[jbaber]

1. I hope you're saying your ears hurt from physically wearing headphones, not from volume. 2. Many responses in this thread self-diagnose with many disorders because of the need to wear headphones in an open office environment. Open office environments are like emergency rooms filled with crying babies -- they feel almost intended to distract. This is true of "baseline", "normal", "non-disordered", whatever the codeword of the day is for average humans.

Open offices save employers more money (they hope) in space than they lose in lowered productivity. There's no reason to think your average Joe or Jane can just carry on working in one as efficiently as in a private office.