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Comment by hacker_9 | Hacker News Reader

I had a similar experience that made me quit my last job, but for me it was being in an open plan office. I just found that I felt constantly under someones gaze, and I couldn't look around without looking someone in the eye. It was a low level stress like yours, and was really uncomfortable when trying to work through problems. For example I find closing my eyes helps me visualise a process in my head, but then someone sat nearby would see that and use it as a cue to talk to me 'oh are you stuck on something?.. yada yada yada'.

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I had a very similar experience where I actually dreaded going into the office because I knew my productivity would fall off a cliff. I slowly found myself accepting the day would be a loss with pointless meetings and other distractions, and got into the habit of doing my "head-down" work later once I got home. My wife pointed out how stupid that was (and frankly, unsustainable) so I pretty quickly jumped ship to a different company with a much better office design/remote work policy where I felt a lot more comfortable.

I have the same questions for you as I asked the parent poster, as I mentioned in that post I feel like I am going through something similar to you both right now due to an open office. I also feel like it is hard and rare to get the real "head-down" work done while at work due to constant interruptions. How long at the job did it take you to realize that it caused a constant low level stress? How long did you end up staying there before leaving? Did you reveal the real reason for leaving when you left?

I would say it wasn't until after the honeymoon phase of being new and excited wore off and I was given meaningful work to complete. It was a while ago now, but I think it was around the 6-8 week mark that I begun to really notice my workdays were a waste. Being a male I suppressed my feelings :) and the stress slowly built up over the next 6 months until my wife finally pointed out that it wasn't healthy and was impacting my relationship with her and others in my life.

I'm somewhat rare in the sense that I just quit vs lining up a new job first as we had a decent financial buffer, although if I'm being honest I suspect it was a case of jumping before being pushed as the stress was starting to impact my workplace relationships as well (especially with the CEO who was a chronic time-waster that loved pointless meetings).

I've said this elsewhere, but I think it's healthy to mix things up every few years - leaving this company ultimately worked out well for me as I quickly found a new opportunity that opened up doors I had never considered before. I don't know your exact circumstances, but if you have a significant other I think it's worth having a candid conversation with them and work out what the two of you need to live a balanced and fulfilled life. If the workplace stress is leaking into the rest of your life and you find work consuming an unreasonbale amount of your time, it's probably a good sign that it might be worth exploring other opportunities (in my experience, it's much harder to change an organization than it is to just move on). I realize this is different to the "roll-up-your-sleeves" advice elsewhere in this thread, but I view my career as a 40+ year marathon so I embrace the odd twist in the road every now and again.

Something else that can help with being heads-down is medication. It's good to talk with a psych and see whether they can help.

And, don't forget to talk with HR at work if you don't think you'll get fired to see whether there is a way to reduce distractions. Many are more-than-willing to help- whether it's with buying some noise-cancelling earbuds, relocating you, letting you work from home, or another option. If it's a team member or more that is noisy or distracts you, mention that to your manager or HR.

You can go a long way helping yourself.

This is exactly my experience at my current workplace. The people who makes the most noise are the not-programmers and somehow they deserve their own cube because... Developers like myself have to settle with our bull-pen.

Like you, when I face my monitor, the barrier is low enough that I can actually see eye to eye with my co-workers who are sitting opposite me. Oh, and apparently the space behind me is somehow a 'walkway' because it's narrow enough to cut through the other side of the office. Someone can just walk behind me while I'm working and nudge my chair while they're coming through and thus interrupting my focus.

I've talked to my manager multiple times about this and I understand that there's nothing he could have done for me due to the limited office space that we have.

My only option is to switch jobs at this point as I have enough connections that getting a new job probably won't be that hard. But it sucks because my current manager is actually good to work with and I'm kind of on the fence since I might get a shit manager. Is it worth the risk?

(Sorry if this sounds like a rant)

Can erecting a visual barrier behind your screen help a little? That wouldn't take space and only minimal resources.

How long at the job did it take you to realize that it caused a constant low level stress? How long did you end up staying there before leaving? Did you reveal the real reason for leaving? I believe I am going through something similar right now, I have an especially chatty coworker who I sit beside that never shuts up and seems to crave solving problems as a pair much to my productivities detriment. I feel like my time is always being wasted and have the added bonus of them being above me so telling them to buzz off feels very uncomfortable.

That sounds horrible, I feel your pain. I am in the exact same situation however my chatty coworker is not doing the same job, although they always want to be involved/meddle in whatever I'm doing nevertheless.

It's down to the level of reading out loud everything that happens on their computer screen. "Oh, I thought if you clicked there, something else would happen". "Oh, what's that?". blah blah blah. Total verbal diarrhea.

To top it off, they have a very, very loud voice.

If I make any comments to try and stop the incessant nattering, it's met with a snarky comment and only very minimal and temporary change.

My productivity has gone way down, it's almost impossible to get useful work done lots of the time, so I hardly try.

Noise canceling headphones combined with low key music have greatly increased my happiness and productivity. I've got the big Bose ones that are very obviously anti-social.

Good suggestion but I think headphones would be frowned upon in my workplace unfortunately.

Constant interruption and complaining, perfectly fine. Antisocial headphones, verboten!

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