Work struggles – any advice?

[Guest guest]

I work in a cube that's just over 6 feet wide. The walls are about

5.5 feet tall. On one side of one " wall " is my boss (the president of

the company) on the side of the other " wall " is another person, who's

mostly pretty quiet.

I just struggle working so physically close to my boss. He eats raw

vegetables for lunch, makes squeaking sounds with his mouth, rolls

hard candy around in his mouth against his teeth…. It goes on. But I

feel that lately it's really effecting my attitude at work overall.

He was out of the office for two days, and it was wonderfully

QUIET. I've noticed more and more that I also struggle with the

noise level of his conversations – he uses speakerphone sometimes to

check his voice mail from time to time. He has a general hearing

loss, and his conversations tend to be louder than the average

person, and I sit here within 5 feet of him! I was just trying to

have a telephone conversation myself, and I found myself turned away,

hunched over and down against the opposite wall, with my arm over my

free ear, and STILL I could hear his voice louder than the person I

was speaking too…honestly, I could not focus on the conversation I

was trying to have, and it was very frustrating. And, I have a fan

going and a Hammacher Schlemmer white noise generator going at the

same time.

I find that all the noises, conversations, etc, are EXTREMELY

distracting, and that I become quite hostile. I don't know what to

do. I feel that I come off as being quite bitchy, often. I work in

this tiny cube, and I almost feel claustrophobic when the sounds come

over/through the walls, and it's awful when people come INTO my cube

to talk with me or look at my computer screen or something. And if

they have food in their mouth at the time, I get almost twitchy.

Is this normal? Do other people, normal people, struggle with these

things? I constantly wonder if I should speak with him about this,

but everyone is in a cube in this office, so I don't know what else

they would do with me. I like my job well enough, and I get a ton of

recognition, but I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes.

I might also add that this particular office space has some kind of

amazing noise conduit properties – there is metal horizontal beaming

on the exposed ceiling that causes sound to be carried great

distances – I can stand 25 feet away on the other side of the wall

that separates the office from the stairs, and hear my boss'

conversations clear as a bell. COULD I BE IN A WORSE SPACE FOR

SOMEONE WITH SSSS?????

This is really starting to degrade my attitude at work. I don't know

what to do. Who thought of these CUBE FARMS???? Who thinks this is a

good working environment?

OH MY GOD. The other guy is WHISTLING now. I can hear it over the

fan, the noise maker, AND the headphones playing music!!!!!!! I

don't really like listening to music while I work (just more noise),

but it seems to be only way I can retain my sanity. I don't feel I

can get true noise cancelling headphones, because I do need to be

able to communicate with other people, and vice versa. My boss knows

I'm frequently hostile, I can tell, and that's not good.

HELP!