I moved, to my own house, in part in the hope of starting to consult as a sideline. To end up tortured by a series of neighbors.
I just had another one move in next door, and find my previously quiet neighboring property now has a fellow who plays music while he works in his garage. At least that I can't hear, inside my own house with the windows closed and the A/C on.
This "all noise, all the time" culture has invaded home life, too. And, it seems, for more and more people, not just from those you choose (or, are forced to...) live with.
Like the selfish people with their straight pipe Harleys. The absolutely ridiculous car stereos, which around here at least, the police finally seem to have cracked down on, a bit. (Once we got a noise ordinance, that for a long time they weren't really enforcing, I felt like pointing out to them, "Look! Here's your revenue stream! Third or fourth violation: $1000. You can afford to buy some calibrated sound meters.")
Choose where you live carefully. Home, like work, is a place where inconsiderate -- or, bad -- neighbors can drag your life and productivity down. Whereupon your options shrink, rather than grow.
I tried renting one of those small offices in a quiet neighborhood. Nope, they're apparently built with tissue paper so when the tattoo parlor moved in across the hall and started dropping the beat, there went all semblance of calm. Same for the small business just to the other side where they have loud stand-ups (with applause) and lots of sales calls.
So, yep, I know the old saying of "if everybody else is the asshole it's you who's the asshole." I still can't shake the feeling that I have nowhere to escape. Work is people loud, home is people loud, away is people loud, even the bus to and from work is getting people loud, the plane ride to vacation is people loud. Maybe I just need to hermit.
At home, it's pretty quiet too: I live in a tiny condo on the ground floor. Sometimes I hear sounds from the plumbing from people flushing toilets above, or from someone dropping something in the shower above, but otherwise it's very quiet. Large dogs aren't allowed here.
Years ago, I lived in a subdivision with my own house. It was much noisier: every neighbor around me had dogs that barked at all hours, we even got into a war with some of them that went to court (they lost: the police testified they heard dogs barking and that was that, since there was a noise ordinance). One neighbor had friends that would drive up to pick them up every day and honk the horn (the police were no help here). That neighborhood was miserable.
I recommend NOT buying your own house in a subdivision, and moving into a condo instead, preferably in a fairly new (and somewhat expensive) high-rise. The whole culture of cars, motorcycles, big dogs, etc., and the individuality that goes with that is anathema to people who want peace and quiet.
It's not you who's the asshole, it's Americans who live in the suburbs.
However, regarding work: any chance you can move somewhere rural, e.g. many parts of Vermont?
They played them so loud, and the subwoofers were so strong, that I would hear the glass panes vibrating within their frames, in my windows. In addition to the bass, itself.
There is simply no way to stop such noise from penetrating right through nearby structures.
In my last corporate job, that moved from offices to shared, low wall "cubettes", there was a contingent that would stand up and shout their conversations across the aisles. There was my immediate neighbor, on the other side of my cubette wall, who would pound our connected desk system incessantly while on hours worth of personal phone calls. (Sometimes "multi-tasking", which would show up when her work products would have to be redone.) Not only would I hear it, it would shake my own desk. When I asked her, very politely, to please not to hit her desk repeatedly, she reported me to HR and I ended up in the dog house.
All the... well, corporate propaganda, was about "collaboration".
And within that cubette you shared, you were supposed to tune out hour long cube meetings taking place 3-4 feet from your shoulder.
Grandparent commenter: I sympathize. That... "sounds" very familiar.
I had no support from family and friends. Actually, sort of active anti-support, until they experienced it for themselves. Which few, other than family, did, because I was so uncomfortable that I didn't invite people over.
My strong advice, after having let the stress pull me into a downward spiral, is to do whatever you can to get yourself out of it and to someplace safe. Screw what other people say; they're not living with it.
And, we don't all have to be corporate -- or start up -- environment drones.
Get out, before it's too late.
P.S. Lest people say I'm "anti-social" or poor at working collaboratively, at one BigCo, I had a senior manager outside my reporting structure present me with a corporate-wide award for independently and pro-actively throwing a cross-country team together to troubleshoot and solve a process that had been in chronic, repeated crisis for some years. These weren't people who reported to me, just people across the organization who benefited from -- collaboratively -- establishing responsibilities, expectations, deliverables, dates, and a process for problem resolution, for something we all depended upon and knew needed to get done.
"Collaboration" does not mean tuning out a bunch of noise that has nothing to do with what you're working out.
One of the most effective, and senior, development teams I was on, within a rather large corporation and development shop, was about 50% remote, with developers upping their remote time as much as they felt they could, as that became acceptable. (This happened particularly after the move from offices to those "cubettes", for those who had been working in the office. Oh, and the distracted, desk-pounding neighbor was not part of that team.)
The team had no problem working together, nor with other teams, internal and external. People knew what they were doing, and they could make the space to concentrate on it effectively. One of the most effective guys, off in Atlanta, I never even met face-to-face, over the course of a few years.
