
The Headphones Rule - siong1987
http://theheadphonesrule.com/
======
cbs
"Rules" like this are silly to write down.

By telling people that wearing headphones is a signal that someone wants to be
left alone, you're asking people to make assumptions about those of us wearing
headphones with no intention to make a statement about our availability.

I wear headphones constantly, as do two of the guys I work with directly. We
simply want to drown out office white noise, and wearing just one ear doesn't
work for that. If Ryan is wearing headphones, that means he is secretly
watching The Daily Show on the clock and there is no better time to interrupt
him today. Sometimes my department will focus on changes to system audio, then
everyone has headphones on.

Try learning how to ask someone to leave you alone. Or, put a sign up on your
desk that says "I'm "not here' today, email me instead", one of our guys does
that, its pretty unambiguous.

~~~
carlisle_
I am pretty sure whoever put that site up is being highly facetious.

~~~
jaredmcateer
I wouldn't be so sure. I know a handful of passive aggressive people out there
that would think this is a great thing to print off and post above their desk
so they can point at it when someone breaks the 2 headphone rule.

~~~
bmj
Why is this passive-aggressive? Many of us do work that often requires some
period of concentration, yet most office cultures are built around constant
interruption. And, many of us don't have office doors we can close that
indicate to others that we are busy and would prefer not be interrupted.

Is it unreasonable to make yourself unavailable to your co-workers all day,
every day? Yeah, probably. Is it reasonable to have some period of
uninterrupted work time? Most definitely.

~~~
jaredmcateer
It's passive aggressive if you can't just talk to your coworkers and explain
when you need to concentrate and expect them to respect your space when you
need it.

~~~
bmj
Perhaps, but if you have to tell them you are currently concentrating and
don't want to be disturbed, you've already been disturbed and had your
concentration broken.

Again, I'm not suggesting that every workplace must be monastery-quiet, but
somehow being able to signal to your co-workers that you don't want to be
disturbed doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

~~~
jaredmcateer
You only have to tell them once. I've asked my coworkers if they see me with
my headphones on and I'm not obviously dicking around to send me an instant
message or email when I'm free I'll hit them back. All other times I'm fair
game.

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cardamomo
I work part-time as a barista, so I'll offer this version of the rule: The
Barista's Headphones Rule

Wearing headphones while ordering your drink?

* No headphones, you get your drink as you wish

* One headphone, I make your drink and shoot you a meaningful glare

* Two headphones, I secretly make your drink decaf

~~~
eloisius
Luckily, as a software developer, your primary function is not to respond to
interruptions; they're just a career hazard.

If you sell me a decaf drink, you're doing a bad job and deserve to lose it.

~~~
omni
Alternatively, if you're being a jerk to service staff, you deserve bad
service.

------
johnchristopher
I wonder what the ratio of programmers suffering from tinnitus is going to be
in 10 or 15 years.

Being almost literaly forced to use headphones/earphones to perform one's job
definitely says something about the working environnment.

I think/believe it's a given we - programmers, sysadmin, or computer guys* -
should be given a noise-free environnment to work in.

Personnaly I can't focus on programming or any cognitive task (except my
playing the guitar) while listening to music (even classicial, lounge, etc.).

* in fact, everyone who needs to think hard about problems should be. Heck... everyone working in an office should be entitled to a noise-free environnment when needed.

~~~
muyuu
I sometimes use clamshell headphones that are isolating enough that I can play
quiet music or nothing at all, and they still make a big difference over not
using them.

More often than not I have them on playing nothing, it both helps with the
noise and sends the message that I don't want to be bothered.

~~~
jmj42
i do this a lot too, specifically because it signals that I'm busy. I
generally enforce the headphone rule, and even when not listening to
something, the fact that it signals that I'm not to be disturbed is
exceptionally useful.

------
tshadwell
It's just wasteful to wear two headphones when you could give the other pair
to someone else.

