What possible justification was there for not allowing headphones? Did the people in charge think banning headphones would make people collaborate better?
I'm not sure exactly. It was a bank so I guess it was something to do with wanting to appear professional.
There were all kinds of rules and strict dress code, no dyed hair, no personal effects on desks, no mobile phones, no visible tattoos etc.
Not the most fun place to work, so after about a year I actually left for a job with longer hours and a worse salary.
Re:An office with "library rules"
by michaelochurch on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @11:11AM
(#4905078)
My wild, bystander-who-knows-nothing peanut-gallery guess: some manage-osaur had the internet use logs mined and found out that a lot of people were on Youtube (for music) and decided that people were "spending too much time" "on" Youtube.
I worked opposite a lady who would have various male admirers who would come over several times a day to chat her up. So these guys would either stand directly behind my chair and try and talk through me or go around to her side and whisper stuff to her and they would sit and giggle.
Of course nobody achieved any actual work there, so projects were always late. Their solution was to add more people to the project and more people = even more noise.