I’m 33 and have worked my way through the professional world, being in a sort of intermediate level position with a great relationship with my boss, who is in his late 40’s or very early 50’s. One of the newer guys on our team is around 25 or 26 and is considered a junior member of our team (due to work experience, not age). He consistently wears his headphones at his desk while working - pretty much 100% of the time. We all have separate offices with doors/windows (no cubicles here, thankfully).
During a performance review discussion about said junior guy, my boss brought up the headphones. He’s bothered by it and wanted to know what I thought. I know the guy is screwing around occasionally (I mean, he giggles every once in a while when I walk by - I’m sure he’s on YouTube or something), but is good about getting his work done. I remember being more junior and I had a lot of down time as well. I’d probably spend 10% to 20% of my day screwing around - but I was much more discrete about it (I have NO time for that now, I hardly take a lunch these days). Anyway, I didn’t mention that I was sure he was screwing around once in a while, but I did say that I thought the headphones were sort of a generational thing and they don’t really bother me. To be fair, he immediately takes them out as soon as you stand in his doorway. I think it still bugs my boss though.
What about you? Headphones in a non-cubicle environment - yay or nay? If you’re comfortable, include your age/generation with your response.
26 here. I see it pretty often at my office, from people of all ages, cubicle areas and non-cubicle areas alike. Doesn’t bother me one bit. Everyone is diligent with taking them off immediately when someone needs their attention.
Myself, I can’t wear them because I never like to be caught unaware. If I can’t hear someone coming, I get startled.
I’d be a bit wary of wearing a large set of headphones but I do use earbuds to listen to music at work if I’ve got a long, repetitive or routine job.
Sometimes I’ll only use the left bud so I can still hear whats going on around me.
Back in the late '90s I had a mapping job which was all screen based and quite tedious. I got a cheap set of the old ‘Walkman’ (for want of a better name) style earphones - the ones with the slim metal bad over the head and the orange foam earpads - I removed the right earpad/speaker and listened to audiobooks on tape all day.
I’m 42 and I wear my earbuds at the office if I’m doing something that doesn’t require much thinking and the phone is quiet. I only keep one in and take it if I go out of my office or someone comes to my door. I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m a yea.
Okay with me. I’m in my 50s, I’m in charge of my unit, I have an office, and I listen to books while I do non-critical work. One earbud, and I remove it when someone comes to my door.
I can’t imagine getting upset by headphone in a private office.
I do find them a bit off putting in cubes, where casual conversation is likely. I’ll do the one earbud thing when I have a repetitive task to do, but I do think it is more professional to be fully present.
Since my job involves participating in/facilitating online meetings, I have a pair of bigass ol’ headphones I have to wear while doing so. I try to remember to leave my office door open only a crack while I am doing this, to indicate I am busy, but can still be interrupted briefly if it’s important enough. I don’t always remember to do this though and always feel like a slacker when someone walks in wanting something when I am wearing the headphones. It feels like goofing off even though it isn’t.
I’m 52, so I am sure it’s leftover etiquette from an earlier age.
Add to the above, I work in an open-plan office which can get very distracting if I’ve got to really concentrate on some work, eg. reading a report to provide comments or feedback on.
I have a few white noise/meditation/nature sound apps on my phone that I use to drown out the background noise. I use both earbuds for that, turn the volume up just enough to stop distractions and get to work. For some reason I find instrumental or classical music distracting when I work.
Absolutely yes to headphones. I’m the same age as OP (33). I wear headphones constantly in the lab. I also used to have older co-workers bothered by it.
For me, headphones in the lab are a sanity-preserver. I don’t do nearly as much lab-work as I used to since starting in management, but I still do a bit. I wore them as a lab rat, I still wear them now. It’s a nice escape from the endless emails, voicemails and meetings. And I can just focus on the work.
My older co-workers were/are just as bothered by them as yours. What I’ve found, and what I would suggest you suggest to your younger colleague: A lot of that bother goes away if you use headphones politely. As in, when a co-worker approaches you or your desk with even a hint of looking like they want to talk to you - remove the headphones/earbuds immediately, look them in the eye, and give a friendly, “Hey, what’s up?” Once I started doing this, the older workers stopped being bothered. I don’t blame them for feeling a bit annoyed if they approach a co-worker they want to talk to and said co-worker leaves the headphones on until they have to say “Hi. Hey. HEY. HEY!”
