Given that office work is a common form of employment on Lemmy, and given our higher-than average technical ability, I’m interested to hear what bothers you most.
For me: coworker says “I’m old fashioned” and refuses to employ the simplest keyboard shortcuts (using arrow keys to navigate excel, using Ctrl+C instead of the mouse, et cetera) and then complains about how much their wrist hurts because of their mouse.
Having to hear conservatives and liberals talk about their politics all day. How they think their stupid ideologies will fix the United States.
It is somewhat defensible, but installing a coffee machine and not letting other people use it. I am willing to provide my own coffee and clean everything, but it is too tempting to have an espresso machine and not be able to use it.
This one is entirely defensible!
You are willing to provide and clean, everyone else will not.
Karen from accounting will come use up the high-dollar beans you received as a present, make it wrong, leave a mess, and then claim her Starbucks mocha-choca-itchy-gitchy-ya-ya was better anyway…
I didn’t much care for office lunch events, but the free food usually made up for it… except that time the boss got Chipoltle or whatever its called.
People who cough and splutter at their desks instead of staying home until they stop.
“Let’s go around the room” #killme
This is a pet peeve on myself. I’m in a supervisor position and sometimes I will get frustrated at people because they have a bad work ethic. I have to remember not everyone has the same work ethic as me and I also have an irrational fear of being fired/laid off.
Reheating seafood. Don’t think I need to elaborate.
Does that mean if it’s the first time I’ve heated this canned tuna I’m in the clear?
What? The mouse came waaaay after keyboards and shortcuts, that makes no sense. They are just lazy and stupid.
People walking by in backless shoes that slap against their feet with every step.
Dirty lounge chairs because people sit on one and prop their feet up on the next
Meetings where all the managers say their own thing about cheering on the company.
Having to be in it.
the internet exists.
Patronising tours on your first day where they boast about the great facilities but also lecture you about how to keep the place clean, being considerate to coworkers, not being too loud, etc. I’m not a 8yo.
-
poor heating/cooling. Usually offices aren’t a comfortable temperature for everybody.
-
not getting compensated for the commute. It’s a pay cut. Fuck you, management.
-
people that just walk up to your desk and start asking questions. Send a message like “can we talk about XYZ?” and I’ll get to it when I get to it. Though this maybe is a learned behavior from people who are bad at responding to messages.
I work in a shop in manufacturing and frequently need to email and/or teams message someone for information but there’s absolutely times I’m not even gonna bother and will just go right up to an engineer or draftsman’s desk with schematics to talk and work through stuff. Or I’ll just call them and ask them to look at something / talk. Is this not acceptable? Idk, if so I’m still gonna keep doing it, I really don’t care. I hate the back and forth waiting around bullshit of emails. Really the only time I email is if I need to involve multiple parties or I’ll teams message if it’s a quick question.
There’s really something valuable about talking about things in real time and looking at what we’re working on and how it’s designed and what the solution should be. Having a weird “let’s keep everything digital” attitude is prob one of my pet peeves tbh. I really don’t care if someone isn’t social, I wouldn’t judge them if they’re socially awkward. I would judge them if they won’t even give me the time of day or act like it’s a chore to have a work related conversation. Human beings are a social animal, no sense in shutting everyone out all day
For me, it’s situational. I’ll ask if I can borrow them for a minute, and it’s usually a small question, not a request to do a task. I’m fortunate that I work on a really good team and we are all decently close and respectful to one another, and everyone likes helping each other out when they can. I would say our culture is a bit of an anomaly.
I’ve asked people in other departments for small things and been told to create a ticket. That’s fine, I’m not going to be upset about it, but if that person is just sitting and sitting the shit, it is irritating to force extra steps when it’s not necessary.
I didn’t mean I need them to keep it digital. I meant I don’t want my train of thought interrupted. A “take a number” and “now serving” sign would work fine, if it gated the conversation until I was ready. Or just they send a message asking to talk and wait for me to say “ok come on over”
Eh idk still just seems cold to me if someone said “take a number”. Unless you’re like slammed all day and stressed tf out and actually so busy you can’t fit me in, in which case I’ll take the hint and wouldn’t be offended. My old boss was like this but he was just stressed and miserable all the time anyway.
Most office jobs are not overloading people with work like this in what I’ve seen in my career. It just sounds like a personal preference you have you don’t want to interrupt your work.
Since I’m on the shop floor I am working under strict deadlines and ship dates quite often but I’ll still make time for anyone for anything considering I work in testing and quality / design assurance of our product and I want to make sure everything is perfect by the time it leaves. I can always stay late to get things done.
I accept that your job likely has different cadences than software development, in addition to personal preference.
Most software engineers I’ve talked to don’t like being interrupted in the middle of some deep thought. Especially if it means shelving current work to check out something else
-
People who hate on their spouses, bragging when they’re “in the dog house”. Divorces exist, Brent, you don’t have to stay married to a person you hate.
In a similar vein, people who comment about work being a “break from the family”. I had my first kid a year or so ago and one person at my new job said how it must be nice to “get away for awhile”.
I actually said “no, I love my family and enjoy my home life.” They avoid me now.
I have friends with kids and are in happy living relationships, but they’re definitely not upset to get some away time from the chaos of young children when they go to school or daycare. That’s not to say they don’t love them or love being around them, but it’s a lot of work and a break isn’t inherently a negative thing.
I don’t like boomer humour like making constant insults about one’s in laws or their spouse. I do think that your coworker definitely came with the wrong tone and probably fits that bill. Solid in you for shutting that shit down.
I 100% agree that a break isn’t a negative thing and I thank my mother in law every time she watches our kid.
Never in my life will being at work be better than being at home. Regardless, It’s the same guy who makes off hand comments like my wife “wears the pants” and “is the boss”. I use to ignore the comments and just carry on but I didn’t hold it in the last time.
I get it. More people need to push back on that kind of stuff. I jokingly refer to my wife as my accountant when the discussion of money comes up, but it’s because she’s literally an accountant. I then give her all of the accolades for why we are financially stable and get to do fun things. Nothing demeaning, and always followed up with high praise.
Nice win for you. Congrats on the new family.
