When you work in a cube farm, the people around you are going to get annoying. Even if they're just going about their normal activities, you are forced to listen to it. I'm sure I annoy the people that sit near my desk just as much as they annoy me.

After a while, you start to tune it out. You start to not notice the endless phone conversations of the person on your left, or the constant medical complaints of the person on your right. You tune out the obnoxious laughter of the guy two rows over and the ridiculous ring tone of the guy down the row.

You get to a point where all of that background noise becomes just that, background, and you sink into your work as if it was silent around you.

The thing is, right now, it really is silent around me. Last Friday was our day off, and the company gave us both Monday and Tuesday as holidays. Which means you could take 3 days off this week and end up with 10 days vacation. I would guess that 50% of the company decided to do just that.

It just means that when they're back next week I'm going to have to get used to them all over again. But I'm enjoying the break while it lasts.