HR Magazine

Yesterday I joined the ranks of returning holiday-makers whose only desperate thought as they turn on their PC is about the sheer scale of their creaking email inbox. I was only away for a week, but in that short space of time I had accumulated nearly 550 of the little monsters. Before you think I’m bragging, let me say categorically I am not. In fact I felt deflated. Nay, I felt I needed another holiday. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to pass comment on this first-day-back siege. Neither will I be the last, but various discussions with friends about this curse of modern life have been illuminating. I’ve learned that there are those – I’m talking about men here – who equate the size of their inbox with the size of their ‘box’ in general. The bigger the better. Emails equal importance. The more you have, the more indispensable you are. You are the top dog. This is frankly ridiculous. It’s about time these simpletons grew up. Anyone who saw my pre-holiday out-of-office message will have noted the slightly brusque manner in which I begged on bended knee not to be mailed: “I’m now on holiday. If you get this email, can you please refrain from sending any more till after I get back. I get absolutely deluged, and it'll help me deal with your query sooner.” Other people I’ve talked to, however, think it’s me who is ridiculous. "How could you possibly wait till you get back to check your emails?" commented one aghast friend. "I find it much less stressful if I log on for 10 minutes every day and delete or pass on what’s come in. Then I can get on with my holiday knowing that nothing’s going on I need to worry about." I’m as shocked as they are, but I’m saddened too. Is this the future of holidays? What misery if it is. As much as I loathe the predictable monotony of the morning back, I wouldn’t swap it for the intrusion into my holiday that checking my emails daily would involve. Call me old-fashioned, but holiday is holiday. And, if you do get back to someone too late, you can always use the problem that email creates to your advantage. "Oh, I’m still going through my inbox" I can comfortably say – even if it’s two or three days later. Well, if you can’t beat it, you might as well use it to your advantage!

I’ve always been told hearing worsens with age. I now have serious suspicions this is not true. I’m finding myself becoming increasingly interrupted by office noise. Not just the early-morning ‘how was your evening/weekend’ banter that is a pleasant part of social interaction, but the all-day inane conversations, fake phone chuckles, singing and alpha male boisterousness that seem to breed on my floor and drift my way without any derogation in volume. It’s got so bad I’ve actually started to question myself. I find myself asking – quietly – ‘Is it me?’. ‘Am I becoming less tolerant?’, ‘Am I a killjoy?’ ‘Is my communal compass spinning out of control?’ Happily for my sanity (or so my colleagues tell me), it is not only my problem. It is also a problem for them too. It is the environment in which we work. Sadly, for my sanity, I sense the issue will not go away. Upon deeper research, I find I’m not alone. A whopping one in three workers have apparently come close the resigning because of the irritating habits of their colleagues, according to Office Angels. Now, I’m not usually so tolerant of such fanciful-sounding claims, but this time I actually thinking this stat could be true. All of which poses one bigger question. Just when did it become acceptable for office ‘teams’ to be so raucous? Is this the way management theory and group dynamics is going? Human voices wouldn’t be so bad. It’s the fact my office noise is inexorably linked with ruler slapping, finger clicking, hand clapping, whooping, cheering, jeering, table thumping, foot tapping, finger drumming, and – and this really gets on my goat – keyboard bashing. These people attack (rather than caress) their keyboard, as if their existence depended on demonstrating that they’re typing. Alas, I fear regulation will not help me. A quick glance at the ‘Control of Noise at Work Regulations’ (last updated in 2005), shows employers must prevent staff from being exposed to 80dB over an eight hour period (equivalent to a tube train entering an underground station platform). This lower noise limit was reduced from 85dB, so things are slowly going in the right direction. But if anyone has ever researched lower-level, but continuous noise, and the impact it has on productivity, I’d gladly take a read of it. Open plan offices were once described as the office design of the future. Open to debate I think now.