I suffer daily headaches/migraines and I have this coworker who sits one row behind me who is extremely loud because she just sits and giggles (or loud outbursts of laughter) at things all day with the other person next to her and then she screams/yells (or squeals) at all her friends when they come by to say hi to her and it’s just constant and all day, my entire 8 hrs shift.
We have a dept of 800ish people and operate 24/7, I have worked there since 2016 and been in different areas and on different schedules. I just changed my schedule to this one a few months ago and now I wish I hadn’t because this woman is driving me nuts and I get headaches from her noises and can’t concentrate at work.
I’ve been trying to do my best to ignore it and work, but I’m going through some extra medical issues right now that began 3 weeks ago and doctors are changing meds on me and withdrawals are making my headaches more frequent and giving me mood swings and such, so last week I tried to ask my boss if I could be moved somewhere due to “noise” issues and she wouldn’t just leave it at that and interrogated me about it instead of just accommodating my request. I didn’t feel like saying more than what I just said because I’ve seen my boss chat and be buddy with this noisy person.
I ended up telling my boss the source of the noises and I said it’s an employee, and mentioned how she screams and excessively socializes a lot. My boss said okay she’ll look into it and figure it out, but usually that means “I’ll pretend to help you, but I’ll never get back to you.”
I don’t know what to do at this point.
Any ideas?
How should I word things to avoid being too critical?