Office life- What is your pet hate?

[SuperMeerkat]

Mine has got to be meetings where nothing ever actually gets resolved. Too much time is spent letting everyone have their say and ideas are considered that we then need another meeting to decide on what to do 😡😡 If anyone actually dares to be decisive then everyone looks at them like they’ve just kicked a puppy.

[EleanorReally]

i put all the dirty cups in the cupboard i was so incensed. there were about 10 of them!
i dont know what happened but they never left dirty cups in the sink again.

[MitziK]

I put all the dirty washing up from a week into the bins. Potwash or Maidservant to Fully Grown Adults wasn't in my job description, but people assumed that I'd give in and do their washing up if they stacked it up in the sink (or if they left it to fester and mould wherever they ate/drank). I ignored it building up until Friday evening, by which time you couldn't use the tap or see the countertop, then I took it out (three crates full) to the bin area and tipped the lot in, hiding my mug, a bowl and a single spoon in my desk.

Nobody could have tea, coffee, milk or reheat food and eat it off a plate unless they brought in their own mugs, cutlery or crockery from the following Monday morning.


They all went ballistic and complained to my boss - who, for all his many faults, told them it served them right.

Piss taking arseholes. They weren't in Halls of Residence anymore.

[ToDoListAddict]

Colleagues that tag your Skype and monitor the second you or anyone else in the team logs on/off
Every time I WFH, the second I log on, they Skype me about something totally not urgent or necessary. Basically to check I am in fact, working

[Thistly]

Women going out to work, bloody menace. We have two jobs: the time invested in personal disputes, and the actual work. Exhausting and wasteful.
Was your tongue in your cheek when you wrote this????

Just putting it out there; i work in a female dominated environment and there is no bitching or backstabbing. My colleagues are helpful and supportive. The only thing that makes it hard is when the next round of cuts are announced and everybody wonders who it is this time going to lose their job.

[BlindAssassin1]

'Yvonne' with her Fray Bentos pie eating, and one thousand cutesty Disney teddy bears around her desk, which meant her desk was gross with crumbs and filth and no space to do actual work when you had to hot desk.

There seems to be a rule of thumb that those office Disney lovers who pretend they are the cutesy wootsey pink fluffy princess wanabees are actually the most insufferable bitches.

[TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain]

Passive-aggressive maintenance staff. We have one who goes through long phases of using my workroom as a shortcut through our (small) building, despite there being a sign on the door pre-dating my working there prohibiting this. He usually "sings" or whistles as he does it and will occasionally rap on my desk with his knuckles as he passes. If I ask him not to do it, he refuses to deal with maintenance issues when I'm there.

Even worse was the outside contractor who refused to use the bay doors at the rear for access. He propped the front door open when that isn't allowed for good reasons and when he was asked not to do that, insisted on going in and out of the building as much as possible and demanding to be buzzed into the front door. I swear the first guy put him up to it.

[amazingtracy]

I have snobby Mary!!! She claims to be the auditing department- she's the person who adds up the hours! One person a department does not make!!!
She doesn't have a bookshelf at home....... it's a library darling!!!

[Orangesox]

I see your Yvonne, and I raise you... JOSEPHINE

Possibly the most annoying woman I have ever encountered. Obsequious, self serving, hateful monster. Will check exactly what time you’ve clocked in and out despite it not being her business. Will check online traffic to verify whether you have in-fact been in traffic, when it is also, none of her business!

Believes in equality for all as long as she’s more equal than others but genuinely believes she’s hard done by. Spoilt, bratty behaviour that knows no bounds to the point of making her ever so slight juniors cry and feel like human trash. And the piece de resistance... genuinely believes that she is managing our shared services department despite being told multiple times that she is not managing the department. We’re less than a week into her non resistant reign of terror and I’ve had to politely remind her no less than 10 times today that she does not manage me, hasn’t got a clue what my role actually is, and doesn’t have the necessary qualifications to do my role, and therefore needs to keep her fucking beak out

[EllaEllaE]

Trying to book meetings with people who refuse to use their company calendars.

The guy who sends out weekend traffic update emails every Friday.

My boss, who has no boundaries and will drop increasingly unsubtle hints to try and get me to ask her about her latest romantic drama.

But then again... I MICROWAVED FISH FOR LUNCH TODAY AND I DON'T CARE! HAH!

[Chottie]

@TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain

I hear you. We had a maintenance man exactly like that too. Mercifully in the last but one restructure he retired.....

[Groundfloor]

The guys that drink protein shakes but have absolutely no muscle tone to support. Tip - go to the gym, actually lift something very heavy, do this lots and lots, then worry about how many grams of protein to consume.

Phones on silent, but that are still on vibrate so everyone can hear it. Turn it OFF.

Presentations written on a massive apple mac desktop, 6" in front of the author with lots of tiny text, that when presented on the small TV screen at the far end of the meeting room cannot be read by anyone. Audience and environment awareness - acquire some. Please.

Women with no circulation who are perpetually freezing and insist on having the office at 26 degrees whilst everyone else has see-through clothes through sweating. Put a bloody jumper on or some thermals.

Mobiles with sampled music as a ring tone and left on far too loud, that they leave to ring a good few seconds longer than necessary just to make sure everyone can hear the full first verse of Dancing Queen before answering.

Text alerts that say "Warning, it's the wife!". That wasn't funny the first time, many years ago.

Sorry smokers, but coming in from your fag break absolutely reeking of fags and making the office stink to the point it actually catches on the back of other's throats. Oh, and then hanging your fag reeking coat on top of the coat of a non-smoker so that their coat stinks to high heaven. You stink. You really, really stink.

