What to do?

The guy that sits in the cube across from me makes me insane. Well, really he doesn't. He's a nice guy, fairly sensible - not irritating. The problem is that for some reason there is a continuous parade of people that come to his cube and start chit-chatting. Some do it quietly. Most, like the guy there right now, are loud. The guy in the cube behind the guy across from me often joins in their discussions. There is also another guy from the end of the row there. So, there is the guy in the cube, and 3 other guys just bs'ing right now.

It happens maybe 5 or 6 times a day. Some last a couple minutes.. some conversations last a half hour or more. Now, I'm not always working when I'm sitting at my desk.. like right now. But sometimes I am, or sometimes I'm on conference calls. None of that makes any difference to the people who stand right outside my cube and have zero consideration for my sanity.

Just now my irritation level was so high I had to get up and go down to the cafeteria and get an orange to munch on, and I just put in a Simon and Garfunkle CD and stuck the headphones in. I can still hear the indistinct voices, and see them out of the corner of my eye standing outside my cube.

In other words, these people are making me insane, and I don't know if it's because I'm an "introverted" person, or it's because they are just being inconsiderate assholes. They aren't bad people.. it's just that it's not a once in a while deal. It's several times a day, every single day. When I'm on the phone, I want to just put it on mute, turn and tell them to all to fuck off.

Simon and Garfunkle is so awesome. Baker Street playing right now.. I guess Paul Simon has a new CD out. Nobody cares.

You ever think that you have some kind of genius when you're 25 years old, and for the rest of your life you try to recreate a different kind of genius, but whatever you do sucks because nobody gets more than that one time at genius? Who's done it more than once?

When you're pushing 40 and realize your shot at genius is gone, it's kind of depressing.

The Sound of Silence is on now. How ironic, right?

The guy in the cube across from me has acknowledged the parade of people to me a couple times. He doesn't phone them up to ask them to drop by. They just do. I downplay it as if I don't care.. I don't mind being a frank asshole to people on the net. They don't affect my pay. Here I'm exceptionally careful what I do and say.

So.. what to do... I could talk to him. It might be hard to believe, but I do know how to tart up the conversation the right way so it doesn't seem confrontational.. I can fake people skills really well. But - regardless of how you have that conversation, you immediately create drama no matter how you do it. For instance, he might have no problem with what I say, but he tells one of the people that regularly comes by not to do it so often anymore. They ask why. He tells them I complained about it. Now that person thinks I'm a whiner... and so on. It's a no win situation.

I've tried to use body language to convey my irritation. There was no doubt I was pissed when I got up to go get the orange. They probably thought I was pissed about something work related, and didn't even have a clue that I wanted to tell them all to get the fuck out of my space. Nothing seems to work.

The other option is going to management, but that's even worse. Not only will he end up knowing it was me that bitched anyway, he'll think I run off to mommy instead of dealing directly. I could request to be moved somewhere else. That's probably not a bad idea, but they'll still know I did it because I was irritated with their behavior.

The last option is just to find a better way to cope when it's going on. I don't want to always rely on the headphones, because I don't like people coming up behind me when I don't know they're there.

There is this part of me that just wants to turn around in my chair when there's a big debate going on and tell them all that they are making me insane and to please not do it outside my cube 5 times a day.

My kingdom for an office.. but then I don't want to get into management. Managers have to deal with this sort of bullshit I'm describing, and that would suck.