Sorry if I've gone on about this, a bit. But this "mythology" of the primacy of "open space collaboration" needs to be... "dispelled" is too weak a word.
As far as I'm concerned, if people want to work that way, let them. Somewhere away from me. I'll outperform them, if my own work preferences -- needs -- are respected, and the metrics are fair.
Furthermore, you need a living space under your own control, to enjoy and also where you can rest up from the parts of the world -- including the work world -- that aren't under your control.
The idea that you should somehow learn to ignore, or even "enjoy" your neighbor's loud music and other behavior. No. And, I've found, most often the people making such comments aren't putting up with such circumstances, themselves.
People in other circumstances may live differently. Even then, I think there is a difference between community noise and penetrating, amplified noise that invades your space and triggers your autonomous nervous system.
Kids playing in the neighborhood, quite audible through an open window, are no problem for me. There is a difference.
I'm not sure that's literally true. With enough budget, I think you could pull it off with the judicious use of (a) lawsuits, and/or (b) extensive soundproofing.
Although it you have that ^ much money to solve the problem, moving is probably the best first step.
I gotta admit that I'm one of those people. But at home, not with a car stereo. However, I make sure to live in places where sound won't bother my neighbors. Partly because I'm a nice guy. And partly to avoid the hassle.
I've lived in close-packed houses. But we had A/C, so the windows could always be closed. For apartments, I've sought out old-school concrete slab and block buildings. And currently, I'm in a modern frame building, with extreme sound isolation (both floors and walls). Also, I put my speakers overhead, so I'm mainly driving the floors, which have better sound isolation.
I feel for you brother. If you have a chance, move ASAP. If not, make that chance yourself. Everyone who seeks it deserves peace and quiet.
I don't think that's anything new. It used to be that everyone had a boom box in their garage. What seems to be new is that the music is getting louder and louder because so many people have early stage hearing loss by age 30 as a result of cranking the music on their earbuds up too loud.
I'm semi-regularly amazed to discover the things I can hear and people 10 years younger than me can't.
Can they be bought outside America?
"Dedicate a work area for work and nothing else".
All I have on my work desk (which is an actual desk in a smallish room I converted for the purpose) is a monitor, keyboard and mouse and a coffee mug full of pens. The only thing in the room that isn't work is a Dualshock 4 PS4 controller that I use for gaming when I'm on lunch breaks or after work is done and I feel like playing some street fighter.
You don't just work at the house and expect to be productive. Much like muscles in the body working out for a marathon, you have to train at it, exercise and make deliberate efforts to get better. You don't just show up and run if you expect to have a good time.
YMMV though. I'm lucky to be a single-ish guy with a cat and no kids.
Combine that with the growing popularity of "all-in-one-bucket" PTO (IOW, your sick days comes out of the same bucket as vacation/holiday), and it's a wonder anyone stays healthy for any period of time.
For the longest time I joked with my wife that I'd take a $20K pay cut to not work in an open office. The job market called my bluff. gulp Sure, it's less money (and probably right around the $20K I was willing to trade), but I'm pretty sure my office is bigger than the one I had at Microsoft back in the day. Ask me today, and it's a trade I'm glad I made. And I haven't been sick in the five months since I started. :-)
This is of course illegal in the UK and I suspect most European countries:
https://www.gov.uk/employers-sick-pay/entitlement
> "You cannot force your employees to take annual leave when they’re eligible for sick leave."
Like my job and company alot, hate the open office. Literally have standing conversations start right behind my chair multiple times a day.
Move a big desktop with hardware? Good luck. Try to access local state from a laptop? Does not work or is inconvenient. Multiply by number of people talking.
Not talking also kills pair programming.
But it wasn't all perfect - Chevron used to allow in office smoking. Fortunately for everyone else the two smokers had their own shared office but still everything in there was covered in a yellow tar miasma and the offices on either side didn't fare much better.
And Shell's offices were in a building that could be resold as a hospital, so we sat in rooms that were meant to be a private hospital room and were jammed in with easily removed furniture: in my case that meant sharing a room with four card tables and literally getting up and leaving the office so my office mate could walk past my desk and exit the room.
In my company everyone from the janitor to the CTO sits in the same shitty chairs in the same giant concrete warehouse. At least they're fair about it...
It won't hide the voices of people's talking but it will mask them somewhat (like if they where more far). It's the only way I'm able to be functional and talk with clients and continue working in an open space..
However Bose mic is catching everything, but that's another problem..
Programmers have also lost a lot of respect, and are now seen as simple factory workers who glue things together according to best practice.
My only issue is the matter of supplies. If you hired me as an electrician but wouldn't let me have any wire cutters, I would have a very difficult time doing my job. Likewise, a quiet space to think is one of the necessary reagents for programming.
At the same time if someone comes to my cube and is close by, I can still hear them. Far away noises, not so much.
I highly recommend getting a pair, they're super cheap, all kinds of styles and sizes.