Is it rude

Ray13

Honey-ec wrote: »

It's perfectly possible not to "sit around chatting about nonsense" all day without wearing headphones constantly. I work in a large, open plan office and wearing headphones is very much frowned-upon. Obviously, organisations differ in this regard, but the fact that you asked the question in the first place would indicate that you kind of already know that wearing them is not the norm in your workplace.

To be honest, I'd also say that if anyone's concentration is so poor that they literally cannot function in an open-plan office without wearing headphones, there's something amiss.

I don't think he/she said she literally couldn't function, or 'concentration so poor' rather extreme comment. He/she is being very considerate to check out the norm, so as not to cause any offence.

Aglomerado

I wear headphones also because I hate the idle chit chat about dresses/ babies/ weddings (women) and soccer (men). Some people have voices not meant for indoors too! (I.e. they can be heard in the next county ) I have nothing to contribute to any of these conversations, even if I did want to join in.

Because my work can be quite technical, I really need to tune out this crap and listen to something ambient. My immediate colleagues are mostly sound though and they're allowed to poke me if they need anything! My managers are cool about it also, they even wear them themselves sometimes.

Honey-ec

Ray13 wrote: »

I don't think he/she said she literally couldn't function, or 'concentration so poor' rather extreme comment. He/she is being very considerate to check out the norm, so as not to cause any offence.

I was referring to people in general, as my post quite clearly states.

helimachoptor

I wear them when i need to concentrate on something and dont want to be disturbed half the time i dont even have music playing :pac:

John Mason

i wear earphones all day in work, i have no interest in listening to the gossip gossip or the loon beside me hammering his keyboards

FreeCarAdvice

Honey-ec wrote: »

I was referring to people in general, as my post quite clearly states.

I see, interesting view.

moc moc a moc

Timfy wrote: »

when I queried the HR department as to why I was chosen, I was told that I was not a team player

You'd think a HR department would be more interested in team workers than team players!

beauf

Honey-ec wrote: »

It's perfectly possible not to "sit around chatting about nonsense" all day without wearing headphones constantly. I work in a large, open plan office and wearing headphones is very much frowned-upon. Obviously, organisations differ in this regard, but the fact that you asked the question in the first place would indicate that you kind of already know that wearing them is not the norm in your workplace.

To be honest, I'd also say that if anyone's concentration is so poor that they literally cannot function in an open-plan office without wearing headphones, there's something amiss.

Rather than frowning on it, maybe they should think outside of the box.

Researchers at Finland’s Institute of Occupational Health have studied precisely how far those conversations carry and analyzed their effect on the unwilling listener: a decline of 5 percent to 10 percent on the performance of cognitive tasks requiring efficient use of short-term memory, like reading, writing and other forms of creative work.

“Noise is the most serious problem in the open-plan office, and speech is the most disturbing type of sound because it is directly understood in the brain’s working memory,” said Valtteri Hongisto, an acoustician at the institute. He found that workers were more satisfied and performed better at cognitive tasks when speech sounds were masked by a background noise of a gently burbling brook.

Not everyone is the same. Some like earphones some don't. In IT, especially in development, headphone use is pretty common. Most people have the common sense when to wear them and when not too.