In order to discover what are the maximum noise levels that office personnel find acceptable and what their reactions are to noisy offices, a survey was carried out at a large air base. A questionnaire composed of 15 rating scales was administered to 190 people scattered over 17 different locations on the base. The rating scales allowed the workers to assess such things as the “noisiness” of their environment and to appraise the effect of noise on various aspects of their work, such as their ability to converse or to use the telephone.The results obtained with the rating scales were compared with various physical measures of the noise. A high correlation was found between perceived noisiness and the measure called “speech interference level” SIL, which is the average of the sound pressure levels measured in the three octave bands between 600 and 4800 cycles per second. An even higher correlation was found between the ratings of noisiness and a computed measure of loudness level. More than two‐thirds of those questioned stated that speech communication was an essential part of their activities and that the more intense noises in their offices interfered with it. These correlations provide a basis for setting criteria for the maximum noise acceptable in terms of SIL and of loudness level. These results, plus those from a previous study, suggest that the maximum continuous noise levels acceptable for office spaces in which speech communication is important should not exceed an SIL of 40 db. Office employees are accustomed to a noise spectrum of a form that yields a loudness level of about 22 units higher than the SIL. Complaints are encountered when the loudness level exceeds the SIL by 30 or more units. Thus, with an SIL of 40 db the loudness level should preferably not exceed about 62 phons. Only under special conditions with this SIL would it be advisable to exceed a loudness level of 70 phons.For intermittent noises, such as the noises produced by aircraft operations, evidence is presented to show that the mean (average) value of the SIL and loudness level should not exceed the numbers for steady noises if the work of office employees is not to be disturbed.