------
ringmaster
A more sensible rule: If I'm wearing headphones in/over both ears, it's
possible I can't hear you, so you might want to make sure you have my
attention before you talk to me from behind for ten minutes then get upset
when I don't respond. Actually, forget the headphone part of that rule.

------
masto
I made a geeky version of this using an industrial stack light, an Arduino,
some MOSFETs, an RFID card reader, and node.js.

Pictures: <http://imgur.com/a/dX33N> Videos:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bButG4EWSfE>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQK0fW6-7jA>

As my desk is in the far back corner of the office, and the light is visible
from anywhere in the room, people know if I'm heads-down on something, away
from my desk, or available for interruptions without having to come over and
potentially interrupt me by asking. I can change the light by scanning my
building ID card or using a web interface.

Note that this was done as an experiment to learn a bit about electronics, and
a bit of an evolving joke to see how much random technology I can cram into a
project. While I may be socially immature, I'm not as bad as "YOU CAN'T TALK
TO ME WHEN THE RED LIGHT IS ON". I think it is useful, nevertheless, as an
ambient cue when I am really trying to focus on a problem.

------
hagios
In my case, this couldn't be more wrong. One needs only wave their hand in my
periphery to get my attention--this encourages others to come to me to bounce
ideas, get opinions, etc.

Listening to music is definitely helpful to me when it comes to focusing on
the task at hand, but it shouldn't come at the price of diminished capacity
for collaboration.

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DanielBMarkham
Here's my trick to using headphones without injuring my hearing over the long
term:

Wear earplugs.

Put in some good quality shooter's earplugs to block out most of the room
noise. Then headphones. Turn the headphones to the _minimum_ volume necessary
to hear the music. So now you have no background noise, and a nice, low
soundtrack to help kick out some work.

~~~
mleonhard
A more comfortable solution is to get some good noise-cancelling headphones. I
have used Bose QC15s for about 3 years and QC3s for several years before that.
They are indispensable to me. Audio-Technica makes some less expensive models
that block nearly as much noise but are less comfortable to wear. I also hear
good things about noise-cancelling earbuds.

------
Foomandoonian
I have my own headphone rule: If I can hear your headphones over my
headphones, then your headphones are too loud.

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jbrooksuk
I can't focus without my music, it doesn't have to be loud but it has to be
there, with bass and snares usually.

You'd think it's pretty obvious though that when you have earphones in you're
focused, you don't want to be interrupted, sadly though, that's not the case
for where I work. I'm still spoken to even when I'm not listening, I'm
working, it's okay to email me or poke me but don't keep talking. I'm not
listening.

------
Aardwolf
Two headphones? How does that work?

~~~
gosub
1 headphone = one ear covered

2 headphones = both ears covered

~~~
afandian
Or a set of earphones + a set of headphones. You know, for maximum something.

~~~
cbs
Maximum channels! I've been there, I needed program, preview and multiple
intercom lines. Never again!

~~~
afandian
I'm not sure if you're being serious or not. But it sounds exciting and
dynamic whatever it is.

------
adrianhoward
For me it's more like (in a work environment)

No headphones, I'm sitting in a quiet productive environment and you can talk
to me

1 headphone, I need to pay attention to the world while I'm trying to focus on
a podcast or something

2 headphones, work environment so fouled up and loud I cannot concentrate and
I'm not in a situation to fix it / am feeling too lazy to fix it.

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duqee
Saw this as a funny meme a while ago, share it around. As for the need of a
website with this on i'm not so sure its worth the domain cost to create this.
Unless I am missing something.

I thought this would be some cool project that detected my headphone jack
input and play some music or a error message if not detected.

------
t4nkd
This reeks of immaturity. Not since high school has the sentiment of "I'm
wearing headphones to be left alone" been a popular or reasonable one. At
least during those years, peers could look at you and make the mistake that
you're so deep that music has more influence/meaning than the world around
you. If this is, as I feel, an attempt to legitimize this kind of "signal" to
other professionals who want to collaborate with you, I feel pretty sorry for
the kid who's hosting this.

I can appreciate individuals who don't have the capacity to swap context
throughout the day, but only when they can be mature enough to explain
themselves to me like an adult; and I certainly don't need a visual accessory
to que my interaction with them.

