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Blogs by Jerome Parisse
Jackhammering, sniffles and gum chewing
6/22/2010 2:42:32 PM
I'm in the office trying to write a report - not my home office (sigh), but the real one, the one where I've been spending every single working day over the last three years. Actually, I'm lying. We have moved into brand new offices two weeks ago; in fact they're so new that they're not even finished! The carpet has been laid down, we have beautiful shiny new desks, and a pedestal each for storing things. Okay, the meeting room doors have no handles yet (I love watching staff knocking on the window to be let out when the door's closed on them), we don't have the big screens we were promised, and the pedestals are so small that our files don't fit in (They're not supposed to anyway: we've entered the paperless era - drum roll). There is a lot of light in these new offices - I've said good-bye to the dungeon I used to sit in... but also a lot of noise! Jackhammering, sawing, polishing, dusting, hammering and many undefined "finishing" noises. To be fair, the jackhammering noise originates outside the office, but it feels as if it were right under my desk. It sounds bad, but this is nothing compared to the variety of noises that have been bothering me over the last three years.
I have nothing against my colleagues. They're all great people and we get along tremendously. But you should experience them when you have a complex report to write and a looming deadline. I'm sure you've all experienced what I'm talking about here. There's the sniffler. I have counted as many as twelve sniffles per minute at the height of it. The problem is, he's got allergies (The sawing and dusting doesn't help, of course.) so it's hard to hand him over a box of tissues. Then there's the one who sounds like a pig in pain and a whistling lawn-mower when he eats at his desk, which he does at least five times a day, including the fried sausages at 10am. The noodle soup is deadly too - I can't stand the spluttering that goes with it. But it's nothing compared to the cooing over the phone: fifteen times per day at a minimum. It's either the wife or the six month old baby who is the recipient of all this cooing, plus the whole floor of course. Then there's the gum ruminator; the phone screamer; the one who guffaws for anything and everything; the nervous wreck who keeps tapping her nails on the desk; the loud farter; the one who sighs every half hour as if he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders; the joke teller; and many more. I'm not even going to get close to the loo topic.
That report suddenly sounds a lot harder to write than it was initially. Of course I could bring my Ipod but it wouldn't be very social, would it? And after all, isn't it part of the fun of working in an open plan office? I forgive them all - except the "sniffler". He makes me wish the jackhammering were louder.
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