Thu, 9. July 2009
You can stop the music
Nearly thirty years ago I had the good fortune to join a very well structured medium sized design and construction organisation as a young electrical engineer. The company was professionally organised and I hoped to spend the rest of my career there. However, in the early nineties, about fifteen years after joining, something happened which began to despair me and made me question how much longer I could remain there.
I was working late one evening when the managing director told me he had decided to introduce “background music” into the office. He said music would increase productivity. I thought music in an engineering office would be bizarre, disruptive lunacy. All we had to do, he told me, was connect a CD player to the office PA and “hey presto: instant background music”. I argued that our intermittent PA amplifier might not handle the additional load of continuous background music.
The CD player was duly purchased and the music began. I found it difficult to carry out detailed engineering calculations to the sound of loud music. Phone conversations were difficult and I was sometimes asked if I was calling from a café or a club. It got worse. When the managing director went out, the volume was turned up until he returned. It wasn't background music, it was a foreground audio-assault that restricted my work output. One senior engineer told me he thought it was “a hoot”. Some of my other colleagues also seemed to like it – swearing blind that it helped them carry out their work. They possibly believed it but I didn't, because it was obvious, looking around, that productivity was falling. What our clients thought of it, when they tried to hold a telephone conversation with employees to the sound of loud background music, is anyone's guess.
There were no speakers close to the management area on the other floor. I wondered why management wanted to work in relative peace, whilst imposing loud music on the employees! A professional engineering office was now like a discoteque and colleagues were sitting at their desks, bopping to the music. After a week, I was so concerned about my ability to focus on my job that I tried discussing it formally with my immediate superior. His scornful reaction astonished me. He cut the conversation short and immediately rang reception to ask for the volume to be turned up. Stunned by this egotistical response, I realised that I was on my own.
I was getting very close to quitting and I discussed it at length with my understanding wife Joan. She suggested I try adopting a pro-active approach. So I bought ear-plugs and ear-muffs to block the sound and I started to go for respite walks around the block when I should have been working. I bought a technical book about PA systems, to improve my understanding of the enemy and I sketched the locations of all the speakers on both floors. I found a step ladder and during the course of the next few weeks, after everyone else had gone home, I traced the cable routes in the ceiling void and secretly sought ways of adjusting the office PA system. I loosened a single connection on the ceiling speaker nearest my desk - thus disabling it – and a few days later I moved another nearby speaker several metres further away. The volume was reduced slightly and this bout of self-help gave me the confidence I needed to see this through without having to resign. It also encouraged me that my insensitive supervisor had not noticed any change.
I bought a hundred metres of PA cable and whilst working alone one weekend, I conected it in the section of line feeding the speakers in my vicinity, to attenuate the volume near my workstation. Over a couple of nights I quietly relocated two speakers in the vicinity of the department manager on my floor and I moved them both very close to his desk, hoping that the increased volume he suffered would influence him to get the volume reduced. I also repositioned another speaker directly over the departmental meeting table, to make it difficult for the participants to converse without asking for the music to be turned down.
I expected that these modifications would eventually help influence the management to stop the music. They did result in a volume reduction and I turned my attention to other possible adjustments, knowing that direct sabotage was not an option (however tempting). I was considering purchasing my own volume controllers and installing them above the ceiling, when I was instructed by management to install more speakers on the other office floor level, to “improve the sound quality” there. Initially reluctant to improve the PA system, I soon realised that this was an opportunity to arrange for speakers to be placed where they would not be appreciated by influential personnel. It also gave me real hope that the simple PA amplifier would fail due to the additional load of new speakers.
I had the speakers installed, including one directly over the two senior management secretaries and near the office doors of the Company Secretary and the Managing Director, where the volume had previously been low. Still the music played - but I noticed a further reduction in volume near my own desk and started to consider further subtle changes to the system. However, within a few weeks the PA amplifier irretrievably failed due to overload. The music stopped!
Replacement quotes were obtained but they were never approved and the office returned to normal again. In fact it was better than before because the startling PA announcements were also gone. Office productivity improved too. So, instead of resigning to escape the noise, I was able to remain with the company for many more years, until it finally went into liquidation. The moral of the story is that when you are facing an awkward workplace situation, with lack of support from colleagues whom you previously thought you could rely on, you need to consider every single available option - and act responsibly in your own interests.