Help I work in an open office and my co-workers are so loud

file sexual assault charges

That is incredibly weird, where do you live?

Can't tell if you're trolling or serious, or what your specific situation is, but you should be either telling your tech lead to please stop doing that, or asking your manager or HR to tell them. This is not acceptable behavior in a normal workplace.

I know this is a form a victim-blaming, but the other party isn't here, so I can only address you: You can not treat this behavior in the way you've described. Every time somebody accepts victimhood even in small ways, it hurts everybody.

Basic, "default" levels of respect for people is the most foundational layer of humanity. For the sake of society, do not accept petty acts of disrespect.

This is NOT okay. I can’t imagine touching someone else or something that they are wearing on their person in the workplace (unless there is some good reason otherwise), and vice versa.

> so I've taken to not wearing anything

Well that's one solution.

Next time they do that, scream. Like, actual-cannibal-shia-lebeouf scream. They won't do it again in a hurry.

Yup, having been in this situation before you just buy some significant headphones

Either they are comically large full size over-ear headphones, so it is obvious you are in the zone

OR

You get some IEM style in-ears that block literally everything and you ignore anyone walking up until they wave their hand in front of you

Either way, the act of taking off the headphones needs to be exhausting and take 30 seconds so whoever disrupted you doesn’t want to do it again frivolously

Headphones make my ears hot. I couldn't wear them all day.

I have a pair of Bose 700's that I bought in anticipation of a long hospital stay, and they were tremendous. For an office setting I think I'd go with the Sony version instead however, they have the "turn off noise cancellation when someone is calling your name" feature that probably is a necessity in an office setting. Either way, you can't imagine how effective these devices are these days until you try it, as you said, they just turn off the outside world to a great extent.

Headphones are also a signal to any reasonable person that you don't wish to be unnecessarily disturbed.

Don’t work for human voices

“ most active noise-cancelling headphones have a noticeable dip in usefulness right at the 1 kHz point. This is why ANC is better suited for reducing low, sustained sounds like those of motors and airplane engines, and it’s why such headphones can’t filter out screaming kids. ”

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/what-noise-cancellin...

I don’t want to wear headphones. I want a quiet working space like I do when I work from home.