Above all the noise
A short story from last week.
I spent a day at work in person with some of our team in Newcastle. We also had our monthly design team meeting, so a number of us all planned to dial in from a conference room together.
I was due to be presenting and speaking for about half of this meeting.
It turned out that road works were happening outside of the building. In fact, they happened to be right outside the conference room we had set up in.
Before our meeting, we could see people in hard hats and some heavy-duty machinery like diggers. It was fine when we set up. But as soon as I started speaking with 50 people dialled in, the noise started.
Everyone in the room could hear the noise. It was loud. All the sounds of digging up the road.
Not only did the noise start just as I started speaking, it went on until about the same time the meeting was due to end. It couldn’t have been worse timing. And right outside the window of the conference room.
But a strange thing was also happening. No one on the call could hear the noise. It seems that Google Meet does a good job of removing background noise from audio.
In the end, I had to block out the noise and carry on. It was all a bit stressful. But, again, no one on the call could hear the noise.
Everyone in the room understood the context. Everyone in the room commented at the end of the session about how bad the noise had been. I think they were impressed I’d managed to keep going.
It’s a small reminder that we often have to focus on what matters in the moment above the noise. On this occasion, my ears were ringing for a while afterwards.
There’s noise all the time at work. Things that are distracting and competing for our attention. Noise can be personal. We might even be the only ones who can hear the noise. But there’s also our ability not to get distracted, to stay focussed and keep going, no matter how loud it gets.
This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 20 years. You can follow all of my posts by subscribing to this RSS feed. You can also find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn.