Tell HN: Don't bring your loud mechanical keyboard to the office | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Don't bring your loud mechanical keyboard to the office

29 pointsthrowaway-x40 comments

Over the past couple of years mechanical keyboards have soared in popularity among engineers. Rightfully so! Owning a custom piece of beautifully crafted equipment is delightful!

However if you own one of the loud ones and want to be considerate to your coworkers, I implore you to not use them at the office. The sound is so loud it pierces through noise cancelling headphones, and it's not fun to have to blast music all day just to cover up the sounds of typing.

There are some options if you want a quieter mechanical keyboard (https://www.electronicshub.org/best-quiet-mechanical-keyboards/) or you can get the o-rings to dampen the sound of the switches on your current model (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00K73IE1C).

Truly not trying to be a dick writing this, I really get the excitement! But the sound has been driving me up the wall, and I can't be the only one.

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I might be biased for being old, but this is how all keyboards sounded for a long time, and headphones mostly stayed at home. You'll be fine. What you should really be addressing are people who burn popcorn and microwave fish in the office. Those are the real monsters.

I ended up marrying the chick who stank up the office with microwaved fish.

Not sure what the lesson is although we’re still married after 30 years.

>Not sure what the lesson is although we’re still married after 30 years.

That you fell hook, line, and sinker for her. That or you're avico-pescatarian: you like "chicks" who eat "fish" [/Erlich Bachman joke]. Cheers to you both!

it's actually pronounced aviato

Boom! Thanks, Jugurtha!

I think the lesson is, if you can get past that, you can get past anything.

In the late ‘90s I worked with a Japanese developer in Chicago that ate a pack of squid chips nearly every day at lunch. Somehow the smell escaped that bag and spread across the office faster than the speed of light.

I might be biased for being old, but this is how all offices smelled for a long time. You’ll be fine.

Kind of funny how the thing that bothers me is a problem but the thing that doesn’t bother me isn’t a problem.

See also Peopleware chapter 12: Bring back the door.

The current open plan offices are insanely wastefull if you want any kind of productivity.

So if you have this kind of problem, it means the people above you don't care about your productivity.

In my old office pretty much everyone had a mechanical keyboard, so no one minded. One guy actually made it his mission to have the loudest one, but it didn't stand out from the back that much. The loudest typer was actually just a heavy handed guy using a cheap rubber dome board that came with the company computers.

I like being able to type while I'm on a call. I have Cherry MX Clears what o-rings, which people tell me they can't hear when I'm on the phone. So that's good.

This is one reason I refuse to go back to on-site work. I've got one of Unicomp's New Model M keyboards. Lovely piece of equipment, but if I didn't know better I could swear it had actually been manufactured by the Kalashnikov Concern in Russia because it can get that loud when I'm in the zone. You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

but i was told that i could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, i told bill that if sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then i should be able to listen to the radio while i'm collating so i don't see why i should have to turn down the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven

I can't hear the keyboards due to the blowhard hustlers talking on the phones.

WFH has many advantages in addition to avoiding long commutes.

This has been the problem in all the early stage startups I join. It's fine when it's just the founders, but once a sales team comes in, they tend to be loud and visible.

There's a maturity stage where engineering is put into separate offices from sales. Then all you get is the symphony of coffee smells, click clacking keyboards, with the occasional stand up comedy or Taylor Swift coming from the CTO's speakers.

Who are the blowhard hustlers talking to? What are they talking about?

oh man youre really setting everybody straight today

Batting 1,000 so far.

If keyboards noise bothers you that much, maybe you would prefer an individual office over an open space office?

What a wonderful example of corporate life. This is the type of carefully crafted political office bs I hate, from the double speak to the use of unnecessary exclamation points. Right out of the gate it starts with what they want you to do, sans exclamation point, "Don't bring your loud mechanical keyboard to the office". Then it immediately backs off with saying a couple of things to should like they're being reasonable. They "get it". They've "soared in popularity among engineers". I'm wondering why they needed to quality it as among engineers which leads me to suspect that they aren't one. "Owning a custom piece of beautifully crafted equipment is delightful!"

Now that we've stroked your ego and complimented your keyboard we get down to it "I implore you to not use them them at the office" So now we've established that you're use of a mechanical keyboard is completely frivolous and ego driven while they have a legitimate complaint. While you're just admiring your "beautifully crafted equipment" they're dealing with piercing noise.

Now that they've made their case they need to back off again to appear reasonable by offering a couple of helpful suggestions to get you comply with their demand/request with the implication that there are no compromises being made with these dampening solutions.

We follow up with denying what they're sure the reader is thinking, "This person is a dick", with, "Truly not trying to be a dick writing this". Oh, but you are. "I really get the excitement!" There's that useless exclamation point. They totally get it, not enough to get one themselves, or not write a dickish email but they get it. "The sound has been driving me up the wall, and I can't be the only one" and now we finally get to it. They just don't like it and they want you to stop. You can't be the only one because everyone is like them and they're so reasonable that there must be people out there like them.

Either take an office poll or shut the hell up. You very well may be the only one. You've completely marginalized and dismissed any serious medical advantage to the wellbeing of my fingers and wrists. Those are my money makers. Without that I'm screwed. You know what that sound is? It's the sound of money being made. It's what's probably paying your salary so no I'm not going to leave my mechanical keyboard at home and I'm not going to put those shitty o-rings on my keyboard.

Good thing you work in 2022, because back in the day I guess you wouldn't have been able to be employed in an office environment.

