When did I become this sensitive to fan noise?
Sure, I always found fan noise annoying, but even noise makers like the Emac - or a Macbook pro running Zoom - would soon fade into the background and mainly be noticed again by the relief felt when the fan eventually turned off again.
But yesterday when my monitor's fan suddenly turned on, it was irritation on a whole different level. I truly found it hard to focus before I found a good moment to disconnect and reconnect it to my computer (fortunately, that was enough and no reboots were required). I guess a fan which normally never turns on is a lot more annoying than one you expect to hear all the time, or one which you can at least anticipate because you know what triggers it.
But a unpredictable fan, which normally never turns on, and which seems to only be turned off by a re-set, that is apparently harder to put out of my mind.
And, I most definitely have been spoiled by only working with computers which are dead silent 99% of the time. The bar has been quite significantly raised, even if it is to a level where one could argue it always should have been.