A resounding yes to headphones, especially in a non-office space. There’s just too much noise around for me to concentrate on work sometimes, and the headphones allow me to remove distraction and focus. I don’t think it’s rude at all.
I once got a minor negative mark on a performance review (at a previous job, thank heavens) because they claimed that because I wore headphones, I was “shutting myself off from interaction” and that people felt “intimidated to contact” me. I say horseshit. I was very diligent about removing them as soon as someone wanted my attention, and my work was of excellent quality, as judged by the same review. All they needed to do was walk in front of me, or tap me on the shoulder, and I’d have as involved as they wanted.
I’m 46, working in software development. I prefer that my coworkers wear headphones rather than listen to music over speakers (yes, it happens). As long as they remove their headphones when somebody wants to talk to them and they can hear their own phones ring, cool.
I am bothered when they listen to piston music loud enough that I can hear the psschp-psschp-psschp-psschp. As a boss I would have trouble believing that somebody is productive while listening to an audiobook or talk radio.
My work in the lab involves a lot of long, tedious gruntwork completely on my own. If I didn’t have my iPod, I’d have dropped out from insanity years ago.
I share an office with one other programmer/developer, and we both often use earbuds to listen to music without disturbing the other. Sometimes we get sequences like this, (going the other way around too.)
[ul]
[li]I say something to Jake[/li][li]Jake doesn’t answer.[/li][li]I turn around and notice Jake has his earbuds in[/li][li]I turn back around and send Jake a text message over Skype[/li][li]Jake takes off his earbuds.[/li][li]“Chris, did you just say something?”[/li][/ul]
A recent executive decision banning headphones/earbuds from the office was not popular. (None of us are in the first bloom of youth.) A few of our clerical tasks are really dull & music calmed the 95% of our brains not needed for those particular jobs. Then there’s “casual conversation”–I really don’t need to hear, yet again, what the darling toddlers did last night. Or how much somebody hates her inlaws.
We never got a good reason for the ban. Some of our co-workers work in a lab or on jobsites away from here. I think they’ve never been allowed to wear earbuds & probably complained that it was unfaaaair to let us do so…
At least we convinced the folks with private offices that, if they really must make calls on their speaker phone (not conference calls, just not wishing to pick up the phone), they really need to close their office doors.
At a past job, we had an open floor and talking (both on the phone and to co-workers) was a big part of being effective and efficient at most of the tasks. Headphones were banned there, and a few people got really worked up about it, but I think it was probably a good policy given the collaboration requirements of the job.
At my current job, we’re in a combination of full cubes and private offices, my phone rings maybe once or twice a day, and headphones are pretty routine. I usually do the one ear thing, but I’ve seen many people fully headphone up and I don’t see it as an issue at all.
Some of my colleagues sometimes wear them, but it seems to be an explicit ‘do not disturb’ signal - i.e. they have an important piece of work to complete, their phone is on divert, they don’t want to be interrupted and (most importantly, I guess) they are the kind of person who can work when with music playing.
One of my colleagues just does it quite ignorantly, however, and uses it as an excuse not to pull his weight (not answering the team hotline phone, not noticing when we get a walk-in call, etc).
If it enhances or is neutral to your work, it’s fine, otherwise, not.
The office here is a mix of cubicles ( visitors, clerical ) and regular rooms. It appears from a quick glace that perhaps half of the people here have headphones on while they are working. I will have a pair that I use at work during off hours or weekends. To the best of my knowledge there has never an effort to ban them so perhaps the managers have more important things to worry about.
The group of expats range in ages from late 20’s to mid 50’s, with me being a young looking 53.
I’m 29 years old and my boss is 50-something. We usually work in the same office (so a non-cubicle environment.) She (my boss) sometimes wears headphones and has music on when she says she needs to concentrate on something. It kind of, well, not annoys me, but I get kind of worried if I have some sort of problem, and my boss has headphones on and I don’t want to disturb her.
And whenever anyone wears headphones and I can hear noise from them, it annoys me, though that doesn’t always happen at work.
I sometimes wear headphones myself at work, plugged into a computer, if I’m doing a task where I have to listen to music (like choosing music for a special event or something.)
So I guess my opinion is that headphones at work are okay as long as you don’t have to interact with others and as long as people can’t hear noise leakage from them.
