Friday, January 18, 2008

Office Pet Peeves


Ok, so I am well aware that my standards are set ridiculously high. I’ve been told this for nearly 10 years-thanks I get it. I just don’t understand incompetence and don’t accept it as the norm. Call me crazy I suppose. Anyway, I work in an office. I enjoy working in an office-it’s easy, keeps me off the streets, whatever. Another great thing about working in an office is that it gives me all sorts of crazy material to laugh at. Unfortunately, it also gives me loads of stuff to find annoying. Also, note that I've been working in an office for nearly a decade, and these things are not really about my current job...just about office stuff in general! Here’s my current list:


1. Reply All. Holy crap. Is it necessary to include everyone on your conversation? Job related? Fine, let’s all stay in the loop. You feeling the need to put your own little quip in on the stupid forward some jackass sent around? Not necessary. I seriously received the following email earlier today.

M: I have to take a client out for lunch in Seattle tomorrow. Any ideas?
R: I am in Seattle now. When is your flight.
M: I don't get in until tonight. Want to grab dinner after my flight?
R: sounds good. What are you hungry for? What about seafood. I could go for houston’s too.

I’ll stop there because that’s about the time I started automatically deleting these retarded emails the minute they came in. I don’t give a crap that you're craving seabass. Looking for a great steak? Shut up.

2. ONCE, I asked if anyone wanted anything when I walked next door to everyone’s favorite coffee magnate. I swear, if you walk into the office with lunch, coffee, anything and you didn’t offer to gather food for everyone else the response is always a sarcastic, wow, thanks for asking if I wanted any coffee/burgers/tacos/insert favorite food name here.

3. I know that this one will completely make me sound like an 85 year old biddy, but use correct spelling and grammar people. I mean are we that lazy that hitting F7 must be skipped?!? I swear, if you are just completely unable to understand the difference between to/too/two and their/there/they’re I don’t want to receive emails from you. This is your official notice. Thanks for your understanding.

4. Speaker phone. We all have a lot of conference calls. Usually 5-10 per day probably. I cannot stand when someone nearby has their phone on speaker-seriously, do they think that everyone wants to be in on their call? I assure you that’s not the case at all. And I absolutely hate when I’m on a call and another person conferenced in stays on their speaker. You can not hear them at all, but you can surely hear all the background crap going on!! Stop being lazy-pick up your phone.

5. Elevators. There is so much akwardness related to elevators I don’t really know which to start with. How about that guy who rushes onto the elevator when he hasn’t even paused the acceptable amount of time to allow people off!! Or the people who get into the elevator and continue with their inappropriate conversation. Really? Your date last evening had the nerve to ask you to split the bill? Riveting. People who smell up the entire elevator. I don’t care if it’s smoke, body odor, tacky perfume, today’s lunch or what-I don’t want to smell like you. If I did, I would have rubbed up against you rather than inadvertently stepped onto the world’s worst smelling elevator. Button Blockers also. Seriously? Do you need to stand directly in front of the buttons so that I have to awkwardly ask you to select the 6th floor? Plenty of space in here buddy.

Well, now that I’ve come across as a total complainer I think that’s all! I like hearing about people’s pet peeves. Half the time, I share them. The other half, I think I am part of the problem!!