I ordered a pair of new headphones for work. My old ones are beginning to disintegrate, or biodegrade, or simply disassemble themselves to protest the long working hours. Every few years I need a new pair.
I would estimate that at least 60% of my workdays are spent in meetings. I’ve written about it before, but meetings are a large part of what I do. Of those meetings, probably 75% are taken via phone. This means that I sit at my desk with a little wireless headset, muted, often only distractedly paying attention, listening for keywords while trying to get real work done at the same time. Sometimes I have to give 100% attention, maybe 40% of the time. That’s a lot of percentages, and it makes me think there’s an equation in there which could give me an idea of the ROI I get from these things. But I digress.
When I’m not on meetings, I’m listening to music. I log onto the Subsonic server I have running at home and I stream tunes right from the machine in my closet. While it never really happens, you can bet that if there were a day where I had zero meetings that that’s also be a day where I listened to nearly eight hours of music. There are no moments, aside from meetings, where I’m not listening to music. Because music is so ever-present in my working day (heck, in my waking day, for that matter), a good pair of headphones is essential. I paid $80 for this latest pair. German jobs; an audiophile rig although I didn’t realize this when I bought them. They just looked comfortable and I like comfortable. I don’t want active noise cancelling, but they have to be over-ear (“circumaural,” says the package) and they need to have padding at the top so they don’t dig into my bald head.
I am trying them out right now as I write. Sharaun is watching American Idol but the room is dead to me. I’m using Grooveshark to evaluate a bunch of new records which I’ve heard people say are good. They are comfortable and they sound good so I’m happy I bought them. I’m not happy I spent $80 but I suppose if you amortize that over years I hope to use them before the biodegrade or disintegrate or whatever it’s not bad.
Why even publish this? Makes the month count look better. Goodnight.