Let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-workers

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ugh this coworker of mine eats yogurt all the time, and the spoon hits his teeth every once in a while and it's like CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACKITY CLACK CLACK.

you guys all seem to want to work in an office of people starving to death (except Neanderthal who has a legit beef).

you're at a place where you spend at least 1/3 of your day there - people are going to eat. sometimes at their desk. get an ipod of ear plugs or something!

(except the popcorn 18 times a day, that would drive me crazy too)

Uh, actually most offices have, or should have, a completely dedicated room for eating! My point is that I shouldn't have to listen to your disgusting eating noises when I'm in the middle of a conference call that may already be hard to hear! If your office provides you with a breakroom or place to eat, use it! I never eat at my desk, ever.

i usually do. but i'm usually super busy. and don't you have boardrooms for things like conference calls? (tho i can see that being annoying if you're forced to do a call from yr desk).

We have two conference rooms, but they are nearly constantly booked (the partners like to use them as default offices, which is fair enough as we've got an open office plan with all half-height cubicles for everyone). But that's also the problem, since we don't even have half-height cubicles (pretty standard practice for architects), noise carries very easily.

I do not have a "place to eat". Most people in my office have doors though, which probably work well for privacy and soundproofing, should they feel compelled by the crunching of my capsicum.

you guys all seem to want to work in an office of people starving to death (except Neanderthal who has a legit beef).
plenty of people in my office manage to snack or eat meals in the office without making noises like a starved spaniel.

jon, whenever we have conference calls the host is always really strict about everyone who's not currently speaking muting their line - it's a pretty bad line.

corn nuts help with crunching yrou coworkers to death

i have not worked in an office with a dedicated place to eat since 2006.
i currently work in an open office where people eat lunch and there's never a problem. which is to say, it's not types of food that are the issue, it's the people eating them and your reaction/relationship to their idiosyncrasies. a different office won't solve that. if they eat their apples in another room, something else they do will probably end up making you irate at some point.

except for the popcorn.

truth bomb

xp truth bomb 2

someone I work with totally ripped a fart near the fridge and left me to stew in it today....will not let this go unpunished

One of the partners shits all over. one of the other partners cleans it up. Cycle of life.

He shits all. Over.

And you can see that he has swiped at it halfheartedly, but there it still is. All over.

Eh I dont begrudge anyone eatin' at their desk, I just know certain sounds annoy me. Not going to make a big deal out of it though. I'm sure I am equally annoying the way I mutter to myself all the live-long day.

Later, she rejected meeting invites (future-dated ones) because they were on Thurs/Fri and she claimed she "usually gets migraines lately" on thursdays and fridays and would be out sick.

This woman is completely taking the piss, right? "I will be sick on thursdays"??? WTF?!

i was kidding about the yogurt

Trayce, yea, seriously. she got one of my co-workers so angry that she basically crusaded to go to her manager multiple times to try to get her disciplined...

Yeah I'm sorry but baldly saying "I get sick on thursdays and fridays" is just ... I dont know.

a lie!

I think the supervisor that lets her get away with that horrible lie is ever worse than she is, tbf. I have really low tolerance for managers that let people get away with that shit because it only reinforces unprofessional behavior.

my old mgr used to refuse to schedule mtgs on certain days because she knew she was going to be 'sick'

xpost well, while I love my company, one thing it struggles with is accountability. people absolutely have to shit the bed to get either disciplined or terminated.

fortunately, my department doesn't have this problem, as our leader is tough as nails (but also fair), but this lady is in a department notorious for being wishy-washy when it comes to discipline.

it's like people forgot the art of faking illness and now are pre-planning them

several ppl would, in fact, call in sick with headaches, and no one ever said a thing about it. made me so angry bc I am too good a person to do that.

There is a guy I work with that calls off of work a LOT, as in like four or five times a month, but the funny thing is its because there is always some sort of "emergency" at his apartment. I didn't really think too much of it until I started talking to some coworkers that have worked with him for a long time and they told me that he always has "emergencies" and they actually started keeping a tally of them. I kid you not, in the past three years his apartment has flooded four times, lost power eleven times, been without heat seventeen times, or had some sort of unspecified emergency about twelve times. Time for him to get a new apartment, imho.

