TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Did you ask the offender to tone it down BEFORE you started posting
those transcriptions? While we're about it, did you ask the person
twice? I personally b believe that, in the name of fairness, you should
use the "baseball system" in a situation like this. Tell them twice and
take action only upon a third instance of the offense.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mailing List [mailto:mlist -at- ca -dot- rainbow -dot- com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 10:51 AM
Subject: RE: Quiet workplace
cupton -at- syclone -dot- net [mailto:cupton -at- syclone -dot- net]
> I originally brought in my aviator's ear plugs because of the
> fire alarm,
> and they turned out to be handy to screen out my neighbor's
> personal phone
> calls which were even more obnoxious.
At a previous company, I got thoroughly tired of hearing
a cube-neighbor's soap-opera. So I finally began transcribing
it, and printing it out, leaving several line-spaces between
each utterance, for others to fill in their guesses as to what
was being said on the other end of the line. Then I posted
the "blank" forms. Many of the responses were hilarious, and
it was apparent that I was not the only person annoyed by
the soap-opera broadcast.
After about a week, the neighbor became much more discreet.
My boss caught on that I was the /s/o/u/r/c/e/ conduit of
the new office entertainment and inquired privately where
I could be finding the time, given my workload. I told her
that my workload went on hold every time the neighbor made
the choices to place/accept a private phone call on company
time (not a crime) and to make the office end of that
conversation loud and public (a crime to me, at least).
I pointed out that if it was loud enough that I could
record it over the noise of my own typing, then it was
definitely loud enough to be displacing work thoughts
from my skull. The boss got the point.
I never did discover if the improvement came because of
embarrassment of the cow-orker, or because the boss said
something.
The person in question would have absolutely become one
of those "I'm more important than you" types who used to
carry on loud conversations with cellphones in restaurants.
Oh, and yes I did ask the offender to tone it down.
