Top workplace annoyances

[Euan Uzami]

Eating in the kitchen and having people think it's okay to prod at or stick their nose into my food to smell it.  Get off.

People who think because I'm eating in my office it's okay to interrupt my lunch with an 'urgent query' only to burble about their personal life for ten minutes.

Gum snapping.

Tinny headphone noises.

The fact that if the printer is working, the photocopier won't be, and if they're working then neither fax machine will be working.

The way everyone else likes to work in tropical heat.  What are they trying to do, grow pineapples?  I think 20^oC is more than enough thanks, who keeps turning it up to 30?  

I probably shouldn't moan though, because when I'm concentrating I whistle tunelessly (and unconsciously) which is REALLY annoying.  

it's because if they're a bit cold they think that turning it up to 30 will make it come on with 'more power' than turning it up to the temperature that it would ideally be. Classic non-understanding of thermostats.

[Moloko]

Maybe if you'd put just a little less water into your tea/coffee then all the floor from the kitchen to your desk wouldn't look as if Muhammad Ali himself had just brought it to you.

[Euan Uzami]

(in offices where the only coffee is instant and people take it in turns to do rounds)
people who refuse to learn how to make coffee that is stronger than a nun's piss. And when deciding between being rude and rejecting it, or sitting there suffering the misery of trying to force it down, you decide that the lesser of the two evils is the former, they say "but it's dark! I only put a little bit of milk in that!"    How strong it is has got nothing to do with how much milk it's got in, how dark it is, how hot it is, what colour it is - it's purely to do with how much coffee it's got in it, you dismal cretin! One flat teaspoon full is NOT enough! At least two mounted, learn!

[L CC]

<snip>One flat teaspoon full is NOT enough! At least two mounted, learn!

Mounted? Mounted??


I think you mean heaped.

[Greenbank]

Or mounded.

[Moloko]

Or decaffeinated.      *twitch*

[clarion]

<snip>One flat teaspoon full is NOT enough! At least two mounted, learn!

Mounted? Mounted??


I think you mean heaped.

'Would you like them mounted?'

'No, holding hands should be sufficient' </Old joke>

[Mr Larrington]

If you wish to use the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter to go up, press the button which looks a bit like this: ^

If you wish to use the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter to go down, press the button which looks a bit like this: V

If you wish to be on the receiving end of a bunch of fives up the snot-box, press both buttons

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

What a wonderful thread.  Sometimes I think I'd quite like to have a job, but not now I don't Oh no

[RJ]

* Stationary cupboards that have fifteen types of obscure staples, seven kinds of whiteboard markers, eleven crates of Manila envelopes and not a single cocking post-it note.  I'm reduced to misappropriating them from other offices when I visit, risking opprobrium and ridicule.
* People who reheat fish products in the office kitchens should be KILLED TO DETH in an appropriate manner (viz. burial up to the neck in rotting mackerel and a vigorous stoning with tainted microwaves)

* The photocopier (all-singing all-dancing, too clever by half - well cleverer than anyone in the office)
* The photocopier (and its apparently pointless and endless beeping that non-one can disable)
* The photocopier (it's not an impromtu meeting venue)
* The photocopier (it's 10 feet from my desk)
* Open plan

 

[Deborah]

*people using the room outside my office as a film studio.  I can't get out of my office :-(

[Greenbank]

* Stationary cupboards that have fifteen types of obscure staples, seven kinds of whiteboard markers, eleven crates of Manila envelopes and not a single cocking post-it note.  I'm reduced to misappropriating them from other offices when I visit, risking opprobrium and ridicule.

Stationary cupboards are a lot better that moving cupboards full of stationery though.

[Charlotte]

Oh bugger.  Mea maxima culpa. That one always catches me out.

*self-flagellates*

[clarion]

Oh surely you can find a volunteer to help you with that?

[Pancho]

e for envelopes

[perpetual dan]

People who hold interviews in the room outside my office, who have been told that is not suitable to interviews as it contains a working office in the corner, but still hold interviews in there.  As my only way in and out of my office is through the room, I am of course going to have to disturb their interview.  Which is going to be worse; me throwing up in the bin my glass bowl office and thus in full view of the interview candidates or me disturbing them momentarily to leave the office and throw up in the toilets?  I got the stare of death from one woman when I wanted to get into my office.

