Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 19:18:09 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: "gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org" <gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org>,
 WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>,
 WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>, bsfsgeneral at bsfs.org
Subject: [WSFA] From Cubicles, Cry for Quiet Pierces Office Buzz
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
The walls have come tumbling down in offices everywhere, but the cubicle
dwellers keep putting up new ones. They barricade themselves behind file
cabinets. They fortify their partitions with towers of books and papers.
Or they follow an "evolving law of technology etiquette," as articulated
by Raj Udeshi at the open office he shares with fellow software
entrepreneurs in downtown Manhattan.

"Headphones are the new wall," he said, pointing to the covered ears of
his neighbors.

Cubicle culture is already something of a punch line - how many ways can
we find to annoy one another all day? - but lately the complaints are
being heard by the right people, including managers and social
scientists. Companies are redesigning offices, piping in special
background noise to improve the acoustics and bringing in engineers to
solve volume issues. "Sound masking" has become a buzz phrase.

Scientists, for their part, are measuring the unhappiness and the lower
productivity of distracted workers. After surveying 65,000 people over
the past decade in North America, Europe, Africa and Australia,
researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, report that more
than half of office workers are dissatisfied with the level of "speech
privacy," making it the leading complaint in offices everywhere.

"In general, people do not like the acoustics in open offices," said
John Goins, the leader of the survey conducted by Berkeley's Center for
the Built Environment. "The noisemakers aren't so bothered by the lack
of privacy, but most people are not happy, and designers are finally
starting to pay attention to the problem."
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/science/when-buzz-at-your-cubicle-is-too-loud-for-work.html>

         mark