If you work in a cube, see if you can relate to this...

Well, I'm finally hear to rant about something, or rather someone, affectionately known as “The Horker”.  It all started when our entire team packed up and moved to a new building.  The old building, building 4, used to be full of assembly lines used to make inkjet printers.  The lines were all removed (except for 1 or 2 prototype lines) and a sea of cubicles were created to house all the engineers (it's a huge building).  Every night at around 5:00, someone in the next aisle over would start playing Counter-Strike.  No problem there since I play games sometimes at work, but this is different.  As he died, you would laugh uncontrollably and loudly.  My co-worker and I always became extremely infuriated.  But now that I've moved, I would kill to have that uncontrollable laughter back.  Why?  The Horker.

So here I am in Building 1.  It is an older building that used to house a lot of administrative type people and is now filled with a lot of engineers just as building 4 is.  It is here that I and my team heard of “The Horker” and when I mean “hear“, I literally mean “hear”.  You see, the guy in the cube right next to mine (we share a wall) has some type of lung affliction.  Many times throughout the day he coughs up a bunch of phlegm, at least that's what it sounds like.  However, it's not so much a coughing sound as it is a...well....horking sound.  You know how you were little and you wanted to spit a big nasty green loogy (spelling?) so you would force air up from your lungs and through your esophagus and in doing so created a loud horking sound in your throat just before the final spit?  Well, it sounds just like that only about 10x louder.

So, some of you might be saying “so he does it a few times, what's the big deal”.  Well, one day I was really bored so I decided to create an Excel spreadsheet listing the times he “horked”.  In a 20 minute period, he horked 22 times.  Now, compound this by how long the day is and I think you see that it's way more than a couple times a day.  Let me just say that it is the most annoying sound in the WORLD, breaks my concentration every time, and has made me say things I would never say in front of my kids, wife, coworkers, friends, etc... I joke that it is literally driving me insane and that is so close to the truth.  I have literally at times wanted to smash my monitors because of it.

Now how did I solve the problem, or rather what have I done to try and solve the problem.  For starters, I told my manager and got the approval to buy a pair of Bose headphones that cost $300.  It works fine but it means I have to listen to music ALL DAY LONG!  After a couple of weeks, I was done.  The only thing I can really do now is complain that it is affecting my work (which it is since I have left to go home early on several occasions because of it).

Here's my disclaimer: I by no means intend to put down this person.  I am pretty sure he has some sort of affliction that forces him to cough up phlegm all day.  He is probably a really nice guy.  I obviously have to watch my step to maintain political correctness in this situation and have to keep a lot of emotions bottled up inside.  I just wish I knew if he a) really has a problem and b) if so, has he seen a doctor (I'LL PAY FOR IT).

There you go.  How about you?  Have any reoccurring annoying things that happen to you while in your cube?