What’s given you the work ick?

People who are never out of a new line manager's office trying to be spokesperson for the whole place and trying to get said manager round to their way of thinking.

I got the same ick over colleagues vaping at their desks. My former line manager just pretended he didn’t notice it which made me lose respect for him, he simply didn’t have the nerve to address it.

Reheating cabbage/fish/chicken/spicy food in the company microwave and then sitting in the open plan office and eating it at 10.30 in the morning 🤢, and giggling about it, despite being told fifty odd times that it’s not acceptable for everyone else! 3 hours and 42 minutes precisely and you all know what I will be smelling!

People sitting on MY chair at the coffee table. I managed to scare off most people from daring to do that but one guy does it just to annoy me.

Starting a new job next week and I'll have to start all over again in establishing my place at the coffee table.

SLT finger pointing at others for disastrous mistakes they've made, they never take responsibility for anything. It's always someone else's fault but in public they present a reasonable face. Greedy manager taking all the opportunities for herself and keeping other women deliberately down.

I worked with someone who couldn’t relate to anything unless it was about her. And it was always worse for her. So if the traffic was bad, it was a total nightmare for her and she nearly turned round and went home etc.
an ex colleague very sadly passed away, leaving two teenage kids with no parent since their dad wasn’t interested. Absolutely awful and nothing we could do life assurance wise etc.
The person I was describing still managed to make this situation all about her. Because she had once been ill with similar symptoms.
She had no children and was unsurprisingly single.

Working in a school and staff talk like the kids, one example saying "yes nowwww!" in a chavvy way when they agree with something. Ergh

Managers who use corporate bullshit . In my last ever appraisal meeting my manager went through the entire gamut: -

Outreach activities
The main event
The exigencies of the service
Blue sky thinking
I hear what your saying
We're singing from the same hymn sheet
Its not rocket science
Keep me in the loop
To see the wider picture
It is what it is
You seem to have lost your mojo
Structural changes in the profession

And thats just what I recall offhand. His face was a study when I told him that we would never have this conversation again because I would not be there. Six weeks later I resigned to go to uni. My resignation was an unembellished one sentence letter.

WhatsApp group chats with colleagues. Please just leave me in peace!

Not showing up for meetings

Cancelling last minute

Being late for your own meeting

Never, ever having lunch with their team. Ever.

Actively looking at their watch, sighing, and literally leaving as soon as they have finished eating at the Xmas lunch

I could go on

As soon as someone sends me a Teams message just says ‘Hi Bauhaus’ and no other hint of what what they need me for, I immediately cannot bear them. Also ‘Have you got five minutes?’ without telling me what the five minutes is actually going to be for. If it’s five minutes in which you’re giving me a

My colleague telling me he had sex which is why he was late, and he once said he only ever shits at work. Nice guy but no boundaries.

Literally everyone and everything. I’m 59 in January and will be retiring at 61. There’s not a single day something isn’t giving me the ick. The way they write emails, sending emails at 5.29 on a Friday to demonstrate you work the full week, telling everyone how busy you are all the time, slamming your office door when I’m trying to concentrate, making a point of saying you can’t take all your leave because you are so busy etc etc.

HR encourages management to record a detailed list of sickness symptoms when we call in sick. This prompts visibly sick colleagues who WFH to overshare at the 9am team meeting.

Oh god this gives me trauma flashbacks to my temping days in my late teens/early twenties. Many different offices, and without fail the person who did the honours of showing me around would make a point of telling me it was a madhouse, and that they were ‘all crazy here’. Every. Single. Time. At the time I was bang into raving at the weekend, and my hobby was doing fire tricks whilst on copious amounts of drugs. Compared to the colourful characters I associated with, Dawn from payroll and Steve from purchase ledger were far from crazy, but I’d smile and nod.

I love this post!

Managers who mess up then hand over to you to sort the mess out.

Managers who offload anything difficult on to their team.

Managers who quite simply don’t do the job.

Oh god this gives me trauma flashbacks to my temping days in my late teens/early twenties. Many different offices, and without fail the person who did the honours of showing me around would make a point of telling me it was a madhouse, and that they were ‘all crazy here’. Every. Single. Time. At the time I was bang into raving at the weekend, and my hobby was doing fire tricks whilst on copious amounts of drugs. Compared to the colourful characters I associated with, Dawn from payroll and Steve from purchase ledger were far from crazy, but I’d smile and nod.

I started training as a social worker in my thirties, many years after I’d done any kind of office work. On my first shadowing day I was in a SW office and got told to sit at a lady’s desk who was on holiday. All her bits and bobs were there, neatly organised - her hand cream, her special mug, her little framed family photos. In that moment, I got The Fear. Those items gave me the ick and realised in that moment I couldn’t do office work again. I switched courses at the end of the first year, and that was the end of social work for me.

The colleague who sits next to me chews gum constantly - which is bad enough when he does it with his mouth open - but every minute or so he tries to blow bubbles so you just hear chew chew chew, pop, chew chew chew pop, chew chew chew pop... <Screams silently>

Hearing my (not current) boss speak down to junior or lower level staff used to make me cringe. She’d look at me with a smile on her face while I looked on in disgust and got out of there as soon as humanly possible.
I worked my way up to my job and the people who treated me so much nicer when I got higher up also gave me the ick. Respect does not depend on job title in my world.

(Edited for spelling mistake.)

During covid where an idiot I worked with (5G conspiracy theorist) refused to wear a mask, didn't enforce the students wearing masks, was in close contact with the students, caught covid, gave all the children covid.

Got arsy when I refused to go into meetings where he was if he didn't wear a mask or accept an open window for me to sit by.

I worked with a pair of body builders who were lovely guys, but who would eat bloody kippers in the small restroom area. My office was literally in the restroom. I had a door, but the smell would creep in and it made me dry heave. It would linger as well. Horrendous.
I also worked with a guy who I got on really well with, until we started working on the same team. Before we had just chatted in the canteen and at odd points during the day. When we worked more closely, I realised he was a massive sulker. If anything didn't go his way, he would go into a silent sulk with his bottom lip out. Put me right off him.

"Hey hey hey teeeeeeam"

People who steal my desk even tho it’s been reserved by me (hot desk rto issues)

People I don’t know well, who teams chat ‘hi’ and don’t follow up with anything else

Meetings titled ‘quick chat’ - always provokes fear of redundancy

One of my team members who regularly doesn’t turn up for 1:1s, cancels at last minute and then complains I have no time to spend with them. I loathe them.

I’m in a senior position. I moved for a promotion. My manager manages to not turn up to meetings, move things constantly, fail to provide the right information and also care deeply about tiny details that are a preference not significant. But I’m supposed to guess or maybe I’m not and she is trying to gaslight me. I’m really not sure honestly. Regardless, I haven’t been treated so poorly in decades. I’m leaving as soon as works for me and I’m current operating grey rock mode…

I felt the bile rise up in my throat just reading that

I do wish we would get back to being professional. This whole work family business is what leads to standards getting slack and cliques forming.

We've got this lovely young girl in our team. She's nice but very needy and clingy. When she left our team, everyone took it in turns to call her on their lunch break !? I just found it..... Unnecessary and odd. I got asked. "It's your turn to call Jenna this lunch time isn't it ?" I thought "no. I want to eat, scroll on my phone and have some quiet time thanks " (just to add, the young lady wasn't depressed or suicidal or anything, just a little meek and always had problems) I found the expectation for us all to take it in turns to be her personal counsellor weird and intrusive of my time.

But there again, perhaps that's why I haven't got many friends ! 😁