Ode to my cube neighbor.



  • Can you please type a little louder?

    Is there a parade of clogging reindeer in the cubicle next to me?  Oh, no, it's just her typing. 

    How her hands aren't worn down to nubs from typing so hard is beyond me.  I can hear her over my headphones! 

    I can't help but watch.  I mean, her fingers are like pistons... or cobras, striking at unbelievable speeds.  I seriously think she can type 400 wpm.... creating a deafening cacophony of click-it-y-clack-it-y.  When she presses enter to finish a thought, the whole office goes disturbingly quiet.

    You know in movies when people are acting like they are typing and they obviously are just button mashing.  That's what it seems like she is doing, but I know she's actually typing words.  I've seen it. 

    Mash on, you amazing keyboard masher.



  • @Pope said:

    Can you please type a little louder?

    Is there a parade of clogging reindeer in the cubicle next to me?  Oh, no, it's just her typing....

    <font size="5">H</font>eh, that reminds me of a friend at work who was working on a typing-tutor game on the C64.  You had to type the words that scrolled across the screen and every time you pressed the space bar your score would update, your wpm would change and the graphics would change.  He would type rather loudly on the letter keys but he hit the space bar with a vengeance, even more so when his code wasn't working. ...cat<bang!>rat<bang!>fat<bang!>...  Well, the space bar lasted about two days before it bent in half and stopped working.  even the metal bar underneath was twisted like a pretzel.


  • I hear someone brough out a re-make of the classic clunk-click IBM
    keyboard, any links?  Heck, if you can't beat those corporate
    percussionists, join em!



  • Sounds like she's using thje DVOARK style keyboard over QWERTY which is considerably more effectient.



  • @versatilia said:

    I hear someone brough out a re-make of the classic clunk-click IBM
    keyboard, any links?  Heck, if you can't beat those corporate
    percussionists, join em!

    Beware, those buckling spring 101 keys suckers (IBM 42H1292 and 1391401 models) are quite far from cheap.

    If you want one, the only guys still building them that I know of is Unicomp, the one you want is the Customizer 101 priced at $49. There is also a 104 keys version that's also available in black, but the price point is much higher ($59 for 104/white, $69 for 104/black)

    For more informations about the Model M keyboards, Daniel Rutter from Dan's Data is a fan and has wrote two articles on the subject.



  • My ex-boss was a high-decibel typist. There was much rejoicing when the company bought new near-silent keyboards for everyone. However, his hands were too gigantic for him to press only one key at a time reliably, so he ordered himself one of those big curved ergonomic keyboards - the ones with quite a slope to them, forming an amphitheatre/megaphone-type void beneath. Sigh...



  • @teedyay said:

    However, his hands were too gigantic for him to press only one key at a time reliably, so he ordered himself one of those big curved ergonomic keyboards - the ones with quite a slope to them, forming an amphitheatre/megaphone-type void beneath. Sigh...

    Lol.  I had a boss who had fingers so big that he would accidentally hit Caps Lock when typing 'a'.  I was working one day when I heard a WHOOSH-THUD and turned to see the Caps Lock key lying on the floor beside me.  He liked the new layout of his keyboard so much that he had soon taken out the CTRL, ALT,  Tab, Esc and F1 through F12 keys as well. 

    He was also the guy who would randomly cuss at the top of his lungs and beat his desk.  One time he even whipped his mouse at a wall, which I found particularly funny... but you can't laugh at that sort of thing without facing the wrath and fury... which actually made me want to laugh that much harder.  Needless to say, I had to get up and "get a drink of water."



  • @Pope said:

    Can you please type a little louder?

    Is there a parade of clogging reindeer in the cubicle next to me?  Oh, no, it's just her typing. 

    How her hands aren't worn down to nubs from typing so hard is beyond me.  I can hear her over my headphones! 

    I can't help but watch.  I mean, her fingers are like pistons... or cobras, striking at unbelievable speeds.  I seriously think she can type 400 wpm.... creating a deafening cacophony of click-it-y-clack-it-y.  When she presses enter to finish a thought, the whole office goes disturbingly quiet.

    You know in movies when people are acting like they are typing and they obviously are just button mashing.  That's what it seems like she is doing, but I know she's actually typing words.  I've seen it. 

    Mash on, you amazing keyboard masher.



    At least your neighbor doesn't speak aloud her internal dialog, while eating SuperCrunch brand corn chips "Now with louder bags!", while talking on the phone loudly enough for the deaf to hear, while whistling.

    Ok, my cube neighbor doesn't actually do all those things at once...but I'm sure he's working on it.


  • @UncleMidriff said:



    At least your neighbor doesn't speak aloud her internal dialog, while eating SuperCrunch brand corn chips "Now with louder bags!", while talking on the phone loudly enough for the deaf to hear, while whistling.

    Ok, my cube neighbor doesn't actually do all those things at once...but I'm sure he's working on it.

    Oh, man...  a chip eater?!  Those are the worst.  Whistling doesn't bother me that much, but chip eating?  I feel for ya, UncleMidriff.  Dare I ask... is he a mouth-breather as well?  Open mouth chip eating should be punishable by death.



  • We don't have cubicles!

    \o/



  • @Pope said:

    Lol.  I had a boss who had fingers so big that he would accidentally hit Caps Lock when typing 'a'.  I was working one day when I heard a WHOOSH-THUD and turned to see the Caps Lock key lying on the floor beside me.  He liked the new layout of his keyboard so much that he had soon taken out the CTRL, ALT,  Tab, Esc and F1 through F12 keys as well.


    I actually have a couple keys missing from my desktop keyboard because I pried them off after hitting them on accident too many times.  Thanks to MS Word, the Insert key is missing (I used to drive myself nuts with overwrite mode) and thanks to games the left hand windows key is missing (kept hitting it while reaching for Alt or Ctrl during a game, which spelled certain doom).

    Can't say I've ever flung a mouse at the wall, though.  Wanted to, yes; done it, no.

    My laptop has a builtin microphone on it, so anyone who voice chats with me on the internet when I don't have a headset around gets to find out just how fast I type.  I'm told it sounds like a machine gun.
    -FM



  • I've got two keyboards at home that have those fancy "power" buttons.  Sleep/standby/wake up...  Unfortunately they never worked right anyway, and they're in absolutely the WORST possible place - right between the arrow keys and the delete/end/page down keys.  There's nothing quite like opening the door to a cage full of whup-ass in some game, and then hitting the "sleep" key...

    So I pried them off...  :)

    Oh, and back to the topic...  the absolute worst cubicle etiquette is talking loudly on your speaker phone - usually to the guy 3 cubicles down, who is also on his speaker phone...


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