We work in an open office where everybody sits behind desks next to each other.
But many coworkers almost constantly wear headphones during work hours.
It feels awkward to often ask them to remove their headphones to talk to them, which makes them practically inaccessible as if they are not present in the office but working remotely.
The open office plan must bring people together and create a collaborative environment where people can easily talk to each other and have as much impromptu collaboration as possible. But the headphone syndrome makes it nearly impossible, and the open office plan stops making sense.
I even thought about using apps like Vizor.video to be connected with such people in the office. With it, you can still talk to them through virtual frosted glass even if they are wearing their headphones.
Guys, do you experience the same problem, and how do you deal with it?
Each person has the right to work without distraction, and, in some cases, it may in fact be the case that they do not want you to distract them.
That's the problem, not the headphones.
> I even thought about using apps like Vizor.video to be connected with such people in the office. With it, you can still talk to them through virtual frosted glass even if they are wearing their headphones.
If I'm wearing my headphones because I don't want to be distracted by random noise, I'm not going to want to use an app that can immediately cut through those headphones.
You have a few possible solutions:
- talk to your manager/employer about a better workplace arrangement.
- Ping your coworkers on Slack, and let them respond to you when they're ready to, not when you're ready to interrupt them.
- Scheduled "open" hours, when nobody's wearing their headphones. Just make sure that everyone understands that during that time, not much deep thinking or work is going to get done.
Why must it, and isn't "as much as possible" pretty much guaranteed to be more than is warranted?