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My boss (bless her heart) on my first documentalist
job used to refer to me as "Old Distractable". With reason.
I would not be optimally productive in the kind
of environment that you describe. I can get into
a groove, and be fairly resistant to distraction
once I've achieved it, but I'd be unlikely to
actually get there if I was out in the open, with
activity brushing past me and conversations floating
everywhere.
As it is, I live in a cube and so do my cow-orkers,
so there's some separation, but one can tune in
to events at will without being party to every fart
and hiccup... so to speak.
Yet still, when I'm scrambling to make a deadline,
and hundreds of picky things are not resolving
themselves -- i.e., more in an editing/reworking mode
than a free-flowing writing mode -- I find myself
losing the thread every couple of minutes as
conversations (some actually related to work stuff...)
go on all around me. For example, I've unwillingly
been a studio audience at the soap-opera of my
cube-neighbor's life -- the house-mate and her kids
saga, the house-mate and her adventures with cars
and garage doors and..., the revolving credit and
collection agency scrambles, the... the... sigh...
At those times, I pack up the laptop and either go
home (where I can hook into another big monitor)
or I go park the truck in a park by the river,
or on a sidestreet, and and work steadily until the
battery runs low... or a really lovely ... er, never
mind.
This is slightly less attractive in winter, but
then the passing distractions are less frequent
and are bundled up against the weather, if you
catch my (snow) drift.
But that said, I find it invaluable to spend a fair
amount of time in a place where I *can* pick up on
the work-related conversations, because I learn a lot
and am alerted to important tidbits in that way. I get
hints as to what questions I need to ask, next.
/kevin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Humphries, Ola [mailto:Ola -dot- Humphries -at- Caminus -dot- com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 10:21 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: seating arrangements
[...]
> But the main kicker is the seating arrangment. The new
> location sits its
> lone techwriter at a long table among the programmers. No
> cubicle and small
> desk space. Possibly a file drawer, but no bookcases. Just
> the same amount
> of work area that the programmers have. I find these accommodations
> unpalatable. I'm wondering if having a bit of privacy (in the way of a
> cubicle) is generally a job requirement for most of you.
[...]
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