Has almost everyone at your work become borderline intolerably mad and difficult recently

Nope not really, one person's really struggling with the stress. The workloads mental but its the public sector.

And I wasn’t experiencing a difficult situation actually - just finding everybody that I normally love/like/get on fine with was suddenly unbearable. I decided to explore HRT before exploring divorce and cutting off all my relatives and friends, glad I did.

Ok. Dislike it all you want, it was true for me and for many other people. Hormones do influence mood - for men as well as women.

My old office was full of loons. Then the pandemic happened and it all took a turn for the worse.

We’ve had an absolute recruitment freeze for over a year. Not surprisingly this is starting to REALLY hurt in terms of spreading a bedspread full of increasing numbers of holes over an expanding bed of needs.

I have to say my experience of HMRC, passport office etc this particular year has been spectacularly good, at least once you can speak to them.

Sorry that was meant to be in reply to an earlier post. Starting HRT massively helped reduce the annoyingness of colleagues..

Ditto!

I'm looking at going back into the workplace after a very long time out of it for family

What's going on? Is this typical? Is it different? What kind of places are all these scary stories from?

Does it link up to the personality changes people seem to have had recently? That feeling that everyone slowly going mad.... sorry for all the questions

Yes
I'm a SAHP 😂

Yes
Constantly bickering and moaning about each other, all feeling they are the only one pulling their weight. Complaining about ‘toxic’ team behaviour and failing to acknowledge that they are an equal part of the problem. Lots of banding around the word ‘narcissist’ when referring to other with no insight into their own behaviour. Complete change resistance and paralysis.
Happy to pick up a pay packet at the end of the month but not so willing to actually come to work or even just get on with the job. Meanwhile one or two of us keeping our heads down and picking up the pieces, doing the job of three people while covering long term sick leave, having to deal with the constant personality clashes. HR less than useless at helping us (the rest of us) deal with it all.
They really don’t know how lucky they are to have a stable income, working hours that they pretty much choose themselves, a generous annual leave package and never being required to work overtime. So many people would give their right arm to have their jobs.
I feel better for having that rant!

Everyone is stressed, angry and over-worked, nothing works anymore, public services are a joke.

I'm self employed, so no "colleagues" as such but it's getting more and more difficulty to deal with some clients as they want everything done immediately, despite them taking eons to do what they have to do, they expect me to drop everything to get them out of the hole they've dug, no one has any patience anymore, people seem incapable of doing the simplest of tasks without being constantly reminded and even then they foul it up.

Sadly I have to deal with HMRC, Companies House and a couple of other public sector bodies regularly as part of my job and it's never been harder. Even just getting someone to answer the phone, then either the line is so bad you can't hold a conversation, or they're distracted working from home by door bell ringing, dog barking, child crying, etc. Even if you can have a decent conversation, they usually havn't a clue how to do what I ask, or promise something that simply never happens, and I have to do the whole thing again.

It's a 50:50 chance whether various software/apps works or not - things like trying to prove identity for government bodies is a sodding nightmare as the systems usually don't accept the data entered, saying "something is wrong", but I've checked, double checked, triple checked and the data IS right. But computer says no!

So much wasted time and stress. Not only that, but clients won't pay for the time. They expect everything dirt cheap or free and place no value at all on my time/experience/knowledge.

I've been an accountant for 43 years, and I'm sick of it. It's all never been this bad. I'm retiring next year and can't wait. I may even give it all up early if the opportunity arises. I always planned to continue working part time into retirement for another few years, but sod that.

Paperwork to get funding for care packages has quadrupled. Not even an hours support can be given without going to a funding panel with a team of senior managers and the director, can be waiting 2-3 weeks to get a slot on that panel, just for them to try and delay further. Families at breaking point caring for disabled family members are being left in crisis because of the delays. There has been one serious incident of self-harm that led to hospitalisation and life changing injury because the funding panel disagreed with the social worker and everyone else that they needed 1:1 support (person who has LD and lacks capacity so not someone we can say is accountable for their own actions). New director is clueless and has given unlawful advice. Reduction in direct payment rates for PAs when people already struggle to recruit one. Huge feelings of stress from management, awful atmosphere, you just know they are being put under a lot of pressure.
Performance management tools, they want a log of absolutely every task we do. Paperwork and processes regularly changing so it's hard to keep up with what we should be doing.
We've had them since November, the sad thing is they probably are saving money due to the delays and may look good on paper if they use stats, but it is at a cost to the wellbeing of the most vulnerable people in society and probably to the NHS. I can imagine some long term cost implications too as we're not preventing and delaying needs.

Yep, another public sector worker with colleagues (and myself probably!) who are genuinely losing the plot. I witnessed one colleague hitting himself on the head with a plastic bottle the other day and not on an ironic way…

Guy I'll call Filch - not his name or nickname just coz he mutters to himself like caretaker in Harry potter - is late 30s ish. Since February he's suddenly becoming like an old man. Bangs his keyboard at certain work stations, jams USBs in so hard a couple have broke, hunches over a newspaper in the break room, gives dirty looks if someone makes light-hearted comments and has snarled a couple of times at people.
Nothing HR worthy just ... I dunno ... like a zone of despair around him as one of the engineers put it.

Hope he lightens up.
The red bull can person is also back now:
Ladies or men's toilet - empty red bull can.
Cleaning cupboard - empty red bull can.
The places on the carpark tarmac - empty red bull can, one with four fag butts in hole.
Flower pot in reception area - half full red bull can with flies buzzing round.
🙄
We think it's a game as it's unlikely to be one person, but it's annoying.

My colleagues are fine. We're NHS and we tend to carry each other or we'd collapse.
But the work is insanity. If people just looked after themselves a bit things would calm down but the destruction caused by people drinking and smoking in my particular department is insane.
I dont think most people understand the real damage smoking causes. You can chop them up bit by bit until there is nothing left of their body yet they are still smoking 40 a day.

Same. We’ve also just had a restructure due to numbers and morale has never been lower. Children are barely being taught and the needs of our most vulnerable are unmet. It’s an absolute bin fire at the moment.

Wouldn’t mind working at The Pitt - Dr Robinovitch is my husband x

Completely crackers. The top brass have been turning on each other like cobras while the rest of us sit in the bleachers and wonder which onlooker is going to be next to be sprayed with poison and carried screaming from the building.

Are you working in The Pitt? 😂

It’s ok at ours although money is tight whereas they are used to it having more so some of the enjoyment has gone. I’ve only been there 6 months and am used to tightening my belt so not fussed.

The people are lovely though and management are great.

When absolutely everybody that I knew became unbearably annoying over a period of about three months I realised it was time to start HRT……they seem to have improved a lot since then.

Yes, but we're currently going through a (horribly badly managed) 'rightsizing' to make 20% of us redundant, so it's not that surprising that people aren't at their best.

Ditto