Friday, December 15, 2006

Is it too quiet in the office?

Read an interesting comment today about the noise level in our working environment. I had been in offices where it is really really quiet until you can hear pin drops and you would feel guilty if you breathed too heavily and disturbed the ambiance. I feel it is really uncomfortable to work in such environment, even though it is really pleasant to have the silence when you are concentrating on certain tasks or problems. One of the main reasons I feel that it is so silent is because everyone is afraid that making too much noise would make them look bad by their bosses as their bosses would feel that they are not working hard enough. Nobody dare to chat or laugh even though it is time for tea break. It is really uncomfortable.
On the contrary, a place where it is too noisy would be really bad for productivity as you would not be able to concentrate much on your work. Therefore, I would like to work in a place where we have a quiet area at our workstations where we can concentrate on our work with the occasional 5-10 minutes discussion so that we do not disturb our colleagues. Anything more than that, please take it to the meeting room or if the management can afford it, have a fun/relax area for the staff to take a tea break, brain storm and joke a little without disturbing the rest of the colleagues who are trying hard to WORK in front of their workstations. By the way, if there really is a fun/relax area in my office, I think you will find me there most of the time instead of at my workstation :)

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