In two separate jobs, I had managers tell me it was “rude” for me to wear ear plugs, even after I explained to them that the office noise was unbearable and noise-cancelling headphones are painful for me to use.

It’s 100% about virtue signalling to management. Headphones fit the visual stereotype of a hacker, so it’s OK. Ear plugs carry a connotation that the stuff generating noise is somehow “a bother” or “a nuisance” ... which of course is true, but you’re not allowed to actually acknowledge that truth.

Just get an old pair of headphones that don’t work and put them on over your ear plugs.

The physical feeling of wearing over-the-ear headphones, ear muffs, etc., is extremely uncomfortable for me. Even with very expensive “ergonomic” headphones, I can’t stand the feeling for more than a few minutes.

When I’m actually listening to music, only earbuds will work for me. I suppose I could try to get earplugs that look like decoy earbuds.

However, if your comment was meant seriously, i.e. that employees should do some noise-cancellation arms race song and dance with employers, that mildly terrifies me. How could any person actually think that it’s acceptable to let your employer treat you that way? It’s insane.

The actual best option is to first do excellent work that makes your employer respect you and really count on you to such a degree that firing you for expressing reasonable preferences is not realistic for them. Then once you have established that bar of credibility, find the right ways to constantly remind your manager and other managers that the workplace conditions are unacceptable. This requires political tact because outright grumbling or long-winded feedback sessions will be used against you. Rather instead, you have to find key moments to unassailably undermine your boss by visually demonstrating just how hard you’re working but keep pointing out that because of noise and distractions, nobody (not even good, old trustworthy you) can get the thing done on time or get the full set of features implemented, etc.

You have to convert your pain into your boss’s boss’s pain, or it will never change. Capitulating with headphone contortions is a terrible approach.

I agree with what you said in principle but I was going for a practical solution rather than an ideal one.

So was I. Above all else, capitulating to change the debate into a question of which type of headphones to wear is not practical, because it doesn’t address the underlying negative health effects. To qualify as “practical” an idea would first have to at least meet the criteria of alleviating the physical disergonomy of the situation, or at least contribute to that over the long term. Anything which proposes to just “put up with it” in some way or another would be as impractical as possible, because not putting up with it is the sole property required for anything to count as a productive approach.

Better yet, quit and get away from such micromanaging morons

That's funny. Plenty of "real jobs" like welding require ear plugs.

If the ear plugs are for a “real” reason, like safety or even required OSHA regulations, then of course the workplace culture around it develops to lend it credibility.

But in tech companies it’s all about optics.

Earplugs and brown noise. I can just, if I concentrate, make out _that there are people talking_. But since I completely can't parse it, it doesn't disturb me. The earplugs mean that I can listen to it at a much greater volume that would be comfortable/safe without them.

The downside is that every time someone wants to actually talk to me, I have to take my headphones off and take at least one earplug out.

I have a pair in my pocket now!