To ask, if you work in an office, what it's like?

[Pusheenicorn]

The reason I ask is, I work in an office and I literally feel like I am surrounded by stoppy, emotional, most, back stabbing, bitchy, overreacting 6 year olds... I enjoy my job and have a fab boss but wondering if it's time to start looking elsewhere or if all offices are the same?!

You say one thing in the canteen that somehow (like Chinese whispers) gets turned into sometgubg conpletely different and end up getting a bollocking. E.g. what was said - "I didn't think CEO woukd like the new girl because she has purple hair but he didn't seem to mind" ... By the time it had reached my boss apparently I had said "CEO said he's going to sack the new girl and he is gobsmacked that anybody thought it was acceptable to hire somebody with purple hair, whoever hired her is getting sacked as well"

Sent out an email the other day saying were FINALLY getting a coffee machine after approx. 1000 requests in the suggestion box- please vote on the link below (once only) whether you would prefer a Tassimo or Nespresso.

Cue everyone manually voting 70 times in the space of 30s seconds, crashing the website, making people who didn't want to vote vote for the one they wanted (this from senior managers!)... sent out another email saying "I can see when you've voted more than once these won't be counted" now literally nobody downstairs is speaking to me and one person has raised a bullying grievance against me because I was purposefully trying to make sure she didn't get the machine she wanted....

Another senior manager (new) through an almighty bitch fit when I handed her her contract to be signed and returned (I'm an HR admin and do all the contracts, offer letters etc) outraged that I knew her salary. My boss told her I have access to the salary database so know everyone's, issue everyone's contracts and she trusts in my confidentiality etc. New senior manager raises a grievance with CEO demanding I no longer have access to this information as it's demeaning that an admin should know "her" salary!!!!

Last one... another senior manager bent all the cutlery and put it in the bin so there is nothing to eat lunch with because somebody left a teaspoon in the sink....

Is your workplace like this or do I just work somewhere actually INSANE. I don't want to leave if it's the same elsewhere.

My office is great. We are all adults capable of churning out the work and having fun at the same time.

It is mutiny though when the crisp cupboard is empty, or the beer fridge runs dry.

Lol I used to work in HR too. Yep we have access to everything about everyone. And we get to see everyone at their childish worst. I never came across anyone bothered about that.
After a while it's not that interesting anyway!
Your workplace sounds like a real hoot. 😉

If any of you are working with, or have worked with an ice maiden J wearing a unicorn necklace, then I feel your pain.

Don't even suggest it is a horse, she goes all monosyllabic on you!

Btw - it really looks like a horse 🤣🤣

I work out of several offices, ranging from just me sometimes to 50 people open plan. Yours sounds mental. It’s not you. Definitely find a better job.

On an average day they are 1000 people in our office, so no, they don’t behave like that it would be carnage!

Mine sounds similar to be honest. They put a camera in the kitchen to catch the people that don't wash tea spoons 😂

@strawberrysparkle HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I could see that happening at my place as well 😂😂

Just myself and my boss in our office.

Our dogs under our desks.

We laugh all day.

Sorry

Oh gosh that sounds tough! Poor you. Do you enjoy the actual job?

My office is lovely, we laugh loads and everyone really pulls together when needed. The sales staff can be wankers but they are separate to us so we don't need to deal with them really, except on a professional level. Sometimes all their testosterone spills over and they have a big argument (and once a fight!) which we all secretly love a bit as we don't have to get involved.

But it's overall such a great place to work and I adore my job.

It does sound truly bonkers.
I think you need a good ratio in an office between toxic and normal enough people otherwise the whole thing goes tits up. Your senior management sound unhinged!

We had a lovely supportive office, doing a stressful job (vulnerable families), so the office was a refuge for our team.
They then assigned a Senior Manager who burst through the door on her very first day, exclaiming 'there's something going on in this office and I'm determined to be the one to sniff it out!', to our stunned faces. I was halfway to pressing an alarm button thinking it was a disgruntled Client before she said her name.
This was in the first 5 minutes of meeting her.
I don't know what she thought was going on but we would walk in in the morning to find her beavering away at all our files and in our drawers hoping to find evidence of some conspiracy. She then brought in two other employees to sit with us day after day in silence to watch us, again 'to find out what was going on'.
In the end, after finding her snooping through staff phones we had to call the CEO in. I still to this day have no idea of what she thought was happening in our relatively quiet office.
Nowt so strange as folk.

