The person in the office next to mine has spent the entire morning making and taking personal phone calls, mostly about her kids soccer program and their upcoming trip. And maybe it is because she's on a cell phone, but she's talking VERY LOUD. It is driving me up the wall. This is almost as bad as working with the infamous Jackie, but minus the technical incompetance. This one's good at her work, but there hasn't been much work going on today except the extracurricular kind. *sigh* I don't have a problem with goofing off, but I think it should be done quietly.
What do your co-workers do that gets on your nerves? I know there are some readers with nutty co-workers out there (Trina? John?), so please share one or two in the comments section. It'll cheer me up to know I'm not alone (and distract me from the chatter that continues as I write this).
11 comments:
Well, the Wonky-Eyed Beast is old news, but Grandma Moses never ceases to annoy with the quirks. She hovers at my desk for at least 20 minutes every morning when we get here, blathering on about nothing. Then when we get back from lunch, she does the same thing - and it's the same stories.
My co-workers are good workers, decent enough chaps and all, it's just that they Never. Shut. Up. We usually have an hour or two of slow time every night, and that's when I like to do my web surfing. It never fails that in the middle of trying to write something that I have to hear about Aunt Martha's gall bladder surgery, or something of the sort. (I know, I'm not supposed to be blogging at work...)
Worst co-worker experience was at my first job out of college. I was an editorial assistant at publisher William Morrow, and she was a secretary who sat next to me.
It was 1984, and either she broke the law on a regular basis or the no-smoking-in-the-office law hadn't passed yet. Anyway, she chain-smoked at her desk. Ugh.
She was also a compulsive liar who couldn't keep her stories straight. Some days, her family was dirt poor. Some days, stinking rich. There was no linking story between rich and poor, so I'm assuming one was a total lie and she'd forget what she said five minutes before.
She claimed to be a widow--that her late husband was an electrician who electrocuted himself in their apartment. It was generally assumed around the office that he was imaginary, and I agree.
She was inappropriately snobby and did things like, when talking to someone English on the phone, say "Oh, I heard you were in hospital!" instead of "in the hospital," 'cause that's what the Brits say.
Our mail system was this: In the office, you could pretty much put someone's initials and department on an envelope, and it would get delivered. She knew this, of course. When a piece of mail got delivered to her incorrectly one day, she wrote "N.B." on it, for the Latin phrase "nota bene," or "note well"--meaning, look at the initials. And when the mailroom clerk then delivered the mail to someone with the initials N.B., she called him stupid.
Let's see, what else? Oh, she swore like a longshoreman and left to become a nun.
So far, I vote Jim the winner.
I hate when parents are with their small children in public. Why? Because they include everyone within 100 feet in on their conversation. And they repeat everything the kid says but louder. What? Your favorite color is blue? You like marshmallows? Put that back. You don't need that. Pull your pants up.
You get the idea. Then when you pass them they smile at you like "darn kids are driving me crazy." No, you're driving me crazy. Whew. Feel better.
I like the co-workers from my dept (generally), but the guy across the wall from me doesn't know how to blow his nose. He prefers to snort it back up which grosses me the heck out (I'd have said something else, but I gave up swearing for Lent). I do have one co-worker that no matter how many times I explain the order form to him and what is mandatory information, I will get it back missing half the pertinent data. I liked the time he gave it to me a Requested Date from the previous week.
I don't have co-workers anymore, but when I did ... one of my officemates would fart and then pretend it never happened. So, I'd have to smell it and pretend like I wasn't smelling it. Gosh, I hated it. I just wanted to say, "You know, my nose works just fine. You can stop testing it."
Thanks for the laughs, y'all. I knew I could count on you.
Today was was better. I was the only physicist working downstairs in the clinic, and there was only one treatment problem I had to deal with, so I got a ton of work done. It was blissfully quiet on the physics hallway. Well, it was quiet up until I started playing some funk. :-)
My immediate superior is an uber-cheerleader, and as far as the two of us who are left in the department are concerned, more than a little delusional. We're in the midst of a major fiscal crisis and the place is hanging on by its fingernails, and there's our boss charging around saying, "I can feel it! Things are turning around! We're on a roll now!" My friend and I just look at each other a roll our eyes in amazement.
I have a coworker who thinks that anyone within earshot of her should be involved in every little crisis that occurs in her cubicle world (which is often). It waaay hard to concentrate on my work when out of nowhere, over the cubicle wall she will yell, "Aaaaargggh!!" or "I HATE PEOPLE! I HATE PEOPLE!!" It must happen atleast 3 or 4 times per hour and my boss never tells her to can it.
I teach kindergarten. 'Nuf said.
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