Top Office Pet Peeves?

[flvegan]

Gossip, e-mailing "all" among top office peeves

Mon Oct 29, 5:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Work colleagues who spend their day gossiping, organizing their home lives, or who press "reply all" on e-mails are among the biggest nuisances in the office, according to a survey released on Monday.

A poll on the biggest pet peeves in the workplace by market researcher Harris Interactive found 60 percent of 2,429 U.S. respondents listed gossip as the biggest annoyance.

The online survey, conducted for staffing firm Randstad USA, found the second biggest peeve at 54 percent was poor time management which included people making personal phones calls at work or surfing the Internet during work time.

Messiness in communal spaces, such as unwashed dishes in the kitchen sinks, irked 45 percent of respondent while potent smells like perfume, food, or smoke, came in fourth in the list with 42 percent.

Rounding out the list of seven office peeves came loud noises such as speaker phones, loud talking and loud phone ring tones at 41 percent, overuse of electronic personal communications devices in meetings at 28 percent and misuse of e-mail at 22 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071029/wr_nm/work_peeves_life_tech_dc?

E-mail ignorance is my biggest pet peeve. Don't get me started on "Read Receipts" either.

Second for me is the seeming inability of people to microwave popcorn without burning it all to shit.

Yours?

[redqueen]

1. People bitching about the candy on my desk.

:wtf:


Also, touchy-feely co-workers. Ew.

[Phillycat]

8. Wait, I don't get it.

People bitch about the type of candy YOU provide, for THEM to eat, for FREE?

[redqueen]

11. YES!

Can you believe that shit?

[Phillycat]

13. I really can't!

:wtf:

[redqueen]

14. My response is usually

"Well feel free to stop by the store and get the kind you like and put it in there." :D

[CBHagman]

25. They did that at my office too.

We had one co-worker, since retired, who kept candy at his desk. What was interesting was how swiftly something intended to be fun and stress-reducing turned to a battleground.

People who wanted to lose weight would insist that he was trying to sabotage their diets.

People would interrupt me and my department co-workers in mid-task by wailing that the candy jar was empty (This from someone a pay grade above us, who could certainly have popped out for a Hershey bar if she was that desperate).

And so on. If you have to bring treats, make it a sometime thing and not an obligation. People get the strangest attitudes about something that's offered as a courtesy.

[redqueen]

26. Ah well I'm at the front desk...

so no one's bothered but me. :)

[Sequoia]

10. Oh yes...!!!

Fun size and one guy cusses me about it. He's on a diet so it's my fault he wants the chocolate candy? I took out the good candy and left him with Tootsie Rolls.

Other pet peeves: listennig to crappy mid 1970s music like Rick Springfield, Journey, Kansas...ick!! Another guy using his desk as a drum and is a snitch, other guys screaming like girls in the office. Managers yelling out of their office over cubicles, intercom yelling.

[redqueen]

12. Yup!

If they're not bitching about the kind of candy, they're bitching about how I'm making them unhealthy.

Ahahahah... I always want to say, "I'm not forcin ya to eat it, ya jackass!" :rofl:

Instead I just say something like, "Think of it as an exercise in strenghthening your willpower." :D

[Sequoia]

18. I'll have to use that line!

[Arkansas Granny]

24. Tell them that chocolate is now health food and to quit their bitchin'.

Researchers have some news for chocolate lovers: it may be good for you. Scientists reported preliminary evidence recently that cocoa and other chocolates may keep high blood pressure down, your blood flowing and your heart healthy.

http://www.immunesupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/3464/

I found that when I put hard candies in the dish at my desk it would last forever. Now that I stock it with chocolate I have people stand by my desk to visit just so they can eat chocolate, even the mailman and delivery people. It's a popular spot.

[redqueen]

28. Gosh no...

Chocolate is a rare treat... if I tried to keep it stocked with chocolate I'd go broke! :D

[skygazer]

2. I don't work in an office but I have my own pet peeves

Highest on the list are people who, upon seeing that my area of the warehouse is clean and organized, throw all their crap there because there's no room in their chaotic section. :wtf:

[MissMillie]

3. folks who send print jobs to the copier

usually when I'm at the copier and in the middle of a big copy job.

When someone sends a print job, it's as if they walked up and pushed me out of the way.

[Orrex]

17. That's annoying but unavoidable in my office

Even worse IMO is when some knucklehead sends a 500-page print job that jams the printer, but the sender doesn't bother stopping by the printer to check on it or pick it up.

It's up to the next poor stooge to unjam the damned thing or else (as I sometimes do) delete the job altogether.

They can always resend it, and maybe next time they'll be more conscientious...

[MissMillie]

27. I think if you're going to send more than 10 pages of print to the copier

you get up and make sure someone isn't there first.

[MorningGlow]

4. Officemates who are loud lickers

When they lick their asses. Oh wait. I work at home. Damned cats.

[MaggieSwanson]

32. .

:rofl:

[LeftyMom]

5. Custom ringtones, and people with bad taste in music generally.

There's one girl here whose phone plays some awful low-fi country song every time she gets a phone call. :grr:

[Heidi]

6. Gossip. (nt)

[Rob H.]