Eating a packet of crisps then deciding to type something on my keyboard leaving all the keys glistening with grease. You're a pig.

Adjusting my chair. Stop it.

Arriving at 8.59am, chatting to a few people on the way to the coat hooks, quick chat at the coat hooks, nip to the loo, back to the kitchen, quick chat, make a brew, another quick chat, wander to your desk, stopping to chat with half a dozen people on the way, sit at your desk, phone your sister, have a quick chat, nip to the loo again, back to your desk, have another quick chat, then at 9.43am start work. Then go for a break at 10am. I've got a written log of this over a 2 week period and the next time you make a catty remark about my clothes, it's getting submitted to HR.

[CupanTaeiSiochain]

People who ask for my guidance and then say hmmmm and then just ask somebody else as well, in front of me.

[Goodnightseamer]

Dogs in offices. If I wanted to work in a fucking vet's I would have done. Your dog stinks and is rubbish. All dogs stink and are rubbish. Fuck off.

People who open windows. If I wanted to work in a fucking field I would have done. All that opening a window does is cause other people to waste mental energy on considering when it's acceptable to close it again. Fuck off.

People who eat fish. If I wanted to work in fucking bird's eye I would have done. Fuck off.

[TheSmallClangerWhistlesAgain]

Protein shake drinkers produce the most horrific farts as well.

[TheHumansAreDefinitelyDead]

Hell is other people

[BigSandyBalls2015]

The fact that heat trumps cold ... always. So the radiator is on full blast, even though it’s 12 degrees outside, not even proper winter, and if I dare open a window a tiny crack everyone reacts in horror.

I’m sitting there, menopausal, red and flaky. Whereas they could layer up.

[BigSandyBalls2015]

And a colleague that constantly and I mean constantly talks about her children, or else she’s on the phone to them. Her poor mother does her childcare and how she hasn’t told her to fuck off and look for a childminder I’ll never know.

3.25 EVERY day ... “mum hi mum, are they home, dont you dare give them any sweets until they’ve had a good dinner and xxx isn’t allowed out until she’s done all her homework. Did you hear me, and no pudding ... can you put them on the phone NOW”

“Yes darling I know you’re 14 and could walk home but it isn’t a safe world ... and if you want to go the park you must let grandad go with you”

[pigglypug]

Oh yes @hopeishere - can't stand 'slide decks'!

Also "talking to" my slides.

And people who complain about how busy they are then spend the whole day chatting/on ASOS/smoking

[wineisnecessary]

God yeah colleagues who like to make personal phone calls in the office . I worked with one woman who would ring her dh everyday in the office and it was a small office so I heard every word and it was boring things like what post have I got , can you open it ok I'll deal with it later etc . Her dh would ring and if she wasn't at her desk somewhere else like on the toilet making a cup of tea he would demand to know where she was and be really arsey with whoever answered but he never rang for anything important. The boss was also in the same office but said nothing it used to piss me off . I'd at least take a personal call out of the office but she'd turn her mobile off so he'd ring on work phone .

[ManorMouse]

Believes in equality for all as long as she’s more equal than others but genuinely believes she’s hard done by.

We have a Josephine as well. Not really hated these days though as, in the space of 18 months, her once great empire has shrunk from two floors of an office block to a solitary row of desks staffed by herself and her remaining cronies. There's lots of amusement to be had as new management, new working practices and hiring seasoned staff from within rather than fresh-faced newbies has left her floundering.

Her steadfast refusal to learn anything new for the past 2-3 years has left her out on a very shaky limb at present as she can't use her now outdated knowledge as leverage in a "You do me a favour and I'll tell you what you want to know." manner like she used to. Plus, as we've gone paperless since the start of the year, every document and task has an electronic trace. No longer can Josephine and her cronies pick all the easy jobs for themselves or disrupt other people's work by 'hiding' stuff like they used to.

We're currently experience lots of reminiscing of "The Good Old Days" with hints of a "You'll all be wishing they'd come back again so you will" manner as she confuses what she wants with what the rest of us want.

[MrsPinkCock]

People who treat my desk like a fucking hot desk on my days off.

Same people who take my fucking chair because the actual hot desk chair is broken.

People who nick my stationary.

Endless fucking birthday and leaving do collections.

People leaving their shit all over the kitchen.

Wanky whole-office emails about mundane shit that nobody cares about.

Offices give me the rage

[Aposterhasnoname]

Colleague who sits opposite me. I’ve named him Sergei cos he’s like a fucking meercat with his head popping up every time someone speaks to me, or my phone rings. “What’s that about” “ who was that” “What did they want”

FUCK OFF AND MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS! If he spent half the time doing his own job that he spends sticking his beak into mine then the place would run like clockwork and I wouldn’t have to pick up all his slack.

I feel better for that!

[nearlynermal]

Super-perky, folksy boss who's in denial about how overworked her whole department is and says 'I hope you're going home soon' as she leaves the office.

[hellswelshy]

People who sigh constantly and swear under their breath.
People who tell us every day how much they hate the job - just leave then!!!!!
People who sign off emails 'happy to discuss' (they're not) or who start the email 'gentle reminder' (here comes something passive aggressive that probably should have been directed at a couple of people in the office, not the whole office like we are school kids!)
The constant asking for money...birthdays, retirements, flowers for ill co workers, sponsorship forms, sweep stakes etc etc
Cooking smelly food in the microwave.
Leaving mugs to 'soak' by the side of the sink - just wash it!!!
People who constantly talk about the leave they have booked, all day. Then in between looking at the leave charts to figure out what leave the MIGHT book. This particular person works so little it drives me insane.

And breathe