i guess i ought to record this in case it comes up again*.
yesterday, i had an Asperger’s like reaction to a situation at work.
we have an open office situation, where most of the offices have two or three folks in them. our office is unique in that it doesn’t have a door and the fourth wall is only half a wall. this means i can hear pretty much everything. the layout of the floorplan is basically an “L” where we’re at the bottom arm and i can hear when a co-worker brings in his puppies; his office is a the top of the L.
so, yesterday, a couple people were talking in our office, a couple people were talking in the office adjacent to ours, a couple people were talking in the corner office, and two people in the adjacent open area were conducting a phone conversation over the speaker on their cell phone.
i’m not sure what happened, but my brain sort of zipped and snapped. i had to leave the space. it was like my vision was going to stop working if i didn’t gtfoย of there. i quickly unplugged everything from my laptop and headed to the kitchen. no one was in there and the dishwasher was running. perfect.
i also quickly ordered a pair of noise-cancelling headphones for work.
*don’t worry, mom. it wasn’t a stroke.