美国国家公共电台 NPR What's More Distracting Than A Noisy Co-Worker? Turns Out, Not Much

What's More Distracting Than A Noisy Co-Worker? Turns Out, Not Much

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Got a question for you. What do you do when your workplace sounds like this?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Coughing).

INSKEEP: Do you think to yourself, go home? Do you want to scream at co-workers to take a lozenge? Well, welcome to the club. As cold and flu season fast approaches, it may only get worse. NPR's Yuki Noguchi has more on how irritating noises can disrupt workplaces.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE 2: Earlier this year, Milwaukee web developer Taj Shahrani had a colleague who sat on the other side of a cubicle 3 wall and would, as he says, shout cough at regular intervals 4.

TAJ SHAHRANI: Yeah, he never covered his mouth.

NOGUCHI: The violence of it would shake his desk, interrupt conversations and phone calls.

SHAHRANI: I would always know when it was coming because you would hear, like, you know, that sharp intake 5, like (inhales) he's about to cough. And then you would always kind of wince 6 and stop what you're doing because you knew it was about to be sort of, like, loud and hard to hear.

NOGUCHI: Shahrani and another colleague kept running tallies 7. It happened a few times every hour for months. But they never complained.

SHAHRANI: It's sort of taboo 8 to criticize someone for, like, an illness.

NOGUCHI: When Shahrani got a new desk in an office reshuffling, he realized just how much more work he accomplished 9 without constant interruption. Sound interruption is by far the greatest workplace distraction 10 according to Alan Hedge, an expert in workplace design at Cornell University. Three quarters of workers have problems, he says, foremost with intelligible 11 speech and other human sounds.

ALAN HEDGE: Because we are tuned 13 in to trying to pay attention to that.

NOGUCHI: The trend toward open offices offers little sound absorption. And at least one study shows the layout makes workers more likely to take a sick day. Rue 14 Dooley is an advisor 15 at the Society for Human Resource Management and says HR professionals often call in asking how to manage co-worker complaints about various bodily noises. It depends, he says. For example, in a previous job, Dooley shared space with double trouble.

RUE DOOLEY: He loved to eat carrots - frozen carrots.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEWING)

NOGUCHI: All day long.

DOOLEY: And he had chronic 16 bronchitis.

NOGUCHI: Dooley says he was able to laugh off the carrots. But coughing, he says, is another matter. Employers worry about contagion 17 and lost productivity, but they also have a legal obligation to accommodate those with an illness or a disability. What those accommodations are might vary. A waitress or a shop clerk with a hacking 18 cough might require a sick day or a reassignment, in which case Dooley says it's OK for a manager to say...

DOOLEY: That cough is turning customers away. We can't have you on the floor with that.

NOGUCHI: There are other noises that fall into a gray area where it's not clear whether intervention 19 is necessary. Four years ago, the Social Security Administration reprimanded a worker for his excessive flatulence. After numerous complaints and warnings, the agency charged him with, quote, "conduct unbecoming a federal employee." The employee claimed his lactose intolerance caused it. After his union intervened, the reprimand was rescinded 20.

Then there is the gross interruption that is totally preventable. Denver electrical engineer Kendra Lyons sits a few cubicles 21 down from a loud talker, whose phone conversations include details about her gynecology and family disputes.

KENDRA LYONS: I would find it really hard to tune 12 out and not listen to her for the rest of the conversation. So I would end up eavesdropping 22, rather than doing my work.

NOGUCHI: Now, she says, she drowns it out with headphones blasting electronica or the "Hamilton" soundtrack - anything with a strong beat. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.