Story time! Promised this, so making good on the promise. Eh-hem.

Misunderstandings [A slice of life short play that actually happened]

Dramatis Personae (anonymized, bc of course):
Moi ........ me, myself and possibly some lint
Robert ..... co-architect
Daisy ...... line dev
Lisa ....... also line dev

Prologue: the beginninning
[A project is starting up, new devs are coming on, including the two individuals who drive this story.
Daisy, of Indian origin, an exceptional dev and lovely person. Mother, wife, very conservative by upbringing in her early 40s.
Lisa, also exceptional dev, lovely person. Mother, also wife, self-made immigrant with liberal views derived from personal pride and self-bootstrapping]

Enter the office, We introduce everyone, off to a nice start, everyone is happy and excited to be working on [large bank project].

Lisa and Daisy form a friendship of commonality, they have similar backgrounds by all appearances and similar concerns due to children the same age and shared employment. They seem to become fast friends and things proceed normally for some months. Smooth sailing, all is well.

The fuse is lit.

Scene: Lunchtime gossip
[Robert, middle 40s architect adjacent Moi, also architect, age is my own damn business [old, so very old].]
Robert: "So, it seems like Daisy and Lisa are getting along great."
Moi: *snerfs a little, almost chokes on enchilada* Yes, yes they are, It's nice to see...
Robert: *eyebrow, having learned to read my expressions* "Aaaaaaand..."
Moi: "I adore both of them, but they are primarily friends because they don't actually understand most of what the other says"
[Lisa has a thick Taiwanese accent, Daisy has a standard northern indian accent. Never the two shall meet]
Robert: "Are you sure, they seem to have a lot of conversations?"
Moi: "Positive, you weren't at lunch with the three of us. They're polar opposite in terms of values, it'll be fine so long as that never comes up"
Robert: "I'm not even digging into that"
Moi: *flan*

Sizzle.

Scene: This is bat country
[More months pass, everything is fine, project is humming along nicely, save a few blips of personality conflicts. Moi takes a vacation. A gas station, somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, a snowstorm, a sports car full of luggage]
*phone rings*
Moi: *looks down, sees it's Robert, eyebrow raises, answer* What's on fire?
Robert: "We had to let Lisa go"
Moi: "Ah, they finally understood each other."
Robert: "Yes..." *deep sigh*
[Fade to flashback]

Bang.

Scene: The office, Lisa's desk
[Daisy and Lisa are discussing non-descript conversation. Daisy broaches the subject of Lisa's past divorce and being a single mother]
Daisy: "It must have been hard, how did you manage?"
Lisa: "I had my daughter, she was my motivation. We made it here, I met my current partner"
Daisy: "That's good! It is so hard, coming to something new. I could never imagine leaving my husband."
Lisa: "He left us, we weren't important, I don't want to marry every again"
Daisy: "Surely you do though? Marriage is great for a woman, my parents found a great husband for me."
Lisa: "Haha, lucky you. Most indian marriage is like prostitution."
[At this moment, Daisy's demeanor takes a nose dive. Whatever was actually said, what she heard was, "Indian marriage is prostitution"]
Daisy: *tears begin pouring down her face, she flings herself back in her chair, head shaking violently she screams* "I AM AN HONORABLE WOMAN!"
[Daisy runs out of the room, straight to HR. Lisa sits there, stunned, not really understanding what just happened or the consequences]

Scene: Back in bat country
[Robert finishes the story, the emotions are a mixture of hilarity at the absurdity of the situation and frustration in the work void it has created]
Moi: "Satan, well. Fuck me. Fuck us. Fuck. Is Daisy alright, is she at least staying? We can't lose two devs at the same time."
Robert: "She got a few days off, she seems fine now, but she's... yeah, I never laughed so hard"
Moi: *double facepalm* "Yeah, the word choice was a bit outrageous. It's not like we didn't know it was coming. I'm going to get back on the road."
Robert: "Alright, enjoy yourself, I'll try and prevent any other forest fires."

Whenever someone leaves their computer unlocked (and if they're using Chrome/Chromium), one of us will install the Cenafy plugin. It has a 1 in 100 chance of redirecting you to a site that plays the John Cena theme any time you load a new page. Trouble is, the tune is so damn addictive I spend the rest of the day humming it.

Do you know feeling when you have just so much fun refactoring + ( listening + singing / humming ) to music that you can't even properly type anymore because you move around too much?

I feel so happy rn, maybe it's also the coffee ..

i have been working on a web-based game and this is my daily routine (also i listen to rock and metal)

college to home to coding
thinking
coding...
looks like theres a small bug
shouldnt take much time
maybe this can work
*screaming*
i am not the first with this bug *here i come stack*
dont do this to me stack... theres suppose to be a fix for it
*extreme head banging*
F*** it
*changing songs*
nope this not helping
F***
F*** THIS SHIT
*rhythmic head banging*
oh god kill me
F***
am i really that bad
*autistic screaming*
humming song instead of thinking of bug
(8 - 8:30) me: mom i am hungry
this shit is taking toooo much time
*high intensity screaming*
F*** you bug
coding, its not form me
*surfing devrant*
*felling i am normal*
(10 - 10:30) mom: when are you eating
*high pitch screaming*
i am leaving coding for sure now
its too late time to sleep
fml its late again, i am gonna miss the first lecture again
back to coding

A thousand year later...
Bug status: Still not fixed

Headphones on, but no music playing on the headphones, because it'd give other people the illusion that I'm listening to music and leave me alone (Also, I wouldn't be humming along, so more productivity). Plus wearing headphones muffles all the ambient noises and I can really talk to my inner rubber duck.

