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.

No decent coffee
Lunches at a desk when rainy outside
Politics
Farters
Burpers
Rude managers
Sexism
Racism
Favouritism

Noisy babies and toddlers when I'm trying to work. (Mumsnet probably isn't the best forum to complain about this!)

Also, the AC that was only installed this year and offers freezing cold or baking hot. Ffs.

Reading these, I have never been so thankful for my work! Often my boss isnt in so I am the only one there (own offices anyway and even when she is in we message rather than talk!)

People that make ‘witty’ remarks in order to let everyone know that want a cup of tea . ‘Is the kettle broken?’ ‘It’s a dry old ship’
‘What letter comes after S?’

Just make your own tea !

The lady who is obsessed with having the nasty, flickering lights on so that everybody else gets a migraine. You could be working there perfectly happily, she marches in, slaps the switch without asking if it was off for a reason (yes, Margaret, it's off because wearing sunglasses or arc welding masks in the office is frowned upon, strangely enough) and everyone recoils like vampires at sunrise, stays for two and a half minutes and she then walks out again, leaving the fucking lights on. Repeat throughout the fucking day.

And the person who instigates the 'no eating at your desk' rule. Whilst eating her own lunch at her own desk.

Or the 'Well, we've never had anybody who wanted to take a lunchbreak before.' That's because we used to be able to eat at our fucking desks, Sharon. It's a legal requirement, by the way. I'm prepared to wait until the 6th hour to take it as a way of showing willing, but I am fucking taking it. Every last second. Yes, my contract does say, as is legally required, that I am entitled to a break of x minutes. It's not a fucking serving suggestion for a period of time in which I am going unpaid. It's The Law.

Or 'staff are not permitted to leave the site during the day for any reason without express authorisation from the Director'. Excuse me? I'm confined to barracks during my lunch break? No, I will sign out and back in to the building and vary my hiding place on a daily basis so I'm not hunted down after ten minutes for something incredibly urgent that is needed right now for a week next Tuesday.

And finally (until I think of something else) 'We prefer you to stand for the duration of your compulsory overtime. It looks better that way'. Excuse me? It's more aesthetically pleasing to a non specific entity to have somebody with a Protected Characteristic (Disability) stand and lean over a table for 4 hours on top of their normal working day (in heeled shoes, naturally) than it is for them to sit at the table like a normal human being and be capable of walking to the bus stop?

Space invaders at the printer.

Fuck off lady who I do not know, you're closer to me than my own partner is, wait further back, it's just damn weird!

Going into a meeting with someone who takes phone calls. No, you aren't that important, but you are rude.

People who say ‘cascade.’

Slide deck is actually the original, really old phrase for a presentation aid from when you actually had to put (slide) physical slides into an overhead projector, i.e pre-dates Microsoft PowerPoint, for all you youngsters!

Not sure why it been resurrected of late.

Because anybody hearing 'PowerPoint' will cringe and moan at the prospect of sitting there whilst somebody tries to use the fancy pointer, it doesn't work properly, the screen sharing doesn't work, then it does but the pointer isn't recognised, they have to try to work out how to advance and rewind the slides 'Oh, you don't need to see this bit yet' (five minutes later) it's gone to the main display and not the presentation (staff who actually know how to use the thing are staying resolutely mute) and then they read the bullet points on the slides (complete with wordart effects) in a monotone whilst not actually explaining anything.. when you've been there for 40 minutes and have lost the will to live along with all sensation in your arse cheeks, they hand you a scrappy photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of the slideshow where everything is too small to be readable and 'the presentation will be available on the staff shared area tomorrow'.

Saying Slide Deck gives a temporary respite where you can at least try to picture them doing the Cha-Cha Slide to the podium and sliding straight past it and out of the window.

I'm still in a new job honeymoon period so everything is rosy right now but my last job could have filled a thread!

In 35 years of office work I've never worked with an Yvonne but I've been tortured by many power crazed office managers. The jury's still out on the latest one.

Just be glad they dont try and make you use Google Slides which is shitter.

The marketing team. They sit behind me, and arrive at work at half hour intervals (8am, 8:30, 9am, 9:30...) . Each arrival is greeted loudly by the rest of the team and is followed by 15 minutes of discussion of last night's traffic (always bad)/dinner (one of them has always been at a work dinner)/emails (there are always after-hours changes to a press release). Every drama story is punctuated by peals of laughter as well.

People eating cereal at their desks.

