(&) Is it still true today?
Crowds vary, and environments differ, from luxury, appeal and cost, to interpersonal variations.
But for sure, the open environment put all of them in the crosshairs. The noise? It's less about noise, and more about the content of conversations.
You hear half a conversation, and when your paycheck is on the line, hearing the wrong part of a conversation leaves you wondering if they were talking about you, and whether or not anyone intended you to hear it. You hear people judging new hire candidates after a round of interviews. You hear people gossiping. You hear people talking about raises and reviews. Who's fucking who.
Worst of all, you hear sideways remarks from people in a mocking tone, clearly within earshot. Passive aggression, hostility. But all work related. None of it discriminatory. It all targets the impostor syndrome of holding down what amounts to a bullshit job to begin with.
Every word crystal clear. The whole conversation, unmistakably audible to you, but you are not a participant. Is it a taunt? Are there more people agreeing with what they said, and chiming in with additional sarcasm? Are they ganging up on you? And you have to sit at your desk, quietly uninvolved, minding your own business, and focus on stepping through some useless convenience widget in a debugger.
Sure thing. Where's the door?
It's having to hear other people's negativity at all, and dealing with the revelation that people you'd like to respect, are actually fucking horrible.
Even if they aren't ganging up on you, hearing them gang up on other people behind their back, knowing that they're two-faced, and having to continue to work with them is, well, kind of awful. In an open office, you sometimes find out unceremoniously, that everyone is backstabbing everyone else.
Sure, let's lend some perspective to that. A silver lining. Better to know who the sociopaths are right? That's life, yes? Deal with it like an adult? Or maybe not.
Maybe, if everyone's a backstabbing two-faced piece of shit, then hey, maybe it's okay to just betray anyone, because everyone's awful.
If everyone's smug on twitter and facebook, is seeing it and knowing about it worse for some of us?
If no one has any integrity anymore, it leaves you with no allegiance.
Sometimes, there are things you'd just rather not know.
The scenario of being surrounded by backstabbers raises so many questions that there is no point of discussing noise problems.
I'm getting the whiff of paranoia.
When I was annoyed by open office noise I just heard disgusting stupid humans blabbing about disgusting human stupidities, why won't they just shut up and let ne think.
I guess my misanthropy was acting up.
Maybe open office disturbance just causes unique cracks each person has in their psyche to show up.
Although from what I heard, my team was more of exception (Security). And some were moving to an open office layout.