Prenzlauer Berg complains about Neukölln – at the desk next door.

The message arrived just before ten: “Hi Susanne, does anyone at your table happen to have their Teams sound turned up?” – The colleague who wrote this sits in our open-plan office. I apologized. The beep that announces a new message on our internal communication system, Teams, is indeed loud.

The next message popped up: "I don't mean to sound so fussy, but it's driving me crazy in the long run." I expressed complete understanding and meant it. He wrote: "It's fine, I actually don't like coming across as so stuffy." I took the bait.

"I think you should move back to your village if you can't stand it here in the metropolitan area." It was meant ironically. "No, talking loudly on the phone and chatting, etc., is perfectly fine," was the reply. I felt compelled to explain: "Isn't that what you always hear when you complain about noise in Berlin?" My colleague replied: "That's right, that's also what I always tell my Swabian neighbors in the gentrification district of Prenzlauer Berg when they complain about loud bar and flat parties." Aha, so that's why he feels uncomfortable complaining about noise, because he's the one who gives noise complainers the bourgeois image.

He can't possibly know that I find such complaints perfectly acceptable, that I practice them myself, much to my children's dismay, and that I'm not afraid of being labeled small-minded, narrow-minded, or unfit for city life because of it. All because I ask for consideration. That's a blatant case of victim-blaming!

Okay, I live in wild Neukölln, not Prenzlauer Berg, where the reported noise disturbance has changed the neighborhood: no more clubs, no more long summer nights outside the pub, and unworthyly low tolerance thresholds for a big city. I get it, mate. I've still turned off my buzzer, though.