The irritating habits of colleagues

Irritating colleague habits – they’re found in every office and have the ability to make you grit your teeth or roll your eyes.

So annoyed was Julie Shenkman of Employmentmetrix.com of some of her colleagues’ habits that she made up a list of the top 10.

“I decided to compile a list of the top 10 most annoying co-worker habits,” wrote Shenkman in a blog. “I’m positive that there are more than 10. These are not in a specific order, as I find them all thoroughly annoying and couldn’t rank them.”

Here they are:

1.  The Compulsive Pen Clicker: I understand that you clicking your pen are probably not even aware that you’re even clicking it, but all I hear and all that is consuming my thoughts is click click click click click...

2.  The Strolling Whistler: We all have one or three of these people in our workplace; they go about their business while whistling a happy off-key tune or no tune at all. I have no problem with whistling if it’s an actual song, but whistling for the fun of simply making noise is simply annoying.

3.  The Self Talker: You know who they are: they think no one can hear them, but they’re wrong. They talk to themselves about what they’re currently doing and what they’re going to do next. Additionally, this person is often an off-key whistler.

4.  The Workspace Groomer: I don’t know how it happens, but I usually end up sitting near someone who clips their fingernails at their desk. One, I had no idea that there is a need to clip your nails multiple times a week;, let alone at work, and two, you might as well drag your nails across a chalkboard because that “ting” of the nail clippers makes me cringe in the same way.

5.  The Seafood Reheater: This is a BIG no-no! I don’t care if you had delicious salmon last night for dinner and you have leftovers for lunch – don’t even think of heating it up in the microwave. The smell of reheated seafood that permeates from the communal microwave in a communal kitchen is awful!

6.  The Popcorn Burner: There is an exact science when it comes to making microwave popcorn, and let’s face it, most of us don’t have it down. So when you go to make a delicious afternoon snack nine times out of 10 you end up filling the office with the delightful smell of burnt popcorn, which lingers for the rest of the day. But who cares because, there’s nothing more comforting than working in a room full of carcinogens!

7.  The Food Forgetter: While the vegetable drawer in my refrigerator at home is sweetly referred to as the “drawer of good intentions gone bad,” that’s how I view the fridge at work overall. You may have had good intentions to bring your own lunch and save some money, but what happens when there’s a Groupon for the sushi place around the corner and everyone is going? Those good intentions are ultimately forgotten. When you leave food in the fridge for days or even weeks at a time, you do your colleagues a disservice as no one wants to use the fridge that is housing your potential blue ribbon mold experiment.

8.  The Loud Cell Phone Ringer: There’s always someone who has an obnoxious ringtone and what do you know, that person is usually the same one that forgets to put their phone on silent. Sometimes, I am so lucky that they step away from their desk and I get to listen to their phone ringing incessantly.

9.  The Speaker Phone Lover: Speaking of phones, let’s talk about the colleague that insists on using speakerphone, even when it isn’t necessary to be using it. They sit with the volume all the way up, so all can hear (and be distracted by) their conversation. This makes for a very productive team.

10.  The Cube Lingerer: We have a quite a few of these. They come by to try to catch a few minutes with someone, but that someone gives them the one minute sign. So instead of leaving and returning later, they decide that their time would be best spent talking to me. Well, guess what, I don’t have time to hear about your kid’s new bike or the new hardwood floors your wife asked you to install – I have a deadline to meet!