Do you work in your server room? [closed]
Do you work in your server room?
Generally no, although in some companies with only 2-3 servers, yes - my office was the server room.
Is this a common practice?
For small companies and technology startups, yes - space is an issue.
How do you cope?
I make a business case against it, security, cost, etc. If that doesn't work, I bring a sound level meter and the OSHA guidelines, and show them that they are providing an unsafe work environment. This would require them to perform monitoring and sound control, supply affected employees with proper equipment for such a working environment, hold occasional training on sound exposure, etc, etc, etc. The cost would be much greater to support than providing a work area outside the server room.
At what point do you suffer hearing loss?
If you can't hold a conversation at a normal level in the server room (about 60db) then it's likely too loud to work in for 8 hours a day. Extended exposure to high sound levels leads to hearing loss, and the employer would be liable for this if they did not proactively follow the OSHA guidelines.
Of course, by that time you've already lost something valuable, so it's in your best interest to protect yourself by demanding an appropriate working environment.
-Adam
About 12 years ago I employed four people to work inside our data center, they all left within a year. I simply hadn't considered their working environment and would never expect people to have to do that again. To me if an employer asked that I'd take that as an alarm that they don't value their staff and that you'd be likely to see other disrespectful policies if you worked there.
When we were a small company with one rack, yes - but we knew it was temporary. At some point, the noise grew to an annoying level, and we moved the admin team elsewhere and remodeled our server room properly.
I couldn't imagine being in there today. Carrying on a phone conversation when I'm changing out hardware is nearly impossible due to the background noise.
I work in my server room. We have 14 servers, plus a phone-switch, 2 barracudas and other equipment. The level of noise is too much. Every half-hour to hour I have to get out of the room for a good ten minutes. We are working towards virtualizing most of the servers, but still no one should have to work in the "server room"
I think for very small operations it may be common, however once you get above 2 or 3 servers, it's not practical or advisable at all.
We only have a single cabinet and a rack of switches, yet the noise is too great to work comfortably, and the temperature is too cool for office work. However, we are right beside the server room, and the door has a 3x3 window to give a quick look at status lights.
I don't really see any advantage of being close to the servers, as everything should be monitored by software with automatic notification in the event of problems.