Wow, I didn’t realize how quickly someone’s behavior in the office could become so annoying. It’s an especially big problem in companies where square footage is at a premium and people are forced into close proximity with each other, either by doubling or even tripling in offices or cubicles. Clearly this is something to which a lot of people haven’t yet adapted, and annoying office behavior is the result. Here’s a bunch of annoying behaviors – are you guilty of any of them?
- Using headphones while your computer speakers are still on, and your computer is dinging constantly with IMs and other alerts that you can’t even hear, but everyone within 20 feet does.
- Having one of those uber-laptops that produces so much heat it needs a fan that sounds like a noisy ventilation duct, whose speed varies so the pitch of its whine is constantly changing – and slowly sinking your surrounding coworkers into the dark pit of insanity. Of course, you’re such an ubergeek that you have two other computers sitting on your desk and aren’t even using your noisy laptop – it’s just sitting there as eye candy to show off to the lesser ubergeeks.
- Chewing gum with your mouth open, loudly snapping and cracking away at it.
- Muttering everything you read on your screen under your breath.
- Giving your coworkers a running commentary of everything you’re doing with your day.
- Eating excessively noisy or overpoweringly stinky food at your desk, or making quiet food unnecessarily noisy (like crunching ice cubes). Some foods fall into the “High Risk” category and should be used with extreme caution, like cabbage, radishes, garlic, and of course beans.
- Launching into a lengthy diatribe, technical or otherwise, at the slightest mention of anything on which you have an opinion.
- Attaching every crappy fingerpaint, mucilage, macaroni or other creation of your child’s to any available real estate in your vicinity.
- Clicking your ballpoint pen.
- Nervously bouncing your legs up and down.
- Sneezing so loudly that an entire hallway of people is startled out of their chairs.
- CELLPHONES! I could write a whole post on office cellphone etiquette, but the most annoying of all are talking loudly on them in the hallway, not setting them to vibrate mode while you’re in the office, or leaving them on your desk with the ringer on full blast while you’re in a meeting – just don’t!