Office Pet Hates

Sunny

Registered User
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I might be getting old and cranky but I am beginning to find peoples behaviour in work to be extremely annoying. My new pet hates are:

1. Eating smelly curry like dishes at the desk. Yes it smells lovely and yes you are entitled to eat at your desk but not when the smell lingers for the next four hours and you don't clean up your desk until you are about to leave for the day.
2. Leaving toilets in a State. Would you leave the toilets at home in a state expecting someone else to clean them? Bet you wouldn't so why do it in an office.
3. Kitchen facilities are there for everyone. Put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher. It's not complicated.
4. When going to a meeting, leave your mobile phone at your desk. Just because it is a work phone doesn't mean you have to have it glued to your hand and look at it every two seconds while someone else who has put a lot of effort into organising the meeting is trying to explain something to you. You don't carry your desk phone around do you so it is ok to be unreachable by phone for 30 minutes. So stop being an ignorant sod and give the meeting your attention.
5. People who say 'Half Day is it?' when you get up to leave 15 minutes early despite being in a hour earlier than the comedian and had zero smoke breaks. I laughed the first time. Now I just want to bang your head against the desk.
6. People who talk incessantly about their kids and their amazing achievements at this weeks ballet class. I enjoy listening to my own child's stories. Yours not as much. I am sorry but I just don't care.
7. People who are constantly never available unless I 'put something in the calendar'...It will take me longer to do that than for you to answer my question......
8. The barely shaving computer whizz kid....Not their fault but just demoralising as they basically laugh at everything you have done for 20 years and say 'I will design an App for that'.....I was proud of my colour coded spreadsheets.
9. Some young women's office attire. I wouldn't let my daughter go to a nightclub in what someone in the office is wearing today....
10. Diversity. One great thing about working in large companies is diversity and I love meeting people from different backgrounds. What I don't love is every company feeling like they have to tell us how great they are with pictures around the place because they hired some blind, gender neutral, bisexual, Asian person. You don't go on about hiring the bald fat white hetrosexual male do you?? Just hire the best people. Then you will have a naturally diverse organisation. Otherwise you just make it sound like you hired people to make yourself look good.

Anyway, like I said. Just cranky!
 
11. Don't put a carpet down in the canteen and then send out snotty emails when inevitably food and beverages are split on it.
 
Fire drills. I think I know where the exit and stairs are at this stage as I use them every morning, lunchtime & evening.
 
Sunny ... reminds me exactly of my working days.

Firefly ... a fire drill is about making sure everyone understands the need to get up and head for the exit immediately, not merely knowing where they are. I regularly saw people refusing to leave their seats because they knew it was a drill. Fortunately (for them) I was senior enough to tell them the next time they pulled that stunt they would be not only leaving their seats but clearing their desks.
 
7. People who are constantly never available unless I 'put something in the calendar'...It will take me longer to do that than for you to answer my question......
Hah, see the flip side to that is
12. People who constantly expect you to stop what you're doing "just for a minute" and end up taking 30 minutes of your time, just because they can't be bothered scheduling it in at a time that suits both people! :mad:

Also
13. People who plagiarise and try and pass it off as their own work

... not that I'm doubting your list is truly original or anything Sunny! :p
 
Hah, see the flip side to that is
12. People who constantly expect you to stop what you're doing "just for a minute" and end up taking 30 minutes of your time, just because they can't be bothered scheduling it in at a time that suits both people! :mad:

Also
13. People who plagiarise and try and pass it off as their own work

... not that I'm doubting your list is truly original or anything Sunny! :p

Indeed. Fair point.

Also people who set up meetings expecting you to attend but don't actually give an agenda or what it is about. I then get to meeting and you expect me to have all the information to answer your questions!

People who forward on long e-mail chains saying 'Just looping in X' here......You expect me to read to the entire e-mail chain and then do something with it because you are just trying to get it off your desk....

People who put in writing every single conversation about every single thing we might have discussed on the phone. All for ass covering but there is a limit....Don't worry, if it goes wrong I will accept responsibility and not try to shaft you. You on the other hand would shaft me in a second....
 
