A Lack of Filters

As I’ve observed before, I tend to know a lot more about my surroundings – particularly my work-based ones – than most of the people around me.  I know what’s going on, who’s doing what, where people are based, and the general minutiae of office-based life.  (The same applies in non-work life as well, but to a slightly lesser degree)

I also tend to be a lot tetchier and easily annoyed when in work places.

It’s only in the last couple of weeks, though, that it’s clicked a bit on how both these things are connected.

Basically, I have a bit of an inability to filter things out – which means I’m always aware of what’s going on around me, of other conversations and so on, even when primarily focused on something else (such as the actual work I’m doing) and that’s generally how I get to know what’s occurring. Well, that and actually talking to people – which is definitely non-stereotypical behaviour among techies.

However, that also means I can’t filter out banality, inane garbage, and really fucking annoying noises – hence also being tetchier and more easily annoyed.

This all really clicked last week, when my current (usually peaceful) office was disturbed by a bunch of fuckknuckles shredding/chipping branches on the trees outside.  Even through closed double-glazed windows, I could still hear it, and it drove me crackers.  I’ve been aware of similar distractions before – and Herself was diagnosed years back with a similar thing where she couldn’t filter noises properly, so I’m aware of it on that level too.

Anyway, the same has applied on other days, but the noise of the chipper certainly got to me more than usual – and made me think about what was happening.

Completely irrelevant and uninteresting to anyone else, I know. But it interested me.