Workmen who think that despite the "do not disturb - interview in progress" sign on the door it is reasonable for them to come in and ask if it is OK to use the window to access the roof, instead of using the hatch provided or a window in another room. If I ever want to test candidate's ability to put up with idiotic distraction I'll call you, OK?

[pcolbeck]

Workmen who think that despite the "do not disturb - interview in progress" sign on the door it is reasonable for them to come in and ask if it is OK to use the window to access the roof, instead of using the hatch provided or a window in another room. If I ever want to test candidate's ability to put up with idiotic distraction I'll call you, OK?

Do you get that many jumpers at your place of work ? It must be a very stressful environment. Nice of management to provide a hatch though, I guess it saves on the sick pay for those who cant cope.

[Zipperhead]

People who install expensive but POROUS work surfaces around the sink, then have kittens every time you wash vegetables or plates in same and splash water

People who can't understand simple concepts without a diagram

People who read some nonsense in the paper and then start to voice uninformed opinions, assuming that you are agreeing with them, whilst you say the opposite that they don't register


WELL, person, actually

Hey, you agreed to marry him, don't come here looking for sympathy already.   

[clarion]

Oi!  I like formica and stainless steel.

[David Martin]

* The photocopier (all-singing all-dancing, too clever by half - well cleverer than anyone in the office)
* The photocopier (and its apparently pointless and endless beeping that non-one can disable)
* The photocopier (it's not an impromtu meeting venue)
* The photocopier (it's 10 feet from my desk)

In the lab in which I started my PhD there was an old fashioned photocopier that made a load of noise. In a room reorganisation, our department secretary ended up in the same room. So she was constantly disturbed by people using this. A suitable location was identified to relocate the copier and the floor manager asked to arrange it, but the paperwork/decisions/meetings were too much.[1]

One night it magically grew legs and walked. The FM was furious. However, the paperwork/decisions/meetings were too much to have it moved back to where it had been. 

Nobody knows how it moved[2]

[1] This was the same senior tech who, when asked why we didn't have full drench showers int eh new building replied that we had never needed them in the old one so wouldn't get them. I asked if anyone had ever used a wall mounted fire extinguisher in the old building, and if not, whether we would get rid of those in the new building too. We didn't always see eye to eye.

[2] This is a self evident untruth.

[perpetual dan]

Workmen who think that despite the "do not disturb - interview in progress" sign on the door it is reasonable for them to come in and ask if it is OK to use the window to access the roof, instead of using the hatch provided or a window in another room. If I ever want to test candidate's ability to put up with idiotic distraction I'll call you, OK?

Do you get that many jumpers at your place of work ? It must be a very stressful environment. Nice of management to provide a hatch though, I guess it saves on the sick pay for those who cant cope.

I couldn't possibly comment on the stress.
I forget what the workmen were trying to do, but they did provide some entertainment as they had to work around a nesting seagull.

[jogler]

Self-appraisal forms written in managementese.  When I answer "Don't understand the question", this is not me trying to be flippant¹, but because I genuinely don't have a clue how to leverage my core competencies in a customer-facing role.1 - well, not exclusively...

WTF does that mean?

[Regulator]

Self-appraisal forms written in managementese.  When I answer "Don't understand the question", this is not me trying to be flippant¹, but because I genuinely don't have a clue how to leverage my core competencies in a customer-facing role.1 - well, not exclusively...

WTF does that mean?

It means absolutely nothing.  It is a prime example of 'management consultant speak' - a language developed by said consultants to hide the fact that organisations are paying them shedloads of money to  state the bleeding obvious and/or do fuck all.

[jogler]

This thread is hilarious.I laughed so much I  .
It also sounds like pergatory(sp).
It has also reminded me of so much crap & nonsense that was part of office life that I no longer "enjoy" because I work alone,from home

[citoyen]

The whole ad sales department. Shysters.

Two hour lunch breaks and a working day that finishes at 5pm on the dot. No wonder we don't sell many ads.

And it's us editorial idiots who are left working late finding stuff to fill the space that you promised us would have ads in it, because it's us who would lose our jobs if we published a magazine with blank pages.

It might be more tolerable if you didn't leave it until five minutes before press deadline to tell us the ad hasn't booked. Muppets.

d.