The joy of colleague-cancelling headphones 

I’m writing this with headphones in, sitting at my desk on Old Queen Street. Please don’t tell Debrett’s. Apparently listening to headphones in the office is a huge faux pas, akin to cutting camembert with a fish knife. The company’s etiquette adviser, Liz Wyse, told the Times: ‘If you work in an open-plan office where there is frequent conversation and interchange of ideas between colleagues, do not wear AirPods or headphones.’ 

We will, she assures us, be ‘much more valuable staff members’ if we instead choose to ‘tune into conversations’ and ‘stay alert’. Beep boop. Jeeves3000 has spoken. Modern manners are about productivity, you pop-addled layabout. But ask anyone who works in an office and they’ll tell you that headphones are among the greatest contributors to efficiency, up there with filter coffee and a lax policy on desk vaping. How else are you supposed to get through your to-do list? 

Workhorse Liz does make a grudging exception for those at work who want to, you know, actually work, admitting that sometimes headphones can be useful for periods that ‘demand intense concentration’. However, she would prefer it if we found ourselves a ‘breakout room or quiet space’. To think the people who once advised on the correct shade of chestnut for your riding boots now tacitly accept phrases like ‘breakout room’. Talk about decline. 

Funny Debrett’s is still going, really. The nice thing about politeness in our current era is that it’s pretty easily intuited. Firm handshake, don’t go overboard on the cheek kissing, laugh at their jokes, etc. I suspect Debrett’s guides are today mainly bought as a comedy item, perhaps as a 21st birthday present for the girl who enjoyed Jane Austen a little too much. I’d go so far as to suggest that Debrett’s is rather leaning into their reputation for silly, pointless advice. Their Guide for the Modern Gentleman helpfully reminds us that ‘women can make good friends too’. Thank goodness someone thought to tell me that. Otherwise, I’d spend my evenings sitting around with a gang of headphone-wearing men. 

Could there be any sillier advice than Debrett’s latest edict? The overuse of headphones has nothing to do with rudeness and everything to do with an unhappy office. You simply don’t sit in silence with people you get on with. The real problem is things like Slack, an in-company instant messaging app. I’ve worked in offices that were totally silent where most of the staff wore headphones while furiously bitching about each other over instant messengers. It’s utterly miserable. But the headphones aren’t the cause, they’re a symptom of dysfunction. That’s why sane people hate working remotely: all the friendly hellos are stripped away, the polite comments about new shoes and tasty-looking lunches gone, and all that’s left are cold instructions. Who on earth can live like that? 

Sometimes, though, you do just need to crack on; all things in moderation. That’s the joy of headphones. They’re a temporary blast of solitude, one from which you can return with the flick of a finger. The worst thing that happens when zoned out on David Bowie is that a colleague has to wave near your eye line or, at worst, tap you on the shoulder. The horror! Who is actually upset by this? Because I’d like to give them a bit of etiquette advice: there is nothing as rude as being easily offended.