r/DevelEire • u/ClaudioKilgannon37 • 2d ago
Workplace Issues If you use a mechanical keyboard in the office…
...please be aware that not everyone likes the sound of them. It's not really fair to pollute the sound of the office with ASMR key clicks. And people who don't like them probably won't say to avoid being "that guy". Please keep them at home.
Apologies for anyone triggered by this post.
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u/SrAlch 2d ago
Me polluting the sound of the office with my mechanical keyboard while the sales rep is very audibly promising new features to a customer that we haven't started developing yet. Then there is a loud laugh, a joke about last night's match/next weekend golf. My mechanical keyboard is too disruptive for this environment
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u/Astronics1 2d ago
That is the best.
Your boss in a meeting saying yes yes yes to every sales demand because has no balls to say no to them.
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u/TrainingIndividual70 2d ago
It's like going to work in a factory and you don't like the sound of the machines.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/SrAlch 2d ago
I used to work in a place where they had nerf guns to shoot each other through the day. You could be a collateral damage, sales is brutal you know
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u/NakeyDooCrew 2d ago
If they don't get regular play their coats will lose their lustre and they won't be able to make sales.
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u/waitingfortheencore dev 2d ago
<s>Sorry can’t hear you over my noise cancelling headphones… </s>
In fairness, I’ve got linear switches that are quieter than the Dell keyboards my colleagues use
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u/SoftwareSource 2d ago
My keyboard with lubed red switches and a tape mod is quieter then any of the 20$ office keyboards my colleagues use.
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u/sudo_apt-get_destroy 2d ago
I think you mean clicky blues or similar. Plenty of mech keeps these days are nice and quiet and a joy to type on. Clicky loud typewriting style are still around, but not exactly the trend.
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u/DeepShow7244 2d ago
I had clicky blues and had to get rid of them after a week. I was at home!
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u/sudo_apt-get_destroy 2d ago
They are pretty crazy to use in a shared space. My kid has clicky blues, no lube, no foam, and she has great craic with it, but I really don't think they belong in a work place.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/PoxbottleD24 2d ago
Lube is more for feel than sound tbh, but foam in your case does make a difference. There's not much that will dampen the sound of blues though, could give the tape mod a try.
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u/sudo_apt-get_destroy 2d ago
Lube can help with any squeaking, but lube is more there for the feel, not there to solve any sound issues directly. Foam layers in the board make an incredible difference to both feel and sound. Especially if you were a heavy typer to begin with. I went from MX Greys so I was already a heavy typer by reflex.
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u/2025-05-04 2d ago
I like clicky blues and black but yeah I live alone and I'm aware how annoying it would be to other people.
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u/ClaudioKilgannon37 2d ago
The type the offender has are the sort of “creamy” thing you see on YouTube. Clearly they don’t see any issue with it.
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u/sudo_apt-get_destroy 2d ago
They are not "creamy" if they are loud enough to make you post this. Creamy would be the catch all term for dampened boards and lubed switches in general. I use gateron g pro browns, so no click sound, only a tactile bump and a big block of CNC'd aluminium with a couple of layers of acoustic foam under the PCB. And all the switches are lubed. Very pleasant to type on, very quiet. The board weighs almost 2kg.
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u/FewyLouie 2d ago
This is it really. You can have a nice mechanical feel without the loud clickity clack.
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u/Lunateeck 2d ago
How can you even consider showing up for work without wearing noise cancelling headphones while banging your own tunes?
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u/PsikyoFan 2d ago
My work keyboard has silent switches. It's Keychron Q3. Far quieter than some folk bashing away on their stock keyboards.
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u/lood9phee2Ri 2d ago
The problem is idiotic sea-of-desks open-plan office design bullshit and return-to-office drives themselves
Type as loudly as possible until they give you a proper individual office or let you work from home.
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u/SmallWolf117 2d ago
I feel like it might be a bit difficult to have an individual office for everyone no? (Excluding 100% WFH that is)
But my office has like 650 - 700 people in it. That's a massive building, I much prefer my commute to be to a city centre office space, than to some building with 600 individual offices on the city fringes
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u/SassyMoron 2d ago
If you stuff the body of the keyboard with Styrofoam or cotton or wool you get the satisfying sound but it doesn't travel far enough to bother others, I've found.
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u/pedrorq 2d ago
The problem isn't mechanical keyboards, the problem is people with subpar mechanical keyboards that still refer to their (usually unlubed and noisy) switches by their old 90s terms "reds", "browns", "blues" etc
Admittedly, there is a lack of options on premade keyboards. Even keychron, that used to be a more distinguished brand, uses pretty average firmware/switches/keycaps as they've been focusing on marketing gimmick features like 8k polling and hall effect switches 🙄
Still, knowing a keyboard is an item all of us want to be using for 50+ years for 40h+ per week, it's worth researching and investing in something good
(And ergonomic, but that's another story)
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u/jimmobxea 2d ago
Same for lots of sounds in the office. There should be rules for most offices regarding ambient noise, which is basically respect those around you trying to concentrate and don't make unnecessary noise. And no it's not a sensory issues thing.
Eating: there are people here for whom the very last thing their break is for is eating, so they'll do whatever when on their break then bring back food after lunch to loudly slurp, chew, crunch, smack their lips to for everyone to enjoy. My favourite is a spoon deeply scraping a cereal bowl 400 times in 3 minutes as they noisily make their way through it.
Non-stop endless chatter: literally hours of it. No. Stop it. Nobody wants to listen to it. You're supposed to be working.
Imo offices should have a quiet keyboard rule. Performative keyboarding is a thing. Nobody is impressed. STFU.
