The most annoying office habits

It’s Official: The Most Annoying
Office Habits

In the close
confines of an office, finding fault with your colleagues can be unavoidable.
There you are, collating the figures for Jane, when something keeps breaking
your concentration. That’s right – it’s Dave. Again. He’s humming Bond Themes.
AGAIN.

Sound familiar
at all? We asked office workers to pick the top 5 things their colleagues do
that they find most annoying. Here are the top twenty most annoying things a
colleague (or if you’re really unlucky, colleagues) do:

Unsurprisingly,
the top five annoyances include prolonged breaks and timewasting, a sign that
those who don’t pull their weight can become irksome – especially when you’re
working hard.

Whilst there
was a split between men and women on some bad habits, both agreed with the top
three most annoying things: regular lateness, constant whining and eating
smelly food.

Lunchtime gets
the office especially riled up, with nearly a quarter stating that smelly food
annoys them. Stealing food, however, was the least annoying office habit,
suggesting that the days of slapping post-its on anything edible might be a
thing of the past. Perhaps people are too interested in their quinoa and mung
bean wraps to want to nibble anyone else’s lunch.

Contrary to
popular belief, jargon isn’t the most annoying thing to plague our offices. In
fact, both men and women rated jargon in the bottom three – something we’ll
have to ‘touch base on’ if we revisit this survey in future. Anyway, let’s
‘drill down’ into the rest of the data…

Bad hygiene is,
and probably always will be, a bad habit in a close-knit office, and 21% say it
regularly annoys them. So to the coffee breathers and the shoe removers out
there, there’s nothing a tub of mints or a pair of slippers can’t cure!

On the other
hand 15% of people chose to rail against the presence of overly-perfumed
colleagues. Maybe they’re trying to counteract a less pleasant odour? Or maybe
they just like to announce their presence through smell.

We’re renowned,
as a nation, to love a bit of a moan, and these results only reinforce that
stereotype. However, despite our need to vent to others, moaning was voted the
second most annoying office habit, suggesting that maybe we ought to spend a
little extra time correcting issues instead of complaining about them.

Our survey also
found that men were 10% more likely than women to personally address the
problem. 35% of women said they’d rather avoid conflict – let’s just hope the
men were diplomatic in their approach!

What gets you riled up at work? Tell us
what really grinds your gears @Viking_Chat

People that
don’t replace things when they run out were weighted at 20.9% in the survey –
the tenth most annoying habit! Don’t be that person, make sure you replace your
printer’s ink and toner when it runs low.