Denise. Always has too much time to tell you how much work she has on. Denise has at least learnt not to waste her breath on me, but I still have to listen to her telling everyone else. Individually.

Everything and everyone. I can't wait to retire.

People who think they are so vital to the running of the organisation that they have to come to work sick and give it to everyone else. Recently overheard one guy telling people he’d been puking all night after catching a bug from his kids but had come in anyway for some meeting or other. He sits next to someone with diabetes who could end up in hospital with a virus like that. GO HOME YOU MASSIVE TWAT.

Woman at the desk next to mine has a “ding” every time she gets an email. EVERY TIME.

FUCKING open plan. Whose bright idea was that?

The woman that randomly switches the kettle off at the wall. So I switch the kettle on and wait for it to boil then after a few mins realise it's not even on. I should be used to it by now but it irrationally drives me crazy!!

Middle management.
Everything about them.

Where to fucking start?

1. The chronic "I don't give a shit" attitude of the manager which has filtered so far through the ranks that if you are alone and need someone, the first place you need to look is the break room and you'll find people just sat there watching daytime TV doing fuck all knowing that the boss won't say shit, because she's probably already left for the day, gone to a one hour meeting and not come back

1. The fact that most clients don't even know how badly underserved they are because of an instinctive excuse first, pass the buck, someone's else's fault, someone else's responsibility, culture

1. As soon as the manager took over hiring she hired 3 previous colleagues of hers who though they had experience in the role immediately became the weakest players in the team.

1 Abrasive, my way or the highway type who is off permanently on sick

1 who's memory is so poor, as is her level of basic comprehension that if she were my relative I'd tell her she needed to see a GP. Frequently more of a hindrance than a help

And lastly my favourite, who masquerades as an "I'd do anything for anyone me" type but is actually a nasty, spiteful bully and always goes for the jugular in what she picks to critique. Like if she knows you're sensitive about it, guaranteed PA jibes

Then two really good people left, they implied in leaving they liked the job, but not the company.

And then she employed Grim Jim

One of those men who makes you feel physically and instantly ill at ease. Intrusive and Judgemental; assumes you couldn't possibly be intelligent enough to realise he is mocking/judging you, or intelligent enough to have already thought of x or y before he suggested it. An absolute bellend, I cannot bear him.

Leaving in the New Year. Can't wait.

she’s a little bit psychic and sees things that upset her"

God that could so easily be the PA bully in ours

"I'm really very spiritual you know"

Yeah Belinda, replace spiritual with cunty in that sentence and we might agree.

Oh and the meeting before the meeting in which the need to discuss another meeting in this meeting will be discussed

Where do I start?! Off the top of my head, people who are not my supervisors but think they are, saying to me “soooo, what were you planning on doing next?” when I’m responding to emails.

Not being allowed to do work I’m overqualified for because it makes some random coworker feel nervous that I know more than a lady doing a lady job should.

Geoff. And also Yvonne, but mostly bloody Geoff who thinks he’s a social justice warrior but is actually a classist, misogynist twat (see previous paragraph).

People who work overtime for free and can’t grasp it gives management the erroneous impression this can be expected.

The boss who let her favourites stage a week-long training session with teenagers literally right next to my desk (& some of this involved painting posters, & some of it involved lying on the floor pretending to be wounded in an earthquake) so I had to step over them and try to answer the phone and help in-person clients while said teenagers yelled in mock-pain and I was of so little consequence that no-one else thought to tell me this was scheduled.

Same evil bitch of a boss who asked me what I thought about moving my desk away from the window and over to a cubbyhole and when I said I didn’t like the idea she did it when I took 2 days off when my mum died.

Anyone who uses the phrase “reaching out0 when they mean “contacted” in an email.

All of it really. I fucking hate working.

Seconding the people who adjust my chair, “tidy” my drawer. It’s my office supplies and notes, why the fuck are you taking liberties with it?

I currently work in a site with two unions and essentially two pay grades. Grade 1 (me and dozens of others) - can barely pay our bills, Grade 2 - paid about 3 times as much, convinced they’re “scraping by”. Grade 2 sends out constant emails asking for donations to various work-related charities, follow up with in-person requests for our non-existent extra cash, then look mightily confused when we say we can’t afford it. Then look disappointed in us, followed by rallying and “I know it’s hard isn’t it? We had to cut our trip to Mexico down to 12 days from 14 and increase the rent on our spare rental property just to get by.” 🤬 Special circle of hell for those people.