This Office Noise Simulator Makes Working From Home Less Tiring
The beautifully designed Reichenbergerstr 121 microsite simulates office noise – great if you work from home and miss the sounds of working in an office, coffee shop, or wherever other people work with you.
Colleagues’ forms, painted in primary colors, are reflected in the modernist workspace. You click on employees and office furniture to trigger sounds of conversation, typing, water pouring, office ping-pong, phone rings, chairs emitting that little fart that chairs emit when you move over them, and then deliberately move again to prove it was a chair. Sometimes they make helpless sounds. You can switch workplace conversations in muted German. The site url is imisstheoffice.eu. (The creators are a Swiss and German creative agency called kids ; the site name is the address of their Berlin office.)
This is a one-stop solution. To fully replicate the offices I’ve worked in over the years, my deck will need some additions:
- Secret whisper of two people trying to gossip in an open office
- La Croix Bank Opening
- The retro summer jam that everyone in the office agrees on is bop
- Körig’s mediocre but hardworking car gurgles
- A marketing manager who was working with someone named Felicia smugly shouted, “Bye, Felicia!” 3 to 30 times a day
- Two people apologize for bumping into each other in the hall
- C-SPAN Broadcasts Congressional Hearings
- A mysterious laugh from the area where all are best friends
- My editor is trying to eat the quietest lunch ever.
Now I work in an apartment with a partner and a toddler; my partner and I have several video meetings a day. Fortunately, many open office coping strategies are applicable. We share our schedule in the morning and make a plan to share the baby, a “good” desk, and radio waves. We make the most of our headphones. We let each other know when we don’t need to worry. And we do our best to keep the house a little, but not too much, like in the office.
If office sound isn’t your thing, check out the hundreds of instrumental albums recommended by the Flow State newsletter or my list of the best background noise generators .