[mightykan]

This is absolutely not a solution if you have tinnitus or a hearing damage or both.

Also this is an insane workaround. Think about what you’re suggesting: the environment that you’re working in, the place where you go to, intentionally, to focus and concentrate, is so filled with undesired and irrelevant noise, that in order to get your work done, you need to tune it out with headphones. How does that make sense?

These companies are constantly in search of the smartest people and yet they think they can get away with such obviously illogical lines. They have people who are best at identifying and fixing corner cases in very complex systems and yet they want these employees to ignore this completely illogical line of thinking? This is insulting and annoying.

[qohen]

This is absolutely not a solution if you have tinnitus or a hearing damage or both.

Arguendo, one could wear headphones without them being plugged in, strictly for signalling purposes, if it were necessary.

[Illotus]

So how does that work agains overhearing conversations etc.?

[dx034]

Some studio headphones have excellent passive noise cancelling. They're designed to avoid sound leaking through so they basically shut out most noises even if they're plugged off. Look at DT 770 as an example.

Which also means you can use them on a very low level so that they don't cause hearing problems if used for long time.