there is a guy in my office that pounds on his keyboards when he's writing emails. it's like his fingertips are filled with concrete. it's really annoying and i feel bad for the keys.
my boss sits a ways away from me and is on the phone constantly. the plotter is always creaking and moaning and cutting and our lexmark printer is surprisingly loud for a printer...
i can listen to music at normal volumes without headphones because there's enough separation between me and the old man.
that and the fact that he sits behind three computers and four monitors who all hum and beep and what-not.
so i rock out to whatever while working which is great...though i do pine for a larger team environment at times.
but the blaring bad religion which just now changed to sick again from physical graffiti is a bonus.
that and the office cat who's quite a funny little thing.
the last office i worked in was a comfortable volume except for one principal who would read out aloud ALL THE TIME...while looking at emails, while typing emails, and then on the phone so it was really painful sometimes. she never shut up that one.
I've talked about this before, but I worked in an office where the only music played - over an intercom system - was Lionel Richie's classic hits and Abba tunes - sometimes interspersed with low grade classical music. It wasnt music, it was mucis.
OF-
my current office is kinda like that. really productive, kinda messy. but we like it loud.
i worked in a firm, husband and wife.
was not fun.
he was the architect. she thought she was, and he was really controlling. she'd ask me to do something, he'd intervene soon as she left, and then she'd be mad as hell when i wasn't working on what she asked me to. that didn't last long. she was a huge flirt which certainly didn't help a damn thing.
i also worked for a sole proprieter who would take to his boyfriends on the phone about really inappropriate shit. stuff no one ever wants to hear about. dude's breath reeked, too. had no concept of reality and was ultra scary.
I am the office DJ...today's mix consisted of Air, MIA, Madonna, Modest Mouse, John Coltrane, LCD Soundsystem, Matmos, The Magnetic Fields, Cat Power and Shearwater, among others
About the headphones. Headphones are what makes being a cadmonkey bearable. Whats wrong with headphones? I think it's the only sane and polite way to have focus time in an office that has an open studio layout, and still have it open to collaboration. Headphones are polite and personal aren't they?
I mean, put them on, and you're in focus mode. Take em off and you can collaborate all you want, or talk about whatever without annoying the guy who's trying to work... since he's wearing headphones!
Thoughts? Agree or disagree? I guess it depends on the office...
OF - my take is that sometimes, depending on what's going on in the office, headphones don't just make being a cadmonket bearable, but they give you the separation required to focus on good drafting and tough details.
i have a bitch of a time on certain aspects of my workflow if people around me are talking, hence the big help that headphones can offer.
if there's a big meeting going on in a small, open office that doesn't concern me, much as i'd like to gain from overhearing the conversation, it will undoubtedly hinder my ability to concentrate on the task at hand.
if there a killer charrette going on about a project on which i have some say/responsibility, that's another story...i want to be engaged.
people need to develop good headphone etiquette. you need the volume low enough so you can hear the phone ring or if someone's at the door, and you obviously need to take them out when someone asks you a question, but in all, it's not a matter of making an unbearable job slightly more bearable, it's about staying focused on an aspect of our work that can be tedious at times.
i loved picking up redlines when there were good tunes in my head. not so much when i had to listen to my old boss read her emails out loud with her constant stream of rhetorical questions. was i supposed to answer them? it was like a venus fly trap.
i don't need 'em now though. whatever music i want whenever i want it. no worries.
I think it's more a device for focusing. It's just that architectural work is schizophrenic. There's a good chunk of it that requires intense collaboraton, engaging people and then there's another part that is just plain hard focus work, alone time...
It's not all mindless, not just about picking up redlines, it's all types of daily tasks... the cad*monkey*work is also about figuring out details, understanding what you're building, how the bits and pieces go together... Not all exciting or anything to talk about except as assembling a bunch of elements, but the problem is, there's time for talk and that's really imortant, it's needed to get things done, and then there's a time for actually doing it...
It's production, it might be running through a set, checking all notes, thinking about if it ll makes sense, how it tells somebody how to build it. I don't know... It's fun but it's not casual work... All these parts that go together to form this thing that is being handed off to be built... The package of stuff from specs to detail drawings to schedules... Actually, to be honest, I think the more I get into it, I find that this is my favorite part of architecture work, the assembling of the parts...
Focus work. I think headphones are basically a device for being able to focus on the micro bits within the context of a work environment that is complex and always has plenty enough distractions. I think the headphones are a necessity especially in an open office setting... Aren't headphones actually *good* open office etiquette? Because in open studio settings, it's easy for nothing to get done except talk all day... The talk is important, but there needs to be a device for shutting it out politely... Like closing the office door except at least with the headphone, you've always still got one ear / visual connection to others... It's pretty easy for a day to fly by and nothing in the way of actual drawing get done because of ongoing office push and pull...
Design work at very schematic stages needs the same thing... I don't know... I guess it depends on the person. Some people think better in silence, some people think better with a soundtrack?
it's not quiet at all...you want quiet...you wear headphones or ear plugs (some people do!) between the charettes, construction discusions/arguments, people bitching about how REVIT Sucks...and conversations about the previous nights TV shows...and what is new on TMZ - Perezhilton I really don't know how we are able to produce the work we do (90% interiors)
Now the entire orifice is not this way...step into the "Architeture bay" and you can hear a pin drop!
how quiet is your office?
how strong do you think your glass drafting desk is??? we could set up a video camera below it....
we may feel a draft against our naked bodies...
i just threw up a little in my mouth
tumbles
hopefully you have a better gag reflex that Kalyani
tumbles
what is your live load rating?
there is a guy in my office that pounds on his keyboards when he's writing emails. it's like his fingertips are filled with concrete. it's really annoying and i feel bad for the keys.
i have strong fingers
ish
err...maybe that was intentional
you and alfrejas24, both hate fish...or phish...not sure....