!rant

Anyone else who can't focus while listening to music? I can't grasp how that's not annoying to people.

The sound of silence.
For real, the best coding flows happen then.

If there is something that I can hear and process, my train of thought behaves like a dream behaves when you wake up in the morning.

Even worse are children, humming, whistling or munching as the ONLY sound in that silence, Im scorching inside when that happens.

If I can't be somewhere silent (preferably completely), I block the distractions with binaural beats and/or sound of rain.

Works in production?

Yes: Copy changes to dev and test.
No: Start humming and walk away from the computer.

I am at the meeting and I keep hearing bird signing, wind humming, sounds of spring. It seems boss is in a forest's cabin right now while every other dev is in a cubicle...

Okay, THAT was trippy.

Soo.. I slowly srart feeling uncomfortable. It's that feeling when you want to move your body to make it go away. Stretch an arm, move a leg or smth... Alright, no biggie - let's move something. But then my focus is overwhelmed by darkness. Hmm... I must be asleep. There's some soothing humming noise in the background. And that feeling's still there. Aaaahh, the numbness is now going away - I must've moved smth! Good job! Drowning back into sleep now. It's ssooo ssweet...
*outage*

*notions of awareness*
huh? What's that? Oh, right, I need to move again. That humming sound is so relaxing.. I'll move smth to change that status quo. There, much better now. Let's keep the eyes closed and drift back to sleep. It's so dark though...
*outage*

*notions of awareness*
ahh, that feeling again. Come on, I've moved like 4 times already. Well alright, alright, it's better to move that open my eyes or roll over.
Wait...
I can't roll over.
I can't even move my hands. Fuck, must be that sleep paralysis kicking in again. No biggie, it'll wear off if I stay aware long enoug........
*outage*

*...?...*
...nough. What? Did I nod off? That's weird. Meeh, nvm. Why is it so dark though... Okay, let's try to open the eyes. *attempts going on for ~a minute*. No luck. That humming sound, so soothing...
I feel some clothing on my - must be the blanket. So warm.. Nice.I'm feeling - prolly the paralysis is wearing off! Good. A few more minutes and I'll be free to roll over

let's try the eyes once again. Hhhrhrhhh! Nope, not working. Wait, what's that? I turned my body! But somehow...Weirdly. Too easy. There, I did it again! Why is it so easy and I am still feeling paralysed...? Wtf is going on...?

That humming. What IS it..?

Wait! My eyes opened! It's pitch dark in here. Why...? Usually there's at least *some* light in the room. Am I still asleep? Naah, that's not it.. I'm turning my body again. Why did I do that? Wtf is happening?

That humming sound is getting louder and louder, taking all of my attention now.
What is it I'm feeling with my feet? It's hard. And cold.

Wait... AM I STANDING??? What the fuck?!?

Why am i standing??? And that sound - that's... That's... A vent fan in my bathroom!!! Am I standing asleep in my bathroom...? In the middle of the night...? Facing the mirror...? With the lights off....?

WHAT THE FUCK DID JUST HAPPEN?!?!?
HOW THE FUCK DID I GET THERE?!?!?
How long have I been here...?

I HAVE QUESTIONS!!

Fuck it, I'm tired. Time to go to bed. It'll be one mindfuck of a storry tomorrow though...

I've never been more annoyed than while a coworker is humming right next to me... for the ENTIRE shift!

Day 2:
My coworker has picked up that I can hear their humming... Continues to hum to every song they're listening to.
Now is known as Hummingbird.

At 4am there was some random youtuber in my head that reads reddit posts and he presents me one but it's blurry and he says hi there how you there are stupid but how stupid you are, humming hammers,
MOMMY THATS SWEET MIAMI MOMMY THATS SWEET MIAMI he's insecure go back then hayeens HIGH WINS HIGH WINS HIGH WINS HIGH WINS and he never stops
It literally feels like a broken neural network output, meaningless. But it's in my head, I never asked for this but it's there generating itself

I can't name just the one annoying coworker, because I've never had this one person I really, really couldn't stand being around. But there are plenty of coworkers that have crossed my path over the years with features that have slowly driven me towards madness.

Like the team leader with psychopathic traits and a brown nose stomping downwards and pleasing upwards.

Like the one fellow who set variable values multiple times to really, really be certain it was set.

Like the girl who sat next to me every now and then, and always started humming and singing only when she sat next to me. Always just loud enough for me to hear.

The dickhead coworkers that has been bullying me, excluding me, neglecting me over the years.

The managers who apparently never learned managing nor people skills.

Every jackass that thought it was a good idea to come stand next to me so they could have a nice conversation on the phone without being disturbed. Well, you disturbed me!

The manager who was whistling and singing so loud from his office that I had to get a Bose QuietComfort headset to get him out of my head.

Every fucking one contributing to the dinosaurism haunting the office.

At 4am there was some random youtuber in my head that reads reddit posts and he presents me one but it’s blurry and he says hi there how you there are stupid but how stupid you are, humming hammers, MOMMY THATS SWEET MIAMI MOMMY THATS SWEET MIAMI he’s insecure go back then hayeens HIGH WINS HIGH WINS HIGH WINS HIGH WINS and he never stops

It literally feels like a broken neural network output, meaningless. But it’s in my head, I never asked for this but it’s there generating itself