My Scary-Good Headphones
These are the headphones I have at work. They’re really great, and I can’t recommend them enough. They are the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B Noise-Cancelling Headphones to be exact (disclaimer: Amazon Affiliate link). Which I found based on this Wirecutter review.
I got these for my birthday a few months back, and have mostly used them at home whenever I get stuck on a particular song and just decide to loop it over and over (ad nauseum).
To spare Liz from listening to this (she’s working in the next room over), I throw on these headphones.
A week or so ago, there was an incident. I had the headphones on (as well as the noise-cancelling feature), and Liz had been calling for me. Yelling quite loudly, in fact, that there was a scampers in her room.
I heard none of this.
It took her stepping into the hallway and waving at me, before I noticed anything. And so using the headphones at home was no longer a viable thing.
The next best place: work! Where there’s an open floor plan, and lots of ambient noise.
I had them on at the start of this week, and was just super into whatever I was coding at the time. I looked over to my right, and my coworker Lindsey was waving at me trying to get my attention. Apparently, she was trying to let me know that my other coworkers (Casey and Gary) were standing nearby, also trying to get my attention to ask me if I wanted to get coffee.
I heard none of this.
Yesterday, when I was working in the basement in Valpo, I had the headphones on again. Once more, I got super into whatever I was doing… and Bob came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.
I jumped a bit, because I didn’t hear him. Up the scare factor a little, given that I was in a dark basement and he kind of appeared behind me out of nowhere.
The Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7B Noise-Cancelling Headphones – a pretty solid pair of headphones. They are scary good and very good at blocking out the noise. Consider this an official endorsement.
Related:
Birthday!
House Centipedes: Mr. Scampers and the Scutigera Coleoptrata Family
:-) I also like using headphones/ear plugs for concentrating when programming. When someone wants something from me, I instructed them to turn the lights on and off. That way we avoid this heart attack situation.
M. (May 6, 2017 at 4:35 am)The lights are a good idea. Usually, in the workplace, headphones generally means “please don’t disturb me.” Not everyone abides by this, but I generally try to avoid bothering anyone that I see with headphones on (I’ll try email instead).
avoision (May 6, 2017 at 3:20 pm)