I like phish
but don't like fish
so do i...
there's only two of us in this office.
my boss sits a ways away from me and is on the phone constantly. the plotter is always creaking and moaning and cutting and our lexmark printer is surprisingly loud for a printer...
i can listen to music at normal volumes without headphones because there's enough separation between me and the old man.
that and the fact that he sits behind three computers and four monitors who all hum and beep and what-not.
so i rock out to whatever while working which is great...though i do pine for a larger team environment at times.
but the blaring bad religion which just now changed to sick again from physical graffiti is a bonus.
that and the office cat who's quite a funny little thing.
the last office i worked in was a comfortable volume except for one principal who would read out aloud ALL THE TIME...while looking at emails, while typing emails, and then on the phone so it was really painful sometimes. she never shut up that one.
I've talked about this before, but I worked in an office where the only music played - over an intercom system - was Lionel Richie's classic hits and Abba tunes - sometimes interspersed with low grade classical music. It wasnt music, it was mucis.
There you go, another useful term coined by me.
OF-
my current office is kinda like that. really productive, kinda messy. but we like it loud.
i worked in a firm, husband and wife.
was not fun.
he was the architect. she thought she was, and he was really controlling. she'd ask me to do something, he'd intervene soon as she left, and then she'd be mad as hell when i wasn't working on what she asked me to. that didn't last long. she was a huge flirt which certainly didn't help a damn thing.
i also worked for a sole proprieter who would take to his boyfriends on the phone about really inappropriate shit. stuff no one ever wants to hear about. dude's breath reeked, too. had no concept of reality and was ultra scary.
I am the office DJ...today's mix consisted of Air, MIA, Madonna, Modest Mouse, John Coltrane, LCD Soundsystem, Matmos, The Magnetic Fields, Cat Power and Shearwater, among others
About the headphones. Headphones are what makes being a cadmonkey bearable. Whats wrong with headphones? I think it's the only sane and polite way to have focus time in an office that has an open studio layout, and still have it open to collaboration. Headphones are polite and personal aren't they?
I mean, put them on, and you're in focus mode. Take em off and you can collaborate all you want, or talk about whatever without annoying the guy who's trying to work... since he's wearing headphones!
Thoughts? Agree or disagree? I guess it depends on the office...
i like both headphones and not-headphones.
OF - my take is that sometimes, depending on what's going on in the office, headphones don't just make being a cadmonket bearable, but they give you the separation required to focus on good drafting and tough details.
i have a bitch of a time on certain aspects of my workflow if people around me are talking, hence the big help that headphones can offer.
if there's a big meeting going on in a small, open office that doesn't concern me, much as i'd like to gain from overhearing the conversation, it will undoubtedly hinder my ability to concentrate on the task at hand.
if there a killer charrette going on about a project on which i have some say/responsibility, that's another story...i want to be engaged.
people need to develop good headphone etiquette. you need the volume low enough so you can hear the phone ring or if someone's at the door, and you obviously need to take them out when someone asks you a question, but in all, it's not a matter of making an unbearable job slightly more bearable, it's about staying focused on an aspect of our work that can be tedious at times.
i loved picking up redlines when there were good tunes in my head. not so much when i had to listen to my old boss read her emails out loud with her constant stream of rhetorical questions. was i supposed to answer them? it was like a venus fly trap.
i don't need 'em now though. whatever music i want whenever i want it. no worries.
I think it's more a device for focusing. It's just that architectural work is schizophrenic. There's a good chunk of it that requires intense collaboraton, engaging people and then there's another part that is just plain hard focus work, alone time...
It's not all mindless, not just about picking up redlines, it's all types of daily tasks... the cad*monkey*work is also about figuring out details, understanding what you're building, how the bits and pieces go together... Not all exciting or anything to talk about except as assembling a bunch of elements, but the problem is, there's time for talk and that's really imortant, it's needed to get things done, and then there's a time for actually doing it...
It's production, it might be running through a set, checking all notes, thinking about if it ll makes sense, how it tells somebody how to build it. I don't know... It's fun but it's not casual work... All these parts that go together to form this thing that is being handed off to be built... The package of stuff from specs to detail drawings to schedules... Actually, to be honest, I think the more I get into it, I find that this is my favorite part of architecture work, the assembling of the parts...
Focus work. I think headphones are basically a device for being able to focus on the micro bits within the context of a work environment that is complex and always has plenty enough distractions. I think the headphones are a necessity especially in an open office setting... Aren't headphones actually *good* open office etiquette? Because in open studio settings, it's easy for nothing to get done except talk all day... The talk is important, but there needs to be a device for shutting it out politely... Like closing the office door except at least with the headphone, you've always still got one ear / visual connection to others... It's pretty easy for a day to fly by and nothing in the way of actual drawing get done because of ongoing office push and pull...
Design work at very schematic stages needs the same thing... I don't know... I guess it depends on the person. Some people think better in silence, some people think better with a soundtrack?
it's not quiet at all...you want quiet...you wear headphones or ear plugs (some people do!) between the charettes, construction discusions/arguments, people bitching about how REVIT Sucks...and conversations about the previous nights TV shows...and what is new on TMZ - Perezhilton I really don't know how we are able to produce the work we do (90% interiors)
Now the entire orifice is not this way...step into the "Architeture bay" and you can hear a pin drop!
tumbles
if I were at your office, I would have to put my hands down your pants to keep them warm
sounds heard in my office today:
- my boss's dog barking at everyone who came off the elevator
- hipsters next row over playing clap your hands say yeah
- my boss telling a story about something that involved using the world 'tard' about 50 different times, as a noun, verb, adjective, etc
err, word i mean
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