Nope ours is the same. It's strange but the majority of bitchy, bullying and backstabbing behaviour seems to come from the older women in our office. (50yrs +).
The nastiness and "grassing" over petty shit is unbelievable. This nastiness also comes from our Union reps who work the same job as us!
I too enjoy my job but the politics get too much. Now I just say what I think and I couldn't care less if anyone has an issue anymore

Noisy, cramped
Bitchy and lots of cliques
Lots of miserable faces
We are supposed to hot desk but the queen bees already chose their spot.
I hate it there.

Where I work, everyone moans about management nearly all the time - it's one of the top three conversation topics - and there's a fair amount of gossip behind people's backs. It does grind me down depending on how I'm feeling.

Hang on with the love fast peopl

OP, making a survey for something like this people can only vote once is a is a really, really basic admin task.

You could have sent round an excel spreadsheet asking people to tick their option. You could have set up. (Free) monkeysurvey a/c which limited his many times people. can vote.

You didn’t. You ran to your manager and got your colleagues in deep shit to cover up your own fuck ups and incompetency.

No wonder nobody else there likes you.

I work with men only and we don't have the bitchiness....the sexist comments on the other hand.
One of the guys does similar with the cutlery, if anyone leaves a bowl/plate in the sink unwashed, he will smash it into the bin. A couple of them are like overgrown kids, throwing tantrums and sulking and refusing to engage.

I still would rather work here than our HQ where I visit once or twice a month. The gossiping and snidey comments are off the scale

50:50 gals-blokes. The quietest or most sullen are gals, the chattiest mother hens are (were) blokes. Open plan, mostly Quiet but bursts of chatty, pleasant, a bit tense b/c several people are leaving or have job insecurity (end of contract). My boss is only in office 4 days/month so we just get on with it in meantime (& moan about how to make decisions without boss). Decentralised, not at all gossipy. I thank the cleaner whenever I see him.

OP needs doodle poll when voting for coffee machines or whatever.

Let me guess
A mainly female office

Oh sorry did rtft!

Your office sounds insane but to be honest if the thing about the purple hair is a real example I’d expect an HR Admin to know better.

The key to a happy working life is to be polite and friendly to everyone, never bitch and never, ever pass on gossip.

10 years in central London finance.
Nothing, not even a whiff of behaviour like this.

Plus the weird incident where I had leggings and a long (almost knee length) blouse on but I had bent right down to try and fix the printer and a female senior manager tried to get me sacked for trying to get a promotion by flashing my knickers hmm

I think we need to take the OP with a pinch of salt.
I point blank do not believe this happened.

Our office is fab. Best job I've ever had.
I too am finding it hard to believe most of what you have written.
You sound utterly unprofessional re the comment about the girl with the purple hair.

My current one is generally lovely though my boss is embarrassingly useless
However have worked in ones where people snoop through others drawers to check their time sheet, had stand up rows over the office radio (someone went off ill over it) and people caught shagging in the filing room (paper files- back in the 90s)
I think the smaller the office the crazier the office drama

Our office has a really good vibe. The team I am in has about 25 people. Most of us have lunch together at a big table every day, unless they're in a meeting. Lots of laughter and banter, but everyone knuckles down when they need to. No culture of working late in the office for show. We are a large company so of course there's some element of politics now and again, but my immediate team are awesome. I left for a few years and then came back, partly because I missed the culture!

Your office doesn’t sound normal, particularly with the amount of grienvances being waved about. The senior manager that doesn’t understand Hr staff have access to personal information is an idiot. Where the hell has she worked before if she didn’t want HR admin staff peocessinf contracts?

Mine is quite chatty which I think annoys others in the open plan but I would die of boredom in an office that was totally silent. I have worked in team that was quite silly and ‘laddy’. That was quite fun but could sometimes go to far and spill into bullying/behaviour that would be unacceptable. There’s always different sub-cultures in any office and dominant characters can set the tone of an organisation.