It's often worse in that the noisy person hinders their coworkers, while no one hinders them -- particularly in a work culture that lauds "open" and discourages a limiting response on the part of others towards that person.
Meanwhile, the quiet people are not keeping the noisy one from their work or working effectively if and when they choose to concentrate.
Result? The noisy people "succeed".
I consider it a cousin of bullying.
And, it explains a lot about contemporary Western corporate culture -- to its detriment, in my opinion.
Right, blame the worker who has no choice but to work surrounded by another 100 people. Don't blame the business who cut corners on structural costs. Open offices don't exist because it's "better" for anyone; they exist because businesses save millions of dollars in building costs, and conveniently label it as a "cultural" thing.
Just because we're both forced to work in the same room doesn't mean my coworkers have no choice but to force me to listen to their political rants etc. If I complained, I'd be labeled as "antisocial".
How is it bullying any more than if you were to complain about him being too social?
Your perceived antisociality could be almost as bothersome to him as his sociability is to you.
I don't mean to dismiss your concern, and I can relate even, but workplaces are social environments and (apart from political rants which might border on offensive) I see no reason why you're a victim here.
I didn't call it bullying. I called it a "cousin" of bullying.
And, for the record, I include in this work communication, not necessarily -- nor even primarily -- personal, "social" communication.
The loud guy I remember who would stand up, raise his voice, and shout conversations across aisles of cubes.
The "best practice" that shrunk our cubes to "corners", sitting almost shoulder to shoulder with 3 - 4 feet between us. People nonetheless holding hour long cube meetings and in-person screenshares and whatnot.
Getting a project completed and passed by a coworker, to find multiple, obvious bugs within the first five minutes. Because that person had no depth of attention whatsoever.
The best developers leaping at nascent work-from-home, because it was the one time they could really, consistently get stuff done.
But challenge HR on any of this, and "best practice" and a mark on your own record.
Asking a coworker, very politely and directly, if they could be a bit quieter -- in this case, in fact, when they were engaged in extensive, repeated personal communication of a non-urgent nature (talking with friends, on the phone and in cube visits, sometimes for 2 - 3 hours, day after day) -- and having this come back to you as a formal complaint to and "correction" -- to you -- from HR for your having asked.
Consistently, I observed the loud people "winning" by dint of being loud.
Those top developers were more senior and from a time when the company was smaller and provide private offices. That was how the company attracted and held them, in the first place. They were "vested" in their careers and families and technical debt and, in this technologically conservative area, somewhat "trapped" in their current positions.
Like a frog in the pot, new senior management and HR kept making things more miserable. If remote work hadn't come on the table when it did, I suspect they would have lost more of them in the near future.
As it was, being senior, they were provide this opportunity and had the leverage to use to to escape what was becoming an untenable office environment.
For those stuck at the office, it became a matter of working around "shouting guy", neighbors' cube meetings, and the like. A culture increasingly of interruption, distraction, and superficial attention.
Meanwhile, the quiet people are not keeping the noisy one from their work or working effectively if and when they choose to concentrate.
Result? The noisy people "succeed".
I consider it a cousin of bullying.
And, it explains a lot about contemporary Western corporate culture -- to its detriment, in my opinion.