With many different personalities under one roof and close quarters, there bound to have conflicts with each other. But nothing is more irritating than bad office habits from your closest colleagues.
Here are 11 stories from people who have annoying coworkers.
We have a nice pantry but nobody takes care of it. The dishes and mugs just pile up in the sink until our weekly cleaner comes in to wash them or until someone needs a clean dish. It isn’t even part of our cleaner’s job to wash dishes.
- Alice, Corporate HR
We have a thief in our midst. My packed lunch keep getting stolen in the pantry refrigerator. I got so irritated by it that I brought an expired yoghurt on purpose one day and still, it mysteriously disappeared before lunchtime. Maybe next time, I’ll bring a mouldy sandwich.
- Joshua, Assistant Accountant
My coworkers love to gather around me when I’m working on my desk and talk loudly. They even have team meetings around my desk all the time. I’m non-confrontational so I’ll just plug in my earphones and continue to work. But they can talk so loud at times, even good earphones won’t cancel out the volume. I am not even in the same department as them. It just so happens that there is no available desk so HR asked me to make do.
- Diana, Web Designer
We worked in a small office with a very low ceiling so noise bounces off everywhere. We have a colleague who loves to belt out love songs on top of his voice when he is working. He sings off-key and most of the times, wrong words. We had an intervention last year and we told him to stop singing but somehow the message was lost to him. Now, we just put on our earplugs, complimentary from our boss.
- Sandy, Customer Chat Service
HR just emailed all of us to remind us to lock up our stationaries in our desks at the end of each day because someone has been stealing off our desks everyday and she (HR) is sick of having to replace the lost stationaries and explaining to Finance why stationary budget went off the charts every month.
- Nathan, Sales Invoicing Officer
I have a new colleague, sitting next to me that has no hygiene awareness. She smells as if she hasn’t showered for months, her hair always looks greasy and her breath stinks so bad that colleagues sitting opposite her smell it whenever she talks on the phone. Because of that, nobody wants to go lunch with her and she often complains to me why everyone is so unfriendly in the office.
- Tammy, Shift Planner
You know how negativity brings everyone down. I have a coworker who complains non stop. He will bitch and whine to whoever is in his vicinity. Nothing is good enough for him. Not the weather, not his salary (which is way above market rate), not his job. He will even complain about us to one another. Even when we stopped talking to him, he called up his friends and family to complain about his day. The problem is that he is excellent at his job so our manager can’t fire him. Even when he complains about him within his earshot.
- Mark, Rotational Team Lead
This guy in my workplace just loves to bring his lunch from home. It isn’t that bad if it is sandwiches or something smells nice. It’s fish casserole and it smells horrible. It made the whole office smell like the rubbish dumpster. The smell will last for the rest of the day. It made some of us gag and applied to HR to move seats away from him. Every single day, it is the same lunch. When we politely asked him about it, he said it is his mother who made his lunch every morning for him to bring to work and he hasn’t had the heart to reject her. Now, our bosses just made him take his lunch at the park opposite our office.
- Thomas, Event Coordinator
The new intern just doesn’t get it. We don’t want to be on her Instagram. We hate it when she talks about us in her Facebook posts. We run the other way when she chases us for a selfie. Just yesterday, she took half an hour to shoot the “perfect” photo of her lunch, when we are done with ours, she whined that we didn’t wait for her to finish hers!
- Amelia, Programmer
One of our colleagues loves to boast. So much that we will walk the other way if we saw him approaching us. We don’t believe his tall stories and many times he has been caught telling us lies. Like the time he said he used to work in NASA as an astronaut (really? Then what are you doing in our small time office?) or the time he boasted about spending his weekend at a country club, partying with supermodels and wealthy businessmen, only to be revealed that he has been working overtime in the office all weekend.
- Bob, Technician
Everyone knows salary is confidential but one of our coworkers loves to pester all of us to tell her how much we are being paid. She wants to compare our salary with hers and if her salary is lower, she’ll kick up a big fuss with our bosses. And if she is getting a higher salary, she’ll belittle the other by berating them for not hardworking or smart like her. She has created a lot of enemies in the office.
- Jack, Store Clerk
So what kind of work habits annoys you? Share with us in the comments below!
Colleagues, love them or hate them, you can’t do without them. Here are some ways you can deal with them in your workplace:
How to Win Your New Colleagues Over in Your New Job?
5 Sensitive Topics that You Shouldn’t Discuss in Office
10 Type of Characters You will Bump into in an Office Party (Part 1)
10 Type of Characters You will Bump into in an Office Party (Part 2)
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MiddleMe 
We had someone steal our packed lunches too and we knew who it was. So one day, as a joke, I took a bite from his (supermarket-bought) sandwich, his banana and his KitKat then put them back in his lunch box. It was hilarious watching him complain to anyone and everyone and walking around showing our colleagues the evidence. He stopped eating everyone else’s food after that. I never let on that it was me!
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Oh my! Naughty you but so smart of you too! Hahaha. This is so deliciously devious but I love it.
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Once, my senior manager called me into this room for some discussion about a task I was working on. My team lead, along with other team leads, were also there. As we were discussing up the matter, I scratched my forehead a little because I felt an itch. That senior manager openly asked me why am I scratching my forehead and I replied to him that I was having an itch.