> back in the day I guess you wouldn't have been able to be employed in an office environment

The idiotic transition to "open offices" (places where people work without walls or even cubicles separating them) has led to an enormous amount of noise pollution that didn't exist in the past.

Computers were not situated in quiet offices for the most part, they were mostly in rows, or located near much louder equipment like tape spools.

The hum of equipment is not as intrusive as the bursts of noise from keyboards and calls.

Impact printers make pretty good bursts of noise when they're doing intermittent work. When they've got a nice long print job, you can tune it out, but it's still pretty loud.

I love that sound. ZZZZZEEEEEERRRRRRPT. And then you get to tear off that paper strip on the edges, oh man.

No, you're not the only one. Sure, maybe I have some kind of misophonia, but mainly I just find the sudden bursts of loud typing on mechanical keyboards to be somewhat distracting when I'm trying to focus on something myself. Or those really clicky types get on my nerves after a while. At least I've found that good noise cancelling headphones help, but home office has been great from this perspective and in general.

However, I don't think I'd mind working in some kind of old-fashioned newsroom with a steady click-clack-cacophony of typewriters. Go figure.

For sure other people have their limits too. Almost nobody else thought they were that bothersome until the Model M made a short-lived appearance at the office.

I had a colleague who I think had cherry blues on his keyboard. It was weird for me, first time hearing a mechanical keyboard. I just put on headphones and went on with my day.

When I do go in the office, I have sales people on calls and other people talking in an open office floor plan. Nose canceling headphones are lifesavers

At home, I have an ergodox and put gazzew u4 boba silent tactiles switches, key caps with o-rings, and put sorbothane foam inside the ergodox to dampen noise. I’m a heavy typist. My wife who’s a light sleeper and my 18 month toddler appreciate me working quietly.

Took my Keychron K8 (Gateron brown) to workspace last week. I was worried about this. Unexpectedly, the sound of the air conditioning system was enough to damp the key clacking. Of course, the GB was silent as well than others switches per my research. So I hope I did not create much trouble.

honestly for me mechanical keyboards make an office bearable since it drowns out people talking and shuffling around and being actually distracting in the background

Over-the-ear, noise-cancelling, isolating headphones (like the kind Sony and Bose sell for $300-400) are absolutely worth the cost if you're going to work in that environment.

are you so sure about that, try to sit next to someone using model M buckle springs all day

When my employer told me to choose keyboard I choose Logitech G213. It looks and almost feels like mechanical but it is so much quieter.

So I need to type on a slushy dome-switch or butterfly keyboards because the aural distractions for you are so greatly terrible?

How 'bout you just get some headphones so you can't hear the staccato clickity-clack of me making progress on my typewriter while you are busy acquiring another neurosis.

I'd like to be able to type properly please. If you were typing too instead of complaining, you'd learn why we need switches that work properly.

There's excellent rubber domes and people have been typing properly on them for 30 years. You don't need mechanical switches, you just like them.

I keep a few nice 90s' ones from HP and IBM. Sun's sucked yet people typed a lot on those. There's been decent ones from Dell and you can still get older IBM/Lenovo Preferred Pros. They're fine. I don't think switching to rubber domes back then was a cost cutting measure, that's peanuts for the prices of those systems. Noise was considered distracting, maybe stressful, actually sustained noise is. If you shared a lab with 30 people banging on Model Ms you'd agree. Mechanicals are great for gaming, I give you that.

> Mechanicals are great for gaming.

They are also excellent for typing. I can type much faster and more accurately when I have tactile feedback like: https://www.cherrymx.de/cherry-mx/mx-special/mx-clear.html#t... I don't even game at all.

> If you shared a lab with 30 people banging on Model Ms you'd agree.

What if you shared a lab with 30 Selectric typewriters or couple line printers? I did. People complaining about the "noise" from Cherry clears and similar are over-reacting.

> you just like them

I do! And you don't! and guess who's keyboard it is? This is why I'm testy. People like different things. When that happens: mind your own business and cope.

It's no more inconvenient for you to hear my (not that loud) "silent" cherry clears than for you to impose on me to have to type on a keyboard that doesn't work for me.

And we can all agree that the guy that cooks fish in the microwave is our shared enemy.

Sounds like you're a bit neurotic about keyboards. Rubber dome keyboards work just fine, for everyone, and are in fact considerably better for lengthy typing sessions than mechanical ones.

Enjoy your RSI, nutjob.

> Sounds like you're a bit neurotic about keyboards

Sounds to me like you're a lot neurotic about telling other people what to like.

> Rubber dome keyboards work just fine, for everyone

Because you know what everyone should do and like? They don't work better for me.

> are in fact considerably better for lengthy typing sessions

Not a "fact", for me and for about half of the coders I know. Please stop assuming that the way you perceive the world applies to everybody else.

> RSI

Ah, you're my doctor and physical therapist, too? I didn't realize it was you.

> nutjob

Name calling because I like a different keyboard than you? Yea, office noise is not the biggest problem in your immediate work area, I'll bet.

How's this: you type on what you like and stop telling others what to do. Everybody needs to deal with background noise (AC, telephones, conversations, squeaky chairs, clicky pens, etc.) in their own way and keyboards (clicky or not) are only a tiny part of that problem.

I use a Rubik's cube to type on my computer........ is that ok?

Probably safer than using Lemarchand's Box.

I'll just leave this here...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hellraiser-90546-Lament-Configurati...

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