Um...there ARE headphones

The Guardian recently wrote an essay about music in the office.

Do you ever, while in the middle of compiling a particularly puzzling Excel spreadsheet, think you'd get things done a bit quicker with Dizzee Rascal bonkering on in the background? Have you found your typing speed increases in direct proportion to the donks per minute in the latest Blackout Crew single? Would you make fewer spelling mistakes if you could listen to James Yorkston all day?

Here on the music site, we think the answer to all these questions is "yes". Admittedly, this is because we want a reason to be allowed to play music on an office stereo all day (at the moment the Powers That Be at the Guardian say it's not allowed, probably because it distracts other people from working – yeah, whatevs).

Perhaps I'm missing something here, or perhaps it's a weird Yank thing, but I listen to music in the ofice and don't get into trouble from the Powers That Be (Prince Charles?).

Perhaps I should describe my work environment. I work in a room that has seven cubicles around the edges of the room...and a conference table in the middle. The conference table is used to hold conferences, and at such times the room can get a bit noisy. It could have been worse - some people who don't work in the room thought that we should put a ping pong table in our room. Instead, the ping pong table is next door, and we just hear the sound through the wall.

In a cubicle environment, headphones are a necessity. While one can quibble about productivity with or without headphones, I submit that you are more productive with headphones than you would be if you were forced to listen to someone else's meeting.