Quote: Original post by Somnia
And noisy, did I mention noisy? Yak yak yak yak yak. I can imagine listening to music might help but it's frowned upon.

This is very easy to solve.

Talk to your boss.

Explain that the office is noisy, there are always people talking, and that you believe is hurting your job performance.

Explain that in order to do your job more effectively you will be wearing noise-cancelling headphones with light music playing, especially when people are talking near you.

Also, since others are probably also distracted by the constant chatter, notify your boss every time the conversation is distracting to you. Even if your boss is in the conversation, tell him clearly that the conversation is a distraction from your job.

In exchange, and only if necessary, be prepared to actively track your performance over the next few weeks, and also track the times you (even better, you and your neighbors) become distracted by the noise.




Some corporate cultures may not like seeing somebody with headphones on, but if you can present a good case and convince the boss that the office chatter is harming productivity and headphones can get more work out of you, then your boss will take steps to change the corporate culture.


Around my workplace we have a fairly simple policy. First we ask the people to be quiet or take the discussion elsewhere. It doesn't matter if the conversation is work related or not. If that doesn't work the first time (they have about 3 minutes), we immediately go to one of the higher-up bosses. They will break up the discussion or insist that it is moved behind closed doors. If they are involved in the conversation, they will respect the fact that they are interrupting work and remedy the situation.

There is no excuse for a few noisy individuals to destroy the performance of team members.

Now that I've got a proper position as a programmer, I miss the days that I could get physical exercise on a day-to-day basis.

This is anecdotal:

When I was a teen my parents thought that I should be a good chess player, which I admit humbly that I wasn't bad at the game. However, after playing in tournaments I was exhausted for days. Long story short: after I picked up tennis and played regularly I was much better suited to withstanding the rigors of a chess tournament.

Conclusion:
The brain is a muscle and the better your body is in shape the better your brain is suited towards it's task.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
I think it's office work that's grinding you down, and no wonder; offices are often horrible, grey environments with people constantly wandering about, laughing and joking with each other but staring mass murder at you if you try and join in; endless ringing of phones (I personally hate the things, when I finally get my own place I won't have a phone at all if I'm in a cable enabled area so I'll just get cable broadband and my mobile phone is mostly switched off); bland office politics; some arsehole boss going off on one like a spoilt child (and I don't care how good you are at your job or how knowledgeable you are - throwing childish tantrums and laying into people is totally unprofessional) and the dumb 9-5 grind. I do enjoy programming but I find my performance totally drops off in a work situation because you're surrounded by highly talented people ready to drop the Sword of Damocles if you make a tiny mistake, and that is unnerving - at work, I've totally and publicly fucked up stuff which I can do in my sleep when it's on my own terms. In any case, I don't know whoever thought 9-5 was a good idea because who in the blue fuck is awake and alert at 9am? Nobody I've ever worked with, that's for sure. Often I've been the intern/teaboy and come in nice and early with some full-time employees already there but there are plenty at plenty of jobs I've worked who stumbled in like frazzled, exhausted zombies well after 9am on a regular basis and nobody batted an eyelid as it was seemingly considered normal. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with working an eight hour day and am not indignant about it at all but I feel that perhaps shifting it to something more sensible like 10.30 to 18.30, or work whenever you like as long as you put in a full eight hours a day as Epic Games apparently do. This would relieve a lot of stress, allow people to get through traffic easier and, most important of all, get more sleep before work. It would also likely solve problems like people being stressed first thing, people missing breakfast which you shouldn't ever do because it's the most important meal of the day, physical exhaustion and not just light tiredness at work and having to cope with a commute.

No doubt you've figured out that modern life in Edinburgh is a complete mess and a shadow of what it once was and to me it is like fast slipping backwards on a V8 treadmill. Prices have risen, the roads have become ever more crowded and in a terrible state of repair along with the bus companies taking us for a ride ('scuse the pun) and a journey which used to take me 20 minutes now takes 40 on a good day, even if you take the shortcut to dodge the worst of the traffic. The pace of life has got too fast (my friend in West London is more relaxed and happy, for God's sake) and Edinburgh is a stressful, overcrowded, dirty clone city which is beginning to fill with an ever growing population of uneducated scum. This was never a problem as recently as five years ago so I don't quite know where it went wrong and, truth be told, it's taking its toll on me and I've lived here my entire life of 22 years up until I started University and moved away temporarily. My parents were here for University well before that and they actually said 1970s Edinburgh was like Pripyat compared to how it is today. I am not sticking around after I graduate and I have all the symptoms you have whilst here and working, whereas working the same job for a different arm of the same company in another city was bliss. It's the environment and not what you're doing, I think you'll find, that's the more important factor here.

For a quick fix solution, I agree with all those who say get more sleep which, I will admit, is difficult if you're saddled with stress and have to get up at fuckthis o'clock to get to work and most people have no life during the week because you have to be in bed stupidly early in order to get enough sleep to get up stupidly early, it's a vicious circle and it is making me want to telecommute and/or start my own business from home because life is far too short for that sort of stuff. Also, working at home would dodge the problems I mentioned at the top so I would try that if you have the option.

'Scuse the length of this wall, by all means. I had an e-mail from China asking for it back.

Sure this 9-5 grind can be a problem. I've been lucky enough to be allowed to come in anywhere between 9 and 10 am. Where you just leave at the end of the day according to the time you missed in the morning. Just find a better employer and the problem is solved.