My own private Emocide

I am not a big fan of open-plan offices anymore. I used to like big roomy office spaces, but in my last job, that proved to have a lot of potential for distraction (20+ people). I noticed how much more productive I was in the evenings, when there was no-one else around, or a lot less “traffic”.

Now, for 4 months I have been working in a shared office space with 2-3 other people. This is a start-up. Aside from the fact that it sucks, not to have decent furniture, working so close with people who potentially trigger my latent OCD isn’t all that fun all the time.

Examples? Here we go:

1. One of them likes to bring cheese bread to work. Now, this has nothing to do, with me being vegan (besides that, he likes to bring meat too, which disgusts me, but doesn’t cause the same issues), but — and if you’ve ever smelled a “Schlierbacher” cheese, you know what I am talking about — with a stench, I cannot bare for very long. This cheese smells like rotten socks — and really, really strong. To the point, where I get nauseous, when this goes on for more than 30 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes great and I myself used to love it in my pre-vegan times, but it’s just bad, when you are supposed to be working next to people, who are devouring this at their desks.
2. The other one loves to hum when he is thinking(?). This is something I just cannot do with — so thank dog for my Skullcandy Proletariat headphones — noise cancelling galore.
3. Same dude, has his chick working at our place too. She sits next to him about a day each week. Now, that’s fine with me, as long as there is professional behavior. The following 2 things I DON’T consider professional behavior at the office:
   1. Kissing and love-birding (hearing smacks behid my back as I am typing)
   2. Whispering — this is something that’s really pushing my buttons. However, I’ve noticed myself that they find it pretty disturbing, when I start whispering too, but to myself. Pretty effective, at the price that they think I’m a nutjob. But hey… “I like to whisper too…”
4. Eating with your mouth open. Need I say more? A big pet peeve of mine… and nothing that would be too hard to overcome, would it now?

6 more days at work. I’ll be able to manage to hold up till then. Will be fun, when the bosses find out that their calculations are off by almost 2 weeks… let alone all the OT payout that I assume will prompt some discussions and fights. Good thing, the union has my back.