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Comment by kevbin | Hacker News Reader

If you work in one of these (misguided) open-plan offices, ask you co-workers if the noise bothers them. Whatever they say, take your mechanical keyboard home and play with it there. There's no good reason to inflict that noise on your co-workers. They'll appreciate it even if they won't call you out on it.

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That's funny, some of my co-workers have cherry blue keyboards but the sound doesn't bother me. Most people in the office have one of those Microsoft Ergonomic keyboards though, and the sound of those drives me absolutely mad. I hate it. Maybe I should lay hints or ask them to take their keyboard home and play with it there...

That's a good point: typing [1] may be fine background noise for some; speaker-phone conversations, giggles, farts, and expletives for others. Being conscientious by considering and adjusting one's volume level when typing, speaking, farting, or swearing will help us survive our open-plan dark age as we await the facility-clerics' re-discovery of ancient door and wall technologies.

[1] https://soundcloud.com/shanemcretro/ibm-model-m-five

I would do that, if they would not inflict their rambling speaker-phone conference calls on me.

The root of the problem is trying to pack people into a room like sardines and expect them to get any work done. But forcing people to use substandard equipment doesn't help anything.

Yes, open-plan dogma is at the root. I'd gladly give up free dog-boarding, massages, and meals for walls and a door.

Retaliation and escalation aren't solutions. Conscientious self-noise-reduction sets the example for others & makes it easier to politely ask the loudies to take their noise pollution out of the common area.

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