7. Speakerphone users at my last job

made me want to punch them in the throat, mostly because they were using their goddamned speakerphones with the volume set at maximum to call someone FOUR FUCKING CUBICLES AWAY! (I was between them, so I got to hear both sides of the conversation.) If they'd talked any louder they wouldn't have needed the speakerphone at all! What, you can't get off your ass and walk fifteen feet to ask a quick question? Come on--nobody's that busy.

[LeftyMom]

9. Oh, that's almost the worst speakerphone story I've heard.

The worst:

A young woman I used to work with would have phonesex, on the speakerphone, complete with self-loving, in our break/stockroom. Her husband was in the Army, so this was an international call on the company dime. I'd have to go back there and get stuff for customers, so she'd try to get me involved in the conversation.

It was icky. I quit.

[Orrex]

19. Well, at least she was able to keep both hands free

But that is indeed really yucky.

:puke:

[DS1]

15. I get that a lot in my office

and because it's speaker in the same office, the volume is incredible. Plus, the speakerphone function isn't really well done on these cheap phones, so you have to wait until someone is done talking before you can get in a word. But the managers never do that, they just start talking, then get pissed when they have to repeat everything over again - especially since they think you were being the rude one by talking when they were.

And they're only 20 feet away.

[redqueen]

16. That is really ridiculous.

I'm surprised the mgmt lets that go on. That's incredibly disruptive.

[ThomCat]

21. I share an office with an asshole who uses his speakerphone

to listen to all his voicemail messages. He also often uses the speakerphone when he's on tech support calls, which is all day.

I don't want/need to listen to that shit when I'm trying to concentrate on my own work. x(

[IndianaJones]

20. email receipts. "!" emails. nt.

[Sequoia]

22. I have to use them but I

use the "don't tell feature" which irks me because I feel like I'm spying on people. That other one where you are asked if you want to send a receipt I mark No.

[Dukkha]

23. two immediately as I type

doofus next to me with loud headphones and he keeps bobbing around like a bobble head. If you need it that loud DON'T use open ear headphones! Show some courtesy!
woman across from me engulfing me with the awful stench of body spray. Obviously trying to cover up some other unholy body odor.

[bluethruandthru]

29. Surfing the internet at work?

What? Who? :evilgrin:

[flvegan]

30. Good thing nobody around HERE does that.

Right?

[LanternWaste]

31. Bad hygiene and decorum

Bad hygiene and decorum. I've got a guy that's very anti-social, and very condescending to his co-workers. He picks his nose at his desk and will then examine his... find. He also has a bad habit of digging his fingers in his belly-button, followed by another close examination. He wears headphones all day and listens to one of the the local comedy-talk radio programs-- he either forgets or doesn't care, but he consistently holds rather loud, one-sided conversations with the radio.

He comes across as the guy that probably has his ass kicked far too much in high school and has dealt with it by becoming an army of one. Yet it's that same, effective withdrawal he's perfected over the years that has prevented him from realizing his nemeses in high school have grown up. The guys that kicked his ass in High School have matured and tried to extend their hands to him since then-- but he slaps those hands away every time. (I'm being allegorical-- I imagine he sees anyone who dresses nice and takes care of themselves as "those guys who gave me swirlies and stuffed me in the locker in high school year...")

The poor guy simply doesn't seem to realize that people are different fifteen to twenty years after school-- he keeps muttering about social caste's and cliques when he gets on the phone with his wife during lunch hour. He's not shy about talking loudly on the phone, so some of us are forced to keep up with his melodramas.

I'm loathe to write that he's very overweight, but I think that's one of the reasons he was picked on in school. Now, nothing wrong (to me) with being overweight, but if you add to that bad hygiene, eccentric habits, a condescending attitude, a bad haircut, and clothes that should be washed, the picture it paints becomes even more painful.

His tenure at my office is about three time longer than mine and I imagine he feels quite a bit of resentment that I have the supervisor position rather than himself (actually, quite a few people do-- but I'm one of the good guys to work for). He has a very passive-aggressive way of trying to end-around me, but he falls flat on his face every time. That's one of the drawbacks about thinking too highly of your own intelligence-- you tend to underestimate everyone else. As I keep rather meticulous records, his accusations about me have actually gotten him written up, which caused no end to the office laugh-track that surrounds me.

Initially, it cause me a LOT of amusement to watch this human train-wreck in action. But over time, I'm not sure which is the greater emotion I feel for him-- pity or annoyance, but being his supervisor, I can't really illustrate either.


(If it seems that I know a lot about this guy, he not shy about advertising that he keeps a blog and as his name is unique, it wasn't too hard to track it down)




Next week, I'll pop a few more office sacred cows and regale everyone with the tale of the bitter alcoholic who's coming back from a two-month gig in the hospital. My fantasy is to greet her return by saying, "Wow! I had bet twenty bucks it would've been your liver to go first..."

Hey-- this was more than anyone wanted to know, but my paperwork is done, they're all working quietly and diligently, and no crises loom on the horizon. All in all, I'm bored and this was a great way to over come that :)

[Merrick]

33. Every Friday:

"So, what are you doing this weekend?" From people I have no relationship outside of the professional environment who are only asking this generic question out of a perceived obligation to make small talk.

[ok_cpu]

34. Loud eating / chewing

Especially gum and ugh chips....

Every office needs this guy:

Terry Tate, Office Linebacker. One of my favorite videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzToNo7A-94

[Jimbo S]

35. co-workers who fart

loudly