Alarm clock

This morning I awoke from my slumber to an extremely annoying noise. I sleep with my window open, and everything that happens on the walkway between my building and the building across from my window is amplified thanks to the echo. Well, our neighbors are getting their A/C fixed and one of the guys working on it has to clear his throat every five minutes or so. The horrible thing about this is the way he clears his throat. Instead of the typical "ahem", this guy has a piercing half-clearing/half-screaming noise that he makes. I don't understand how the screaming helps his throat. It seems like it would make it light years worse. Either way, it was a horrible thing to wake up to. And it's still going on.