Currently I do most of my work from home. Mid-afternoon, loud music started playing from somewhere nearby and I went to a window to see if I could locate the source.
What I saw was an Amazon truck parked in front of a neighbor’s home and a car stopped in the street. The driver of the car, a young woman, was standing outside the car, and the truck driver was standing near the young woman.
From the physical interaction, they seemed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I don’t know why they happened to be in the same place at the same time, but I didn’t care about that. I cared about the music.
I couldn’t tell if the music was coming from the car or the truck until I walked out there, and then it was obviously coming from the truck.
“What are you doing?” I asked them. “People live here,” I said, gesturing at the homes. “I live here, I work here, and I can’t work with music playing at that volume.”
The truck driver walked back to the truck to turn the music off and I took the opportunity of his absence to say to the girl, “Good luck with that guy. He’s going to lose his job.”
“Why?” she asked, rather unpleasantly. “Are you going to report him?”
“No, but somebody’s going to report him if that’s the way he does business. You can’t pull up to people’s homes and blast loud music at them for no reason.”
The truck driver was back now. “Can I give you a piece of career advice?” I said. “Don’t do anything stupid. On purpose, I mean. We all screw up and do something stupid once in a while, but don’t do it on purpose.”