I eat crunchy apples, just finished one. Sorry world.

I do sometimes acknowledge that an apple is particularly crunchy and apologise for the noise - no-one seems to mind too much but for all I know they're on their wee piece of Internet right now complaining about me.

I think of the apple crunching as reward for putting up with 10-20 hours of golf chat every week. Dudes play a round for four hours on a Sunday and are still talking about it on Wednesday.

I just ate a handful of sugarsnap peas.

I kid you not, in the past three years his apartment has flooded four times, lost power eleven times, been without heat seventeen times, or had some sort of unspecified emergency about twelve times

Sometimes when I've been running really late for work I start mentally inventing some home emergency to lie about. Luckily every time this has happened I have been the first person in the office anyway and so not embarrassed myself.

My new officemate has an unspecified autism spectrum disorder so I've been trying very hard not to complain about him on this thread - poor form given the title - but he talks to himself all day and slurps constantly on drinks or pen lids and I find it really quite hard to work with him a metre behind me. Think I am just unusually unable to filter out unwanted noises though - which, ironically enough, is a symptom of ASDs.

(He also inhibits my ILXing as he likes to stare at my screen and read words off it out loud, and once as I frantically alt-tabbed away from my text-mode browser he asked what the black window with coloured text was, and I lied that it was a work-related script, and then he listed every work script he'd ever seen and what colours it used and seemed concerned that he must be missing one. Damn my stupid neurotypical dependence on little white lies.)

Sometimes when I've been running really late for work I start mentally inventing some home emergency to lie about. Luckily every time this has happened I have been the first person in the office anyway and so not embarrassed myself.

Difference is, you were actually planning to come to work and needed an excuse as to why you were running behind. This guy just doesn't come in at all that day.

I like to suddenly scream out "REFLECTIONS OF A SNEAKY AIRPORT FLOOR LICKER" all day

So a coworker sent out an email this morning politely requesting that we refrain from cooking popcorn in the microwave because it gives her headaches. Popcorn girl fired back a doozy of a response about it being "unfair" and, I shit you not, "unconstitutional" for any of us to "deny her dietary preferences". Which was made even more lolworthy considering the initial email was not at all specific and addressed to the office in general.

It's all right there in the 9th Amendment. How can everyone else not see it?

Oh shit, get your own popcorn out, it's ENTITLEMENT BATTLE ROYAL.

(FYI the headache sufferer will prevail because the co-worker would also be within her rights to ask co-workers to refrain from exposing her to nut allergy triggers)

Exactly, this should be fun. I'm waiting for round three.

Fucking popcorn lady needs to die.

There'll be blood in Lake Michigan by Friday.

'James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher!"

jvc, I hope you've planned how to contribute to this battle.

Do you know the headache-sufferer? I mean, your co-workers have to discuss this problem, right?

Man, I love it when people claim shit is unconstitutional. I'm hoping for a plea of "freedom of expression" through the medium of popcorn.

lol - the time honoured workplace tradition of fanning the flames.

one skill I have yet to master is writing emails that immediately take up the offensive position even if there was no conflict preceding your message.

Do you know the headache-sufferer?

I do, and she is a really great co-worker and one of the least complainy type people I've ever worked with. There has been no further updates, so I'm wondering if HR or a partner stepped in. Or maybe its just simmering and we'll be treated to a full-blown microwave popcorn related freak-out that culminates in something flying out of a window.

Do you think she really gets headaches or is she just tired of it like you.

Who is fanning the flames? I mean, I am, in spirit, but I think that co-worker and jvc should respectfully but firmly stand up to the popcorn fiend.

I've heard of dietary requirements and pesky food and chemical allergies but sheesh....I can't stand these litigious types. I mean I have a relative with serious (and sometimes downright annoying) food allergies but not to the point of driving people NUTS.

Like I said, someone has a psychological problem and it should be dealt with gently at first.

full-blown microwave popcorn related freak-out that culminates in something flying out of a window.

It should be the microwave itself imo

would like to see the full text of the email, actually.

I do love the idea of antipopcornism being Unconstitutional.