People who put in writing every single conversation about every single thing we might have discussed on the phone. All for ass covering but there is a limit....Don't worry, if it goes wrong I will accept responsibility and not try to shaft you. You on the other hand would shaft me in a second....
That really annoys me.
 
people who sit in the exact same seat in the canteen every day - and feel they own that space
 
People who set up meetings with you without doing a busy search in your calender
 
Over my entire working life the main thing that bugged me was the Office Martyr who took on every job from management, failed to complete any one of them and couldn't openly trust work colleagues with far more business acumen than her. She arrived in work every morning and after moaning that she had to walk all f 20 metres from her car, pontificated to everybody else what she had to do and wondered if the earth would cease to rotate on its axis if the jobs were not done by her. Then she'd toddle off to the hung-over Line Manager to repeat the tasks ahead.

Of course, when work schedule would catch up with her, which invariably it did by 9.30am, she'd scream for assistance from the non martyrs and later she would take the credit for what they did for her.

I remember the day she retired; she worked like a horse and did everything she could to be heard and predicted the office would be all the poorer the following day. She was replaced by a 20 year old girl who mopped up everything silently and left the Office Martyr looking like the greatest incompetent crank that ever lived.
 
A new one for today.... Companies that don't give credit cards but expect you to travel...I might not want a large limit on my card to cover flights and hotels..If I do, I might want to use that limit for my own holidays or purchases. Then it takes the company weeks to pay you back after you spend hours putting together an itemised spread sheet with receipts, signed off 10 managing directors, the Pope and the head of the UN. After all that, they come back questioning if you really needed two croissants for breakfast and they won't be able to process the rest of the €3500 receipts until they investigate if two croissants in an airport at 6am is covered.

This whole concept of 'bring your own device' rather than issuing company phones....Do you really think I am going to allow you put software on my personal phone that will allow me to check my work mails. No. No. No. Anyone that agrees to this is insane and yet many people do.

Having to reset passwords for multiple systems at different times every month...The poor help desk girl is my best friend now..Talk to her more than my wife.
 
Sunny ... reminds me exactly of my working days.

Firefly ... a fire drill is about making sure everyone understands the need to get up and head for the exit immediately, not merely knowing where they are. I regularly saw people refusing to leave their seats because they knew it was a drill. Fortunately (for them) I was senior enough to tell them the next time they pulled that stunt they would be not only leaving their seats but clearing their desks.
A proper fire drill Should have all the names of the people actually in the building including people on the visitors book at the fire point and there should be a proper roll count taken,

I know someone will reply saying what if open to the public , A proper fire drill setup include record/roll of who is in the building and having a recording all employees employers and a proper up to date sign in and sign out book at all times when completing a proper fire drill,
 
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All my colleagues off to play with little white balls on a Friday afternoon leaving me to hold fort (I never learnt golf ):(

:). That was me too until I copped on! I bought the cheapest set of clubs I could find and have now hacked my way around some of Ireland's finest courses. Just don't expect me to spend my own time playing the stupid game. Having to listen to people talk about their new €500 driver thinking it will turn them into Tiger Woods while sending the ball in every direction except straight and then blaming the said new driver....Painful

There is a whole list of pet hates around office golf!!
 
All my colleagues off to play with little white balls on a Friday afternoon leaving me to hold fort (I never learnt golf ):(
I have seen a fire drill highlight people who on paper were still in the building after the fire point roll call trigger a mock search and rescue operation tracked down off playing with the white balls,
 
A proper fire drill Should have all the names of the people actually in the building including people on the visitors book at the fire point and there should be a proper roll count taken,

That approach hasn't been best practice in a long time. It is impossible keep an accurate record of who is in a busy office at all times so the only thing it adds is the risk of someone re-entering the building to search for those they think are missing. Even the length of time it would take for a large office would render such a roll call as worthless.
 
People using office internet time on forums like Askaboutmoney cracking on about how good they do there job ,Complaining about how other people work and not able to do there own job,:)

People who retire but still talk about how fire drills were done back in the day and how things are not being done properly anymore since their generation went....:)
 
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