~~~
jmj42
>I can appreciate individuals who don't have the capacity to swap context
throughout the day, but only when they can be mature enough to explain
themselves to me like an adult...

But even that is a context switch, and context switching is expensive. Your 30
second interruption results in 15 minutes of lost productivity (these are just
made up numbers). A passive signal that you are not to be disturbed at this
time sends the same message without the context switch or, more important, the
need to switch back into the work.

For me, there's no workplace behavior more obnoxious than someone walking up
to my desk and blabbing on about something while I'm in the middle of a
critical section of code or on the verge of a breakthrough (these are the
cases when I'm usually wearing headphones). Headphones, at the very least,
signal that you should get my attention before speaking, and that I'll be with
you in a moment because I can't afford an immediate context switch for your
"problem."

 __Edit: Spelling __

~~~
nickmain
Even a 3 second interruption can have consequences:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-a-3-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/study-a-3-second-
interruption-doubles-your-odds-of-messing-up/267008/)

------
vixen99
What a waste of time and space.

~~~
andypants
Agreed. Is this supposed to be funny? Serious? Interesting? I can't tell.

Also, I don't think 'one headphone, two headphones' is quite right. Maybe the
site means earphones?

------
william_uk
When is Sean Parker joining your board...

"Drop the 'The.' Just 'Head Phones Rule.' It's cleaner."

~~~
PommeDeTerre
That would significantly change the meaning, at least in American English.
Instead of "rule" being the noun and "headphones" the adjective, "headphones"
could then easily be taken as the noun and "rule" the adjective with the
change you propose.

"The Headphones Rule" more obviously means "a regulation pertaining to the
usage of headphones".

"Headphones Rule" is very common slang meaning "headphones are superior".

------
GBond
Related HN thread of a post from the PoV of the "other side":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3909409>

(spoiler: for MBA types, headphones = bad employee)

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jrs235
So a few people like it, a lot of people don't.

This has made HN front page. Regardless of whether it's suppose to be serious,
funny, or facetious, I think it's working [by causing us to discuss it]. Look
this discussion is actually a great thing we are having... some folks think
this is a great idea while others don't. Many may have gone on never thinking
that others might disagree. For those that despise it as passive/aggressive...
this is your chance to let those who like this idea know it's not as cool as
they may think.

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gbog
what I prefer is don't disturb by default and ping by irc if you want to talk.

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tehwalrus
> 1 headphone, you can talk to me if i like.

How is someone supposed to know in advance whether you 'like'? isn't that the
whole point of the headphones?

or was this supposed to say "if _you_ like"?

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ishbits
When I was younger I could enter the zone regardless of office noise.

Now that I work at home I find I often have to add noise.

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rvkennedy
How about:

no headphones, I can talk to you.

1 headphone, take it off: I require your full attention.

2 headphones, you're fired.

~~~
calinet6
Looks like _someone_ woke up on the wrong side of the office floor this
morning...

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aj700
Ok, maybe it's a troll. (What isn't?)

1\. I don't understand. Is the wearer of 2 headphones not allowed to talk, or
is he not allowed to be verbally addressed?

2\. If all the girls are wearing headphones, how the fuck...? Am I RIGHT?!

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timmillwood
Doesn't quite work when working from home, alone.

~~~
dutchbrit
You could always talk to yourself?

~~~
ajack
Unless you're wearing two headphones, in which case, don't.

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Jgrubb
I'm printing this out as soon as I get to work.

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hdra
what does wearing two headphones even means?

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sublimit
Really, Hacker News? Is this what you want to see on the front page?

~~~
RossM
Evidently

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af3
monetization plan?

