I'm not sure where to put this, but since it involves intermittent itchiness and hives, it might as well be here.
It's probably silly, but I'm going to post about it here because I would honestly, seriously like whatever advice that anybody could offer on this.
I work in a small studio, in very close proximity to my boss. My boss has developed a habit (in the last six months or so) of consistently and repeatedly making a heavy breathing / gasping sound.
Before I go any further I just want to point out that I know this is stupid. I've tried articulating it to my parents, my friends.... the response is always the same; just a smile and a shake of the head. But to me it's profoundly irritating. My friends don't have to sit next to this guy for seven hours a day, five days a week, in a quiet office.
Anyway! Recently I've been getting some nasty symptoms; constant breakouts of itchy hives, heart palpatations, etc. I went to see the doctor about the itchiness, her diagnosis was that my body was reacting to stress. So the question then became, what's causing it?
The workload is fine, nothing I haven't dealt with before. Relationships and general life stuff is going as well as it ever has. So that only leaves this issue with this breathing thing. It's hard to articulate just how irritating I find it. The best way I can describe the sound is, ''mouth fart''. He does these ''mouth farts'' dozens of times every minute, like he's just finished running a marathon. But he's just sitting at a computer. It's easily the most audible, noticeable sound occurring in the room at any given time.
I've taken to wearing large headphones and blasting white noise into my ears to drown it out, but it's sort of getting in the way of work.
So the question is, do I say something to him? I can't imagine how to articulate it in a way that would be tactful or helpful. He's my boss.. I don't want to drive a personal wedge in like this. I just know the response will be ''I didn't know I was doing that, I guess I can't help it, sorry''.
