational therapists.

I'm sitting in my cubicle at work, seven feet in each direction from two loud conversations and 14' from a third. One of those conversations is the most recent in a string of several loud, angry conversations about who's running health and wellness and the social committee and accountability for updating the OSHA manual; one is about First Nations stuff which is super interesting; the last is also a string in a series of loud friendly conversations about fishing, mapmaking, birthday parties, and a sauna.

I've been here, with a break for lunch, for six hours. When I came in I was reasonably energetic and in an ok mood; now the endless loud heating fan is hurting my ears and my brain is flinching each time someone raises their voice. I am not able to work, I am not able to think. If I was in private I would cry for a bit and it might reset how overwhelming this is for my consciousness, but I am not and I cannot. I would cry in public because fuck these people, but I can't give them that level of vulnerability.

With the return to office they want everyone in the office on the same days, so we're all doing team things. That means I come in on the day the folks from the other office drive up, everyone talks, nothing gets done. My other day this week there will be fewer folks in the office and maybe I will get things done.

I did manage to print out a 3'x6' map of what I'm doing this summer, so that was nice.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

It would be a reasonable accommodation for your employer to buy you some good noise-cancelling headphones, if that's a thing that would help. And/or spring for some sound-dampening partitions or whatever.

(I'm sure you already know this. Just emphasizing the "this would be reasonable for you to expect" part.)

I basically can't work if there's a loud conversation happening near me, although for me it's not that it's overwhelming -- I just can't focus at all. (ADHD.)

[greenstorm]

I appreciate the support.

My understanding is that noise-cancelling headphones (I have what I consider to be a very good set from work, actually) only cancel background, repetitive, predictable noises?

I've booted around the idea of trying to move my desk.

[squirrelitude]

Hmm, that's quite possible. I've never really used them myself, I just know that a lot of people swear by them. I guess louder, more impulsive noises like close-by speech might not be possible to cancel effectively.

At my last job I had a desk in a quiet corner of the building where the main through-traffic was people going to another corner of the building or coming to the little-known kitchenette that we had. When my team was moved across the building, we were suddenly next to a high-traffic corridor and within earshot of the cafeteria. It sucked. I ended up spending a lot of my time back in the first area, holed up with my work laptop. But... that meant no standing workstation.

(That boss was also kind of a dick, and cared more about his own preference for location 2 than for the majority of us who wanted to stay in location 1...)

What I did when I needed to concentrate was to put in ear bud headphones that I had modded with actual ear plug foam. A little music piped in through those, even at low volume, and I couldn't hear *anything* around me. But my ear canal could only tolerate the foam for so long.