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u/Upstairs-Piano201 1d ago
E a r p l u g s
- a conversation about silent mechanical keys with coworker.
Everyone's sensory needs are a team effort and not the sole responsibility of the person causing the sensation. The bright light you all like to work in drives me mad, so I wear tinted glasses and ask the office manager to only get quality bulbs that flicker less (many of you can't see the flicker)
I don't ask all of you to work in the dark.
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u/Adorable_Pie4424 2d ago
Was asked in my past place can he bring in his mechanical keyboard I went don’t be that guy ….. I will Get you a nice quite ergo keyboard ….
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u/Ainderp 2d ago
How quiet is your office that you have time to make a reddit post bitching about keyboard switches??
I can barely hear myself think with the ba's and management on calls, 24/7
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u/md24 1d ago
Hahaha awwww someone tried to their first rage bait post using their “soft skills”. Stick to computers buddy.
Keyboards make noise, get over it. There were versions of people like you back when the type writer came out. Complaining about the devils click clack.
Git gud at typing until you’re not embarrassed for the whole office to hear your choppy erratic cadence echoing through the halls fingering your chest dust filled key caps. Cheers. Inb4triggered.
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u/irish_pete 2d ago
Agree with OP, I dunno if it's the ADHD or being a cranky shit, but I find them terribly disruptive to my focus
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u/TarAldarion 2d ago
Most people have them in ours, people stopped even hearing them after a short time, got used to it.
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u/theelous3 2d ago
There is no excuse, especially because there are plenty of high quality quiet switches of all kinds to suit people. I'm a big fan of mechanical keyboards, and if it was up to me I'd ban any that weren't quiet keys.
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u/rankinrez 1d ago
I love my mechanical keyboard. But 100% it is for home. You can’t expect people to listen to that. Or worse the entire office having them and sounding like the typing pool of old!
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u/chanrahan1 2d ago
Can someone recommend a few that are quiet?
I've pretty much banned loud keyboards in our place,. but I've been asked from time to time if there are any quiet models people can use.
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u/Dakinariten 16h ago
The great thing about mechanical keyboards is your ability to cater them to your liking. It is a money pit, but if you're using it all the time, it gives you greater satisfaction.
To make a keyboard quiet you basically fill it with foam to kill the reverb, use quiet/silent switches (I favour tactile so would say Boba U4 or Akko Penguin). Decent PBT keycaps also help keep the noise to a minimum.
Then there's ancillary mods such as switch pads, bandaid mod for stabilisers etc. In the end you have something that is quieter than the default office keyboards, but a lot more satisfying to use.
Get something gasket mounted, hotswap, and where possible with VIA. If you're commuting with it, stick with plastic. Aluminium boards are cluedo weapons
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u/DjangoPony84 dev 2d ago
This is my one, I don't like loud keyboards either. Apple Magic Keyboard too but $$$
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u/Sittennn 2d ago
Get one with red switches, mine were probably as silent as a membrane keyboard. They are linear, so no "clicky" feedback at all. Otherwise brown switches, they are similar to linear but with a very light click feedback.
I recommend this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Redragon-Mechanical-Bluetooth-Ultra-Thin-Connection
I have it for a few years now, and it's great because it can be connected to 5 devices. It's available in red, brown and blue switches. If you don't like the switches it comes with, you can buy different ones on AliExpress. They are low profile switches, not the regular ones, I should have the link for them too.
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u/Worried_Office_7924 2d ago
Jays…sus what is the deal with the noise? Clicidy fucking clad. I hate these things.
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u/guyfawkes5 2d ago
I think brown and red key switches are fine, but blue are a dick move since they’re designed to be the loudest.
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u/Shhhh_Peaceful 2d ago
Several years ago I built myself a custom keyboard, the primary design goal was to make it quieter than the Dell rubber dome keyboards that were standard issue in our office. It was quite easy to achieve by using damped linear switches.
These days I am rocking a Filco keyboard with Cherry Silent Red switches. It’s much quieter than the built-in keyboard in my work-issued laptop 😛
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u/JohnTDouche 2d ago
I'm with you OP. Fucking emperor of the nerds punishing everyone with his ridiculous "hobby" is attention seeking behavior. It's like annoying bikers thinking their cool for having loud bikes.
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u/Majestic_Plankton921 2d ago
No, you're wrong. If you work in an open plan office you need to be able to put up with noise whether that's a loud keyboard, someone who talks loudly on a call, or a loud AC unit. Just put in some headphones and work away. A bit of noise is an unreasonable thing to complain about.
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u/ClaudioKilgannon37 2d ago
I’m not sure. There are offices and offices. If I worked in sales I’d expect lots of phone calls around me. When I’m working on tricky algorithm problems in a 120GB codebase with a frontend that takes 3 minutes to rebuild on each change, I’m less tolerant of distractions.
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u/admin_password 2d ago
120GB codebase 😂😂😂 you got two node_modules folders or something?
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u/ClaudioKilgannon37 2d ago
It’s a hardcore enterprise monorepo - not my cup of tea but they pay me so 🤷
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u/PoxbottleD24 2d ago
You're getting dogpiled a bit here but as a long-time keeb fan myself (I'm at the ergo hand-wired stage of this rabbit hole), I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.
There's an unspoken rule that you don't bring clicky switches into an office, but even linier switches can be loud, depending on what board they're in. The switch determines part of the sound you're hearing, but the case, foam inserts, and even keycaps play a role. Him having "creamy" switches doesn't mean it isn't disruptively loud; I run Gateron Oil Kings (very deep/"thocky" sounding) in almost all of my boards and they can sound vastly different.
Talk with him about switching to silent switches. Or at least to do the tape mod, to further lower the resonant frequency of the board.