The sound of silence

The sound of silence doesn’t exist for me anymore. You see, I used to work in an office where the only sound to be heard was the growling of my stomach in the time that falls past late morning and too early to be lunch. The muffled sounds of the activities of all my co-workers living in cubicle-land feel like a distant echo. It’s not discernable enough to leave any imprint in my brain.

But now I’ve been relegated to a cubicle. I didn’t have a problem with it in theory. It’s just a spot to work. I don’t get all hung up on status so the politics that revolve around some office occupants is lost on me. But the desire for a quiet work environment is not. So here I am in the midst of what feels like chaos. The phone conversations are so loud it feels like I am sitting in the same cube with the speaker. Between shrill laughter, hushed conversations – what a waste of effort since I can hear every word, and the clickety-clack of fingers dancing on keyboards, it’s all making my head spin.

Besides the noise, I have this constant feeling that I am being watched. I know that’s crazy. It’s just that there’s so much foot traffic that I wasn’t aware of until now. No one really has the time to worry about what I’m doing and I’m not arrogant enough to think that anyone cares at all, I’m just going to have to get used to the volume of people that pass by. Of course, there’s a shared printer in close proximity that makes for even more traffic passing by.

I’m certain my paranoia will pass and the noise will be tempered by my ability to eventually block it out. But for today, I can feel a headache mildly approaching from the cackle-laughter/clickety-clack/chatter/printer-hum quartet that is singing all around me. My only solace is my iPod, unfortunately the battery life has come to an end so my crutch can’t hold me up for the rest of the day. But if I put my headphones on, even without any sound coming through, I think I found the solution – the sound of silence. Home again.