Somehow, my simple explanation wasn’t understood by him and he quickly judged that I was having some sort of marital related issues in my personal life and that is causing an itch on my forehead.
I was literally like WHAT??????
If you like to read the whole story, here’s the link: https://hammadrais.wordpress.com/2015/11/13/wrong-balloon-popping/
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ON THE USELESSNESS OF ‘SUCCEEDING’ AND ‘FAILING’
◇ – Diamond Hard – ◇
The Difference Between ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ is NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE!!!; it’s Crystal Clear Clarity that Rudyard Kipling has it Spot On In His Poem ~ ‘If’, also Desiderata’ and ‘Serenity’ ARE also Worth a Read for The MisGuided Foolishness of Many Of Us…as a Nigger only I Decide whether I ‘Fail’ or ‘Succeed’; all the rest is White Noise 😆😅😄😃😂😁😀😉😊
◇ – Diamond Hard – ◇
…◇◇◇…
ON MINDS OVER MATTERS
◇ – Diamond Hard – ◇
◇ If it Doesn’t Matter, Never Mind; if it Does Matter Be Mindful…I Advise You ALL to Stay In STEP (Serene Tranquil Equilibria Placid) and INSYNCH (Insightful Numerical Synchronous Yielding Nominal Cognisant Humble) EveryOne
…if I Die by My Own Hand, aka SUICIDE, or by The Hand of AnOther, aka MURDER/MANSLAUGHTER, I Die; a Return to Bliss where I WILL!!! Regret the Nature of My Death…
◇ – Diamond Hard – ◇
…◇◇◇…
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Lovely Collections 😉 May be this is why i prefer to be alone all the time. I can’t take it. My answers will definitely hurt them, cant control my mouth😜. Most annoying thing, Lift scenario, people wanted to go down and they press up also and wait just to see if the lift is empty.🤦 i felt like, did u just, but WHY? Hate to have such people around. Interesting post Kally✨👌
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Oh the lift thing irritates me too, Simon. I don’t get it why they need to press both up and down at the same time. Thank you for your contribution.
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Stories like these reinforce my belief that every workplace needs a Terry Tate.
(Some bad language)
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Oh I’ve got to watch that! Thanks Gregory for the recommendation.
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There are a few Terry Tate videos around, Kally. Look for Terry Tate Holiday. Also very good.
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Got it!
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Interesting post. Thank you
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Thank you, Konlee.
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Hahaha most of it was funny! I enjoyed reading every bit of the post😀😀
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I’m happy you found it funny!
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One of my coworkers doesn’t seem to like pulling her weight. She steps away to chat about non work things with the managers or hide in the back for several minutes just chatting about her family life. When someone walks up who needs help, she will go silent until someone else takes them before going back to chatting with the managers because she doesn’t want to help unless everyone else is busy first. It annoys me so much.
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Oh that’s really irritating! I can totally feel your annoyance. The managers didn’t put her in her place? I will be tactless and I point out to her that someone needs help and it’s time for her to step in.
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Love these entertaining workplace stories you post. Of course, you make me want to share:
I worked at a place where a man didn’t wear a belt. That’s usually not a big deal, but his pants slipped below his waist, exposing his butt crack. Evidently, he didn’t feel the draft back there. And obviously, manager never said anything because it happened about 3 times. We used to joke that there was a full moon in the daytime at our company!
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Hahahahaha! This cracks me up! Pun intended. Well, you know what to get him for Christmas present at least. Thank you for sharing, Sean.
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You’re welcome. I forgot all about that until your post. It was pretty strange…and gross. Ha!
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I’m getting the impression I’m quite lucky not to have encountered any lunch stealers. Do they typically not bring any lunch or are they eating other people’s food in addition to their own? I just don’t get it.
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Usually, both. I don’t get it either but I know plenty of workplaces have lunch theft.
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How many people, so many stories. People have not only advantages but also disadvantages. Sometimes very sad. You should tolerate in the group, or ask the person not to do what they generally don’t like.
greetings
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Have a great week.
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Our refrigerator is in the hallway outside our office, meaning we don’t see it unless we’re specifically walking past it. Anyway, a few people from other floors sometimes would take our lunches.
Annoying, of course, until somebody had the idea of leaving his lunch in the fridge, and doctoring it heavily with hot sauce. Not “mild” hot sauce either, but the thermonuclear variety usually used only for competitions.
Needless to say, nobody has bothered our lunches since!
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Oh wow! Smart idea! One of my friends decided to “leave” her cat food in the common fridge and after that nobody’s lunch disappear anymore.
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It is great.
Thank you so much for sharing well.
Have great time there.
XOXO
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Thank you and welcome to MiddleMe!
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Thank you so much for sharing.
You are welcome in London at anytime.
XOXO
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♡ There’s an awesome online video that may explain workplace lunch theft behaviour; in summary it’s a classroom at lunch and there is only one child who has next to nothing in their lunch box and, embarrassed, asks to be excused to go to the toilet…then all the other kids get together and contribute to his lunch box; so when he gets back he is in tears at the generosity and all the other kids and the teacher are smiling at him…so, my guess is, workplace lunch box thefts are a consequence of not being treated in this beautiful way; it’s Crystal Clear Clarity that I Have Stolen Stuff when I Had More Than Enough Money to Buy The Stuff just like Winona Rider 🤗
…♡♡♡…
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Interesting! But with co working becoming more common place, should we be more tolerant?
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