
Workers, Take Off Your Headphones - ukdm
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/workers_take_off_your_headphon.html
======
GBond
Programmer:

-high switching cost for refocusing after being distracted

-measured by "heads-down" work

-individual deliverables are the primary contribution, secondary is collaboration

-values efficiency

-relies more on individual creativity than collaborated ideas

-prefers to be valued by merit as opposed to political/social leverage

-views headphones as a polite way to signal "I'm working"

Pointy Hair Boss:

-low switching cost for refocusing

-measured by team goals

-primary job is organization & collaboration

-values perception of value over actual value

-relies on others to be productive

-their values are increased from coworker interaction/meetings

-views headphones as a signal for "anti-social luddite who will never advance"

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z_
As much fun as it is sharing highs and basking in the sweet glow of office
gossip. It turns out you're there to do a job, the headphones help drowned out
the useless stimuli generated by people existing in the same space. Unless
there is an emergency, don't bother me with a time vampire method of
communication.

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Finster
Eroding employee loyalty? You know what erodes employee loyalty? Make up some
sort of retarded policy about when they can or can't wear headphones in the
office.

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omgsean
Headphones are part of the culture in our open-plan office. It's the
equivalent of closing your office door.

~~~
baddox
Then is it considered counterproductive or rude for an employee to _always_
have his or her headphones on? Or do you have something like an in office chat
room that everyone is expected to respond to?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Not OC, but we have an IRC chatroom, and we're all on AIM. If something is
important, it's not considered rude to walk up to someone's desk and get their
attention. If we're in the middle of something, we'll sort of wave you off and
mutter "gimme a few minutes".

If we're really digging into something and need a few hours of uninterrupted
time, we'll announce it in IRC.

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tmcw
Workers, Take Off Your Headphones, and Get Off My Lawn, I am here to
generalize "business research" into unrelated fields and tasks.

~~~
gee_totes
I thought the headline was a riff on: Workers of the world, unite, you have
nothing to loose but your chains (headphones)!

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khafra
Workers who don't actually need to concentrate on something with five people
behind them yammering about something unrelated, take off your headphones.

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umjames
I'd take the headphones off if I could close a door or, even better, work from
home. Otherwise, I can guarantee there will be several times each day where a
bunch of coworkers (and sometimes my boss) will spend considerable time
talking loudly about anything but work.

That must be the valuable communication that articles like this espouse. I
don't mind banter if it doesn't bother those working and if the people
bantering can actually produce. That's not the case in my situation.

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martinshen
I see no issue with wearing headphones in the workplace as long as the norm is
to IM instead of talk in real life. More complicated, decision making
discussions can take place outside of IM. Without headphones, offices can be
extremely distracting.

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chaostheory
I think people who have this as a mantra, lived in a time where most workers
had the luxury of a real office with more sound proof walls. Even people with
real offices tend to have paper thin walls when it comes to sound.

When I start a job every 2 years, I then to have my headphones off.
Unfortunately the vast majority of background chatter tends to revolve around
people's personal lives or just plain office gossip. Both of these things get
regurgitated to me at lunch. I'd rather keep my focus. If they really want my
attention, it's pretty easy to get through a variety of ways like IM.

------
lis
A colleague of mine says that it distracts her when I speak german on the
phone. She can tune out english just fine, but when somebody speaks in a
foreign language, she has to use headphones.

~~~
vyrotek
I'm with your colleague on this one. But that's because I love the german
language and wish I could speak it. Besides that I can see how our brains
learn to tune out english like they do ads but then when something very unique
comes along it can be very hard.

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pavel_lishin
> One person with whom I spoke told me that "wearing headphones actually makes
> me feel anxious a lot of the time, because I'm always worried that someone
> might ask me a question or say something to me and I'll miss it." This
> person is right to be concerned.

I, too, would be concerned if the person speaking to me didn't notice the
giant set of headphones that I wear every day, and just mumbled something and
walked off.

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joshuahedlund
It sounds like the author is concerned about the work version of the negative
social network effects of modern technology - using it to maintain lower
levels of communication (no body language, etc) with people you already know
while reducing your "white swan" opportunities for increasing your network via
unplanned connections IRL.

If you don't have an open office plan, though, I wonder how much headphones
are really cutting you off from the office network? I guess the author is
referring to layouts where you use headphones to cut out excess noise around
you, which wouldn't be as much of an issue in non-open plans.

I like to use headphones for background music, but I keep it on the lowest
level possible so I don't miss out on external conversation when it arises.
I'm not sure if it creates a negative impression when I'm talking to someone
with headphones in even though I can obviously hear and understand them; I've
never been made aware of any such impression but I've also never asked.

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j_baker
I used to be the kind of person who couldn't work without headphones.
Nowadays, I usually don't wear them unless there's a lot of noise I need to
drown out or I just want to work undisturbed.

People who do use headphones all the time don't bother me though. I typically
just send them an IM that they can acknowledge my question/comment on my own
time.

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dybber
Company chat rooms. Then if you have to concentrate you can leave the
discussion alone and catch up on it later. Also, when you are out of house,
you can still follow along on the discussion "at home".

Github seems to do that, here are their chat bot: <http://hubot.github.com/>
but it is also a lot of fun to write your own bot with specific functionality
for your company. We have had (and still have) a great experience with a chat
room for group of ~20 students at our university, even though we are often
located in the same room right next to each other.

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heliodor
Everyone has a threshold beyond which they'll exercise restraint in talking
based on the number of people who might overhear the conversation. It's like
fear of public speaking. Today's open floor layouts and their desk densities
exceed some people's comfort levels, so they shut up and take their
conversations to the chat room. In general, the density and lack of privacy is
too high for programmers but not high enough yet for marketing, for example.

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mmcdan
...and sometimes music has nothing to do with drowning out distraction. Maybe
it brings a little happiness to my day, stimulates a creative part if my brain
that would otherwise not be engaged, and connects my work to a deeper part of
my life. Any company that tries to regulate my productivity by projecting
their own insecurities deserves the massive beatdown that the 21st century
will give them.

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dws
A useful generalization is that tech business are divided into people who talk
for a living, and people who think for a living. One side of that divide seems
to have a lot of trouble understanding the legitimate needs of the other. The
headphone issue is but one of many ways that lack of understanding manifests.

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T_S_
Not only do I wear headphones, I pump a mix of cafe sounds through it.
Amazingly effective at drowning out conversation at low volume levels. BTW has
the OP ever heard of "flow"? You can have 2 hours of my full attention, just
don't spread it throughout the day if you want me to crank stuff out.

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lurkinggrue
Hell no.

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mpolun
There may be professions where being accessible at all times is more important
than being able to drown out the world and concentrate, but programming is not
one of them.

Communication is important too, but when you need to concentrate headphones
are invaluable (unless you have a private office)

~~~
SkyMarshal
_"Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of
things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do
takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration." - Don Knuth_

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koglerjs
Written by someone who has apparently never needed to block out everything and
concentrate on a difficult task.

~~~
joezydeco
Oh I'm sure she has, but she probably had a door she could close.

