Nine tenths of the developer jobs I've moved through in the past 5 years, I have jumped ship seemingly on coin flip to external observers and colleagues, and the key factor underlying those decisions has been the office environment.
Crowds vary, and environments differ, from luxury, appeal and cost, to interpersonal variations.
But for sure, the open environment put all of them in the crosshairs. The noise? It's less about noise, and more about the content of conversations.
You hear half a conversation, and when your paycheck is on the line, hearing the wrong part of a conversation leaves you wondering if they were talking about you, and whether or not anyone intended you to hear it. You hear people judging new hire candidates after a round of interviews. You hear people gossiping. You hear people talking about raises and reviews. Who's fucking who.
Worst of all, you hear sideways remarks from people in a mocking tone, clearly within earshot. Passive aggression, hostility. But all work related. None of it discriminatory. It all targets the impostor syndrome of holding down what amounts to a bullshit job to begin with.
Every word crystal clear. The whole conversation, unmistakably audible to you, but you are not a participant. Is it a taunt? Are there more people agreeing with what they said, and chiming in with additional sarcasm? Are they ganging up on you? And you have to sit at your desk, quietly uninvolved, minding your own business, and focus on stepping through some useless convenience widget in a debugger.
It's having to hear other people's negativity at all, and dealing with the revelation that people you'd like to respect, are actually fucking horrible.
Even if they aren't ganging up on you, hearing them gang up on other people behind their back, knowing that they're two-faced, and having to continue to work with them is, well, kind of awful. In an open office, you sometimes find out unceremoniously, that everyone is backstabbing everyone else.
Sure, let's lend some perspective to that. A silver lining. Better to know who the sociopaths are right? That's life, yes? Deal with it like an adult? Or maybe not.
Maybe, if everyone's a backstabbing two-faced piece of shit, then hey, maybe it's okay to just betray anyone, because everyone's awful.
If everyone's smug on twitter and facebook, is seeing it and knowing about it worse for some of us?
If no one has any integrity anymore, it leaves you with no allegiance.
Sometimes, there are things you'd just rather not know.
If I'm ever in the situation you describe, I'd want to be seeking help from a trusted person immediately. Not to discuss "noise problems" but these questions: Am I paranoid? If not, how do I get out?
The scenario of being surrounded by backstabbers raises so many questions that there is no point of discussing noise problems.
When I was annoyed by open office noise I just heard disgusting stupid humans blabbing about disgusting human stupidities, why won't they just shut up and let ne think.
I guess my misanthropy was acting up.
Maybe open office disturbance just causes unique cracks each person has in their psyche to show up.
frustrated lately that my rating as a
passenger in Uber is at 4.78 and falling
Mother of God, passenger ratings? I'm glad I've never used Uber, and now I am certain I never will.
I mean, of all things, I don't even like the HN karma system. Arbitrary frowny faces for The Wrong Kind of Joke only now, scale that up first, just to taxi drivers, and then apply it to Society At Large, All Day Every Day.
Uber/Taxi drivers are people too, and their vehicles are an important part of their livelihood. They deserve the right to avoid the types of people who end up with 1 star reviews on Uber. Hint: you have the vomit in, steal from, or otherwise wreak havoc MORE THAN ONCE for it to get that bad.
Suppose I go through a tough patch in my life - perhaps a stressful period combined with a serious medical problem - and during this time I vomit in several Ubers, driving my customer rating to < 3.
Is it possible to fix this? Am I going to have to change my name, email, and phone number before I can use Uber again? And how is this AT ALL better than the old taxi system, where the taxi company owned the car and was able to insure itself against this kind of damage caused by passengers? Not to mention that if Uber is successful, it's likely to become the only game in town - whereas taxi services are quite diverse by comparison.
Also, why do you assume that I have to be a "bad person" to get a bad rating? What if I'm a minority living in an area where my background is looked upon with suspicion or hatred?
I drove for Lyft one summer and someone who had just gotten into a serious motorcycle accident called me to take them to the ER. They bled all over my back seat, not to mention terrifying me because I have absolutely no training as a first responder. If you need to urgently go to the hospital, call a fucking ambulance, not an Uber!
Does that change the fact that the driver has to clean your virulent vomit? You might come away with a 5 star rating if you apologize and paid for the cleaning, or if the driver felt sorry for you.
It is just that there is a difference between deliberate or avoidable bad behavior and situations where one cannot help themselves and need the transport system for emergency rescue.
It is crazy the latter could land you on a blacklist. A rating system is not necessary. A reporting system for the rotten apples would suffice, and the rest of the customers would be unrated.
The guy brought to hospital may end up in coma. Not able to clean up.
With reporting you cannot have a pissed-off driver land a pregnant women on a blacklist because she delivered her child in the car, and there is now blood on the seats.
There is some occupational hazard for taxi drivers and others in public transport. The provider company or insurance should cover cleanup costs.
You neglect, of course, that David Lynch, himself, sought to distance himself from the movie, considering it something of an embarassment, and requesting an Alan Smithee [1] credit for at least one version of its release.
In some ways, we can look back on it with a sort of "so-bad-it's-good" a e s t h e t i c in mind, and when understanding David Lynch's sensibilities, you can still catch a glimpse of his creative influence shining through. But really, David Lynch is ultimately correct in his self-effacing critique. It's kitschy and campy in a lot of ways. Just watch the closing credits in isolation, if you don't agree, and try and challenge that opinion again.
To understand what I'm talking about, watch Dune, then watch Eraserhead, and then watch Dune again. Eraserhead informs us of David Lynch's purest intent realized as a feature presentation.
You can see some of Eraserhead in Kenneth McMillan's portrayal of Vladimir Harkonnen (and indeed, it's the scene that Jack Nance [3] appears in), but that's really about it. That Dune doesn't live up to the visualizations of Moebius' imaginary realms [4], and that much of the budgeting, politics and film making technology of the day stood in the way of the final theatrical release is probably what bummed David Lynch out about it.
Crowds vary, and environments differ, from luxury, appeal and cost, to interpersonal variations.
But for sure, the open environment put all of them in the crosshairs. The noise? It's less about noise, and more about the content of conversations.
You hear half a conversation, and when your paycheck is on the line, hearing the wrong part of a conversation leaves you wondering if they were talking about you, and whether or not anyone intended you to hear it. You hear people judging new hire candidates after a round of interviews. You hear people gossiping. You hear people talking about raises and reviews. Who's fucking who.
Worst of all, you hear sideways remarks from people in a mocking tone, clearly within earshot. Passive aggression, hostility. But all work related. None of it discriminatory. It all targets the impostor syndrome of holding down what amounts to a bullshit job to begin with.
Every word crystal clear. The whole conversation, unmistakably audible to you, but you are not a participant. Is it a taunt? Are there more people agreeing with what they said, and chiming in with additional sarcasm? Are they ganging up on you? And you have to sit at your desk, quietly uninvolved, minding your own business, and focus on stepping through some useless convenience widget in a debugger.
Sure thing. Where's the door?