To ask about your biggest office pet peeves?

[SharronNeedles]

For anyone lucky enough to work in an open plan office or even just share an office with other people, what drives you mad?

My boss has to be one of the most annoying people to share an office with. She is always eating crap, slurping pop, burping and sniffing (you know, the wet sounding kind of sniffs when you have a runny nose) and has recently started wiping her nose on her hands. Literally makes me Bork!!

Anyone else?

Crisps! Love my colleagues, great fun to work with, want to punch then very hard when the crisps come out. Obviously when I eat crisps I’m fine.

Yup, another vote for sniffers and noisy eaters........

The colleague who goes 'aaaaahhhhhhh' every single time they have a mouthful of a drink.

The colleague who doesn't stop talking from the minute they get in until the minute they go home. Even when people are just giving 'hmmm' answers or saying 'I'm sorry I'm really busy, I need to finish this'.

Finding out that someone has used my desk on Friday - when I'm not in the office - and leaves their manky coffee cups for me to find on Monday morning.

@iklboo - I'm with you on this - constant irrelevant conversations about something I couldn't give two hoots about, only usually when I'm up to my eyes in it! I've been polite, I've been snappy, I've apologised - none of it works to get them to shhhhhhhhhhh!!! Hence I've given up on the open plan office unless I have to go in for meetings, I work at home in the peace and quiet and then do all my visits in blocks. Unsociable baggage, me.... !!!

My colleague speaks to herself and whistles I could swing for her sometimes!!

My work colleague eats the most, foul stinky smelling food every day for lunch. She brings in the remains of her dinner and heats it up in the microwave.
She swears constantly (in 2 languages) and burps and sneezes continuously.
It really puts me off eating my lunch completely. I have to go out every day for a break to save my sanity.

Do I win?!? :)

And breathe........

Air con rage.
People who don't clean up after themselves in the kitchen.
People who put passive aggressive signs everywhere.
People who complain loudly about how busy they are instead of just getting on with their work.
People who speak really loudly on the phone in open plan.
My new manager who micro manages me.

The pen clickers. The slurpy coffee drinkers. The secret sweet eaters who don't share. The oversharers. The procrastinators. The malicious gossipers.

Apart from them, I love my job.

My desk is the first as you come in the door and seems to be the first port of call for anybody needing a biro or post it note. Robdogs!

My colleague (who sits 3 feet away from me) picks his teeth with floss. Every. Time. He. Eats.Or. Drinks. something. Every time. Every single time.

Ping, ping, ping.

Yuk yuk yuk

Makes my blood boil

In my old job, there were a few senior colleagues who would run from desk to meeting room / lift. They were very busy and important you see. The running made that clear to everybody.

Plus the people who would stand immediately behind my chair having a VERY IMPORTANT STRATEGIC DISCUSSION with Important Colleague. Then get peeved when I wanted to move my chair back to stand up.

The lady I share a small office with wears really strong perfume and sprays herself with more, at her desk, several times a day. She’s also a feeder and is constantly trying to get me to eat chocolate, cake etc while going on about her Weight Watchers diet so refusing to eat any herself. I always refuse, doubtless she thinks I’m a very ungrateful colleague!

The eternal petty emails:
Whoever used the kettle last didn’t fill it up.’
‘So and so never goes for milk’
‘We need a rota for answering the door’ (which tops is twice a day)
And my all time favourite when the cigarette bin directly next to the door was on fire ‘can whoever last had a cigarette last go and put the fire out’ 🔥🔥🔥

I retire today (yahoo!!!) but in the position I am just leaving I had my own office. I wasn’t precious about other people using it though. Apart from when, in the depths of winter, if I had a day off and would come in to find it freezing cold where in my absence, someone feeling too hot had turned my radiator off. Fine to turn it off, just turn the fucking thing on again when you leave.

The ones who bring in cereal in the morning and crunch and slurp away at their desk like they are at home. Makes me feel sick 🤢
The petty arguments over one department pinching the milk from another. Ffs.

It really irritates me when people take their shoes off to sit at their desks, like they’re at home. Even worse if they don’t have socks on!

Cleaning ears with a paper clip.

Leaving lots of personal on what should be a hotdesk.

Noisy, slurpy eaters.

Someone that drinks about 20 cups of tea a day. They are either making a drink or on the loo. It's really good to take regular breaks but this amount takes the piss. They always need to be caught up.

I had a colleague who would pick and her scalp and eat it.

At her scalp

People dumping stuff on desk, excess printouts, magazines, broken mice, dirty lunch boxes/water bottles. Everyone seems to think it's my job to sort out this stuff. People who leave fans going and I have mystery breezes floating over me. It's a massive office and it can be a pain trying to find the offending fan.

Loudly crunching nuts.
Talking constantly when I'm blatantly trying to concentrate, and then huffing and puffing if I make an error

Bloody singing. In our office about a year ago we were given permission to listen to music with 1 earphone (so we had 1 ear free).. worst privilege ever. People sing outloud with their tone deaf voices all day.

Also..fish. i eat fish at home.. but microwaved fish in an office is vile.

Endless repetitive sniffing and coughing noises in the office drive me insane. I know people can't help having a cold or a cough, but there's a lady in particular who sniffs incessantly all. year. round for no apparent reason. Maybe the poor girl has allergies or something but sometimes I feel like asking her to blow her darn nose!!

The person who opens the window up wide so we're all sitting in a freezing draught and then gets up and goes and sits down at the other end of the office.

Also, kitchen and bathroom tidiness - I wish people would leave these places as they'd want to find them. I.e. please don't leave your spilled tea all over the kitchen counter for someone else to mop up, please flush the bloody loo once you've used it, and please take the two seconds required to refill the paper towel dispenser if you take the last one! Argh!

Aggressive apple eating twat who sits 3 ft from.
Same twat talks to himself all day commentating on what he’s doing thank feck he only works half days.
Gossiping receptionist who will nab you as soon as you walk passed and won’t let you go until her phone rings
The farm yard animal who stinks up the one female loo and not clean the mess left behind🤢