Office noises?

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For those of you who have some experience of being in a office: how do you cope with background noises while you are working?

I am about to finish my education and I will be looking for a job in a few months; among the many things that scare me, there is the issue of how to deal with noisy environments, since I have problems focusing when e.g. someone else is talking, and you cannot always use earplugs.

I'd like to read your experiences (and possibly suggestions) since I don't know where else to ask.

the only thing i can think of is to be up front with your employer about it and see if he can get you a quiet office.

either that or do something that doesn't take that much difficult thinking.

This topic is actually what brought me to the forums today.

I have worked in fast food restaurants, busy retail stores, and a very busy restaurant all full time, even in a cramped and busy accounting office as a temp... It's possible to cope. Working through the bustle and reveling in the quiet times.

BUT, for the past 11 years I have been working at a desk job with my own office. It's been great. I can handle meetings with my coworkers, as long as there aren't multiple big-mouths in the same room trying to out talk each other, which always agitates me.

The problem I am worried about now is that our office is being moved (again), but, this time we will be moving out of older buildings where everyone has had their own offices to a cube farm with a HUGE unrelated department next to us.
I have a small department and we get along well and I don't think they'll have a problem being quiet... but, I am worried that we will be right next to the breakroom for the entire floor.

I am worried that I will become agitated by chattering groups of other workers and react inappropriately.

I work in an endless sea of cubes. I can usually cope pretty well, but on those days when the noise is just too distracting, I've found that it's quite acceptable to listen to music through headphones. On the few times anyone has commented, I've just said "I was having trouble concentrating with all the conversation in here today," and they've always accepted it.

Granted, most offices frown on one using headphones all the time, so I try to limit this to those days when I'm really having a tough time.

I use an app called White Noise and headphones for the time when I am not on the phone. Apart from that, it helped me to mentally identify the sources of noise, that way, it is easier to ignore them.