Oh lord, yes. My particular nemesis: leaf blowers.
My office is in a residential neighborhood. The sound of a gas powered leaf blower is at just the right frequency to penetrate the double-pane windows, my noise-isolating earbuds, and it somehow overcomes all background noise. The whine and revving is audible. All. Day. Long. From every direction.
I imagine to the operators it seems like a sensible choice -- What harm can I possibly be doing? I'm just one guy blowing some leaves around! But to me -- the guy four blocks over trying to write code for a living -- it hurts deep in my soul, and I wonder when exactly we became so fearful of physical activity. When did we forget how to USE A RAKE?!?!
The person using a leaf blower isn't using one because they enjoy it. They have another 5000 places to manicure afterward—a rake no longer enters the equation since its coefficient of expedience is so low. This in turn, of course, impacts price. The employer of said manicurist passed the buck because they didn't have the time to rake it themselves.
I'd imagine that for those irritated by things of the sort, when it comes to irritants, unkempt yards would also somehow find a way to break concentrations as widely as loud leaf blowers.
If it truly were an expedient, I would be able to understand a little better, but based on observations of my neighbors' leaf blowing routines, it is no faster than I am when I'm raking the yard. Even the professional landscapers that swarm the neighborhood take their sweet time. A good rake can push a huge amount of leaves across a yard in no time.
Considering the headgear the blower operators wear, they must know it is horrible, but they don't care, because they need/want the money for the job. Or they have gone deaf.
My office is in a residential neighborhood. The sound of a gas powered leaf blower is at just the right frequency to penetrate the double-pane windows, my noise-isolating earbuds, and it somehow overcomes all background noise. The whine and revving is audible. All. Day. Long. From every direction.
I imagine to the operators it seems like a sensible choice -- What harm can I possibly be doing? I'm just one guy blowing some leaves around! But to me -- the guy four blocks over trying to write code for a living -- it hurts deep in my soul, and I wonder when exactly we became so fearful of physical activity. When did we forget how to USE A RAKE?!?!
I know, I know. Cry me a river.