I am a type of person who only can abide normal conversation or quiet. Shouting (indoors) or screeching drives me up the wall.
For example, some time ago my sitting at my sailing club’s regular Stammtisch went like this
- We sat down with 3-4 people. Got a nice conversation going. Enjoyed myself.
- More people arrived. Conversation got louder and dominated by the more sonorous set.
- I didn’t pipe up anymore (because it couldn’t be done without interrupting someone) but settled to to listen to the others.
- A bit more people arrived; a bit more alcohol in the bloodstream. People holding forth; braying laughter.
- I fantasized about being able to contribute anti-conversation (in the manner of antisound), to get the conversation down to a homo sapiens-appropiate sound level and soberness.
- Then I fantasized about giving some people a good kick, or gagging them.
- Loud screeching by a lady. I could not abide it anymore, stood up, went to settle with the waiter at the bar then fled the premises.
This isn’t an unsolvable problem for me normally. I just avidly avoid socializing with a group of more than say 3-4 others because above this number it seems to have a civilized sort of conversation. (There are some nice couples who I enjoy having dinner with from time to time). Also I prefer to eat in restaurants where it is less likely to have a raucuous group install itself near me.
Where this characteristic of mine hurts me badly over the last few years is at work.
Since about six years I work with a colleague who is very outgoing and frequently laughs loudly (he’s two doors down but he’s audible by almost all of us about 30 people in the office). That has irked me sometimes but mainly I can concentrate. Also he often travels to sites and usually leaves office at 16 o’clock and I could get a lot of work done uninterruptedly after that.
Since about two years business has picked up much and the two colleagues in the next room, two ladies capably organizing the order administration/billing/electronics supplies buying, have gone from half-time (one AM/one PM) to almost full-time.
With the result that they now sit opposite each other and talk, talk, talk. In loud voices, with frequent laughing and screeching. When I pay attention to what they talk about it seems mainly stuff that I would not consider necessary to talk about, still less likely to find hilarious or to need to invest any emotion at all in the topic. (The ladies both have at least one child at home so they aren’t starved for an opportunity to talk to someone either).
A minor annoyance is that it’s become harder to ask for a small, time-critical part of order information as they are chatting i.e. incommunicado for long periods. No problem, I send them an e-mail or if urgent call them by phone (they do interrupt their talking when the phone rings).
What’s much more of a problem is that I cannot concentrate anymore. I design control circuits engine control systems, draw circuit diagrams and double-check others’ diagrams. Nowadays I can only get into the flow in the evening or on weekends, because it takes at least half an hour of no interruption at all. (I cannot admit to that to my boss as he expects us to work on normal time. Instead I mostly mark time when my colleagues vocalize away, and look forward to the time when my colleagues have left.
Problem with that: I have increased my dose of sports lately; nowadays I have two weekday evenings, Tuesday morning and most Saturday/Sundays taken up almost entirely by various gymnastics/strength/endurance activities. I enjoy this very much and it does me a lot of good (without exercise I’d be grotesquely fat instead of moderately overweight. I have been there.)
This does not leave a lot of time for effective work, and between that and the noise I get much stressed - blood pressure has risen which is partly my reason for increasing exercise, and sometimes at the end of the normal business day, when I can start to work in peace, my balance suffer and my hands tremble and I have to take a walk first. When the last of the colleagues in the next room leaves I fantasize about her getting squashed flat by a heavy truck on the way home, and then I get very ashamed of that. They aren’t bad sorts, they just drive me to insanity. I have asked their purpose but they cannot understand the question.
I have tried complaining to my boss - to no avail; he disputes the very concept of an unnecessary conversation (which I cannot understand - given there are necessary conversations the rest of them are unnecessary ones). Also he travels a lot and is in a lot of meetings so he personally is exposed much less. So, no chance of getting the colleagues shut up, no chance for a request to get an office in the software developers’ tract either (they are an admirably quiet lot but I am in another department). I don’t have the specific systems software skills either to get a transfer to that department.
So, the options of avoiding the noise in time or space, or to try and shut it down, have been exhausted. The only option left is to habituate myself.
What I know is that it’s a psychological thing with me not a physiological one. When a building went up next door my colleagues complained about the building noise but I wasn’t put out much - the noise was neccessary as it was the result of a rational, purposeful activity. The noise of my colleagues I mentally pigeonhole the same way as I do a drunk’s shouting and it grates me the same way - basically I perceive it as an expression of disrespect.
Has anyone experience on ways to mentally readjust oneself so you don’t mind the talking, screeching and braying?
