Recently, 6,225 Australian employees were questioned about the habits they find most annoying with their workmates.
The results are in, and now ladies and gentlemen, in order of annoyance, I present to you the top 10 workplace annoyances.
1. Eating hot food in the office
For the record, no one is stopping you from enjoying your tasty curries and fish dishes; just don’t impose your culinary pleasures into everyone else’s nostrils. Plus, I don’t want to go home with a shirt that reeks of garlic when I didn’t even have garlic for lunch!
2. Poor personal hygiene
Do you leave the toilet without washing your hands? Do you clip your toenails or, pick your nose at your desk? If yes, then let it be known that we are never shaking hands again. I don’t care if you win employee-of-the-month or a Pulitzer, it won’t happen.
3. Taking shoes off at your desk
It’s 2p.m. in the afternoon and your feet feel slightly sore, so you decide to kick your shoes off. What about that smell wafting from your sweaty toes and soles? And, even if by some miracle, they are perfectly odourless, don’t you think the workplace deserves a little more respect?
4. Bringing crying babies to the office
Someone brought their cute cuddly baby to the office? Aww… how adorable! However, it’s all fun and games until it starts crying incessantly at the top of its voice… right next to your cubicle… now you can’t concentrate on that report open in MS Word… and the submission deadline is close.
5. Taking personal items without permission
Having placed it there just a few minutes ago, you absentmindedly reach into your drawer for your stapler… nothing! In a frenzy of both anger and panic, you find that a colleague “borrowed” it. Look, just because I lent it you once before doesn’t mean you now enjoy joint custody. Always ask!
6. Leaving the kitchen facilities in a mess
Be it a simple coffee machine, every office has some kind of refectory where employees collectively access nourishment. The keyword here is ‘collectively’. So, why not leave the place as tidy as you would like to find it? You can always be as messy as you wish back at your apartment.
7. Idle office gossip
This is actually more dangerous to employees’ efficiency than most people realise. Office gossip is the beginning of all workplace intrigue and all the shenanigans that come with it. How can we get any work done if we spend all day catching up on who said what about whom and, who did what?
8. Unnecessary emails
Fine, that YouTube video of the somersaulting cow was funny as hell, but look here mate, we came to get some work done here. The last thing I need is to miss an important client’s email because my inbox is stuffed with all these funny videos you keep sending.
9. Laziness
There is nothing as frustrating as that co-worker who makes it a personal goal and purpose in life to skive off and dodge as much work as much as is humanly possible. No one enjoys working overtime, so it is even worse when you have to work someone else’s overtime.
10. Vulgar language
Believe you me, the infamous four letter words only sound cool in the movies (especially when it is Samuel L Jackson, Snakes On A Plane anyone?) The moment you import them into the workplace, it becomes downright rude and uncivilised.
There you have it. Ten simple steps to be the most annoying person in the office.
The survey in question was undertaken by Employsure, a Sydney based employment law consultancy. A total of 6,225 businesses, of all sizes, took part in the survey between 22-26 July, 2013.
