Comments on: Five things that drive me crazy in my home office

By: Sherri

Sherri — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:59:06 +0000

I must speak up on behalf of the cat. Mickey Mouse is allowed to go wherever she pleases and if she’s in your way, well, too bad. I’m kind of hoping she steps on the keyboard just to keep it interesting.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:18:29 +0000

You reminded me of why I moved to the back-hills of Tennessee. I was reading this post last night from my laptop while a canopy of stars met a jagged line of tree tops in the high surrounding hills… from which only chirps and an occasional ‘koo-wa’ from a baby deer, or the moanful call of a coyote was heard.

By: Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:06:49 +0000

I’m so with you on the noisy garbage trucks! Like Lesli, I’ve taken to scheduling calls around their usual time of arrival (which varies greatly, mind you!).

I find I’m most distraction-free (and therefore most productive) in the winter, when it’s too cold and snowy for chainsaws, lawnmowers, barking dogs, loud cell phone talkers, fill in your pet peeve here.

By: Mark McClure

Mark McClure — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:13:12 +0000

When the large trucks stop at the traffic light outside my apartment they electronically chant every 2 or 3 seconds in Japanese “turning left, please take care”.

I know it’s for safety but… couldn’t they set it to muzak or something? On second thoughts…

By: Lesli Lord

Lesli Lord — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:15:08 +0000

I also work from a home office. My disruption is the fed ex/ups deliveries. I have three normally quiet dogs but a delivery truck arrives and they go nuts. I now find myself scheduling teleconferences and return calls before and after the normal delivery times -and not even answering incoming calls between 10:00 -11:00 and 3:00-4:00!

By: steph

steph — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:11:08 +0000

Whoops, remove that middle parenthesis mark there.

By: steph

steph — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:10:13 +0000

LOL!!

I hear you, Beth. About the spam, the neighbours (I live on a street full of stay-at-homes and retirees)and I’m getting tired of kids and whipper-snappers and lawnmowers…). Your cat is my dog, only her head goes on my keyboard. I uninstalled Norton the second I turned on this computer and installed Windows One Care instead. Alternatively, AVG is a free anti-virus thingy.

Trucks aren’t too bad on this street but I live quite close to a train station…

Worst distractions of all – all the blogs I subscribe to!

By: Beth

Beth — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:55:24 +0000

Ok, so I have more to say about spam. I was actually going to write a post called “What we can learn from spam,” but I couldn’t think of anything.

1. Who ARE you people who keep clicking? I know you’re out there. Do you really think you can get a great price on a R.O.L.E.X? Or that you can now please your woman once you buy someone’s organic alternative? I have a feeling that every normal person clicks on spam at least once, just to see what actually happens. STOP DOING THAT! If you are actually interested in the special offers, please forward me your email address so I can send you even more offers.

2. What’s with the spam in Russian or Chinese?

3. How come their headlines work? As a writer of sophisticated marketing (otherwise known as intelligent spam?) I work for hours on a subject line. Are you telling me that people will open my emails when my headline reads, “top r..e..p..l..i..c..a.s…….udlv”?