The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

People ask me all the time “Doesn’t all the travel bother you?” They assume that because of all the flight delays, long lines, lack of creature comforts, and utter absurdity of the security screening process, my answer will be “yes, I hate it”. In fact, I really don’t hate it. Sure, air travel comes with plenty of annoyances, but, over the years, I’ve learned to tolerate almost all of them. Save one.

Noise pollution. Unnecessary, unwelcome, and highly unpleasant noises coming from every direction, without ceasing. Stop and notice (if you haven’t already), the next time you go anywhere by air.

This is a short, non-exhaustive list of some of the noises I’ve heard in the last hour, making a connection between one flight and another at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

First there’s the repetitive drone of the “airport voices” (you hear them, too, don’t you? Please tell me you hear them, too) explaining, as if to a moron, that, “effective immediately”, you can’t carry any particle of matter with a specific gravity less than that of granite through the security station unless it’s in a 3.4 ounce resealable clear plastic container. Talk about morons. Who came up with that rule? And to make it worse, the voice mispronounces “immediately” and “resealable”. This has been recorded, mistakes and all, and repeats every two minutes, 24 hours a day.

There’s not one moment that’s free from the beep, beep, beep of the electric carts ferrying passengers between gates that are impossibly distant for the connection time allotted. A totally unnecessary beep, because the driver, insists on shouting “watch the cart!” at 300 decibels 50 times per minute.

Right now, as we’re boarding, the “lead flight attendant” (she’s told us that 20 times already and I’m not even in my seat yet), is telling us, in excruciating detail, the correct procedure for stowing our bags and taking our seats. Her voice is of a timbre that could cause pigeon droppings to fall spontaneously from any statue in any park in the world. In fact, this woman has hardly shut her trap for the entire duration of the 48-minute flight. She, and she alone, I might add, apparently loves to hear the sound of her voice. She has said nothing, repeat nothing, that anyone on the flight needed, much less wanted, to hear.

But the worst offenders in the realm of noise pollution are the cell phone users who are conducting what should be a private conversation using what my third grade teacher called their “outside voices”. Do these people have any idea how loudly they’re talking? Do they know that neither I, nor anyone else on the plane, in the terminal, in the restaurant, wants to hear their end of the conversation? I don’t care that you got out of Countrywide in the nick of time!

Please! Most of us can’t do anything about many of the extraneous noises we hear in airports and other public places, but if it’s possible that you could be one of those squalking on your cell phone, to the disregard of everyone else around you, please, please, please - pipe down!

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