do you work in an open plan office

[southeastastra]

i do, it's awful lots of coughing

Proven to be really counter productive in terms of productivity too.

We, as humans, are unable to block out speech and because there is lots of speech and noise, people don't concentrate as well, and get less done.

And besides, its so much more difficult to MN at work

its impossible to concentrate

It can get really LOUD in our office. I don't like it very much.

yes, but outside school hours there's just me, dh, the dog and the cat.

used to work in an open plan office and on the whole found it ok. when I was pg with dd1 though I had my own office, and as the place was full of prima donnas it was very usual for people to put signs on their office doors saying "do not disturb, working to tight deadline" which was marvellous for taking a quick afternoon nap

I do and we have a white noise system to dampen the noise.

It really does help. It broke one day and the resulting din, on our floor of 100 people, was astonishing.

what is a white noise system?

yes, and at the moment the woman that sits next to me, who is a contractor, refuses to take sick leave because she doesn't get paid for it. So she spends all day coughing a loud, barking cough and its driving me demented because I'm convinced she's going to make me ill and I can't concentrate with her hideous cough either! Other than that I'm used to it.

What I can't cope with are the people who come in and start bellowing to each other across the desks or into their mobiles and generally carrying on as though everyone else in the room is interested in their running commentaries on how their work is going. Complete lack of self awareness.

Open plan and hot desking - kind of got used to it now.

We have a huge number of visitors and contractors who walk through our open plan room on their way to somewhere else. They are always having a very loud conversation as they go, or a disturbing and very loud mobile phone ring followed by a shouted conversation. It's awful.