I'm the same, I can't wear any kind of "on ear" headphones for more than an hour or two before my ears hurt. Instead, I got some studio monitor style over ear headphones (Sennheiser HD380P to be specific) that are super comfy and have a huge noise reduction to boot. I can wear them all day no problem.

As for noise, I don't work in an office (mostly at home), but if I need to cut out the noise but don't want music I still will put on my headphones. If I really need to cut out the world, some white noise will do the trick.