people who try to get your attention while you have headphones on and they can see you have them on

• destroy them like the ant they are

either 1 or 4 depending on who it is

used to have a co-worker who would do this when we worked in a call center. she'd launch into a question and get about a minute into it before she realized the person was on a call and didn't hear a word she said. and when you were in mid-sentence to a customer, kinda hard to do that and simultaneously signal to the person you can't hear them, so it was often the cubemate who often pointed out to her "so and so can't hear you"

my dad does this all the time too. I listen to music on my headphones in the living room a few hours a day since my stereo is on the fritz...when he comes out (temporary living with us, for a few more weeks) he'll just launch into convo when he knows I can't hear him, and almost every time it's him showing me some gif from "lolpics" that isn't funny.

usually its my boss when this happens soooooo
usually I'm good at quickly taking them off

and you just say yes anyways even if you didn't hear him

yeah I mean at work you have to kinda have the expectation that if yr listening to tunes that eventually you're going to have to stop to deal with actual work-related stuff (tho fortunately I work from home).

"I'm sorry?", but mouthed instead of spoken because I forget that they can in fact hear me.

one alternative is pretending you don't see them standing behind you at the desk, and then when they walk into view acting like they scared you and flinging all the paperwork at your desk up into the air and shrieking

take off headset and ask "I'm sorry, can you repeat yourself?"

any response besides this = grow up

toss a handful of glitter in the offenders face

one alternative is pretending you don't see them standing behind you at the desk, and then when they walk into view acting like they scared you

i've been legitimately spooked by my boss/coworkers when intensely focused on something with headphones on at work. on a couple of occasions i've started up out of my chair a bit. i'm so cool, like ice cold chill all the time.

xpost toss Gary Glitter in the offender's face

people who wear headphones at work: how would you like us to get your attention?

I didn't generally wear em at work cos music affects my ability to concentrate. I'm usually the guy who shows up at the desk. I find sometimes rapping my knuckles on the desk gets their attention. sometimes shouting CAndyman five times too.

xp there's no good way tbh. if my cube were oriented differently i'd be able to see people approach but my back would then be to the window which is where i usually spend most of my time staring absently so that obv wouldn't work

i guess i would usually just IM the headphone people if i needed to talk to them

knocking all their stuff off their desk works too

yeah i would tell people to knock on the desk.

having a mirror on the desk so you can see if anyone approaches helps prevent scares.

take off headset and ask "I'm sorry, can you repeat yourself?"

I'll do this, albeit with deliberate slowness and slight sarcasm, if I've headphones on.

If its a headSET, and I'm thus on a call, thats different: sometimes it is really hard to know if someone's actually on a call (esp when its a conference call and theyve just been sitting there saying nothing), but at the same time if someone's talking in my ear I cannot stand somenoe walking up to me and jabbering at me, so my only reaction is usually to do a sort of panicked "talk to the hand" gesture at them and shake my head and point at the headset.

at work I def think has its own special set of rules.

at home it aggravates me more because it's not like I'm completely antisocial, I pick a few hours to listen to tunes, and having to pull em off every 5 minutes just to have my Dad show me a gif that says "man is not complete until he's married. then he's finished" like I haven't heard tha tone a million times.

never wear em out in public

Oh I dont wear headphones at home... I suspect if I did, it wouldnt stop one of the kids walking up and telling me the endless story of Gloop the baddie robot he just invented, for the enth hundredth time.

i suppose having kids would change the game for me

what if the subway is running over a different line and they want to alert you?

Ww ain't got subways here

the last time someone on the street tried to get me to take my headphones off i was going for a run in my old neighborhood and this dude tried to sell me a fedora.

i guess u really can't afford not to respond bc deals like this don't come along every day

Was there a waving tubeman

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.