By Kristin Granero
Sure, we all get upset when someone leaves their dirty dishes in the sink or steals food from the fridge. (Spending eight-plus hours a day with each other can be tough.) But there are some offenses that tend to stand out among those everyday annoyances.
We asked editors to share their top workday peeves to ensure you’re not accidentally leaving the wrong kind of impression. Don’t be that colleague.
Edit Test Typos
“It boils my blood when a potential candidate turns in a ‘completed’ edit test with a bunch of typos and grammatical errors. If you haven’t taken the time to read everything over, why should I take mine? Suffice to say, I can’t bring myself to hire them because I fear I can’t trust them right off the bat.” —Jenn, Editor
Noisy Neighbors
“I’ve had to gently ask people to stop watching YouTube videos aloud on their computers, to not listen to top 40 hits on their computers at top volume, and to turn the sound off while watching Snapchat stories.” —Jessica, Editor
Flush Fails
“The grossest office offense I’ve witnessed are people not flushing the toilet. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve walked into a stall and walked right back out (trying not to gag!). Automatic toilets do not always do their job! We are all adults here, turn and look before you walk out of a stall. No one needs to see that. This has actually been the case at almost every company I’ve worked for.” —Nicole, Editor
Desk Side Karaoke
“I work in a space with cubes, and despite those noise blockers, I can still hear a coworker talking loudly, singing obnoxiously, using weird voices, making animals noises (I wish I was kidding), and debating what she wants for lunch. It’s actually gotten to the point where I know way more about her life than I want to, like where she had lunch last week, the care package she got from her mom last month, and who she’s listening to on Spotify.” —Ashley, Editor
Desk Hoarders
“I usually live and let live, but it’s very difficult for me to concentrate or get work done in a cluttered or messy space. I can’t imagine that they’re working efficiently. But to each their own!” —Jessica, Editor
Tardy for the Party
“Being late is one of my biggest pet peeves. If a meeting is a 2 p.m., you bet I am there, ready to go at 1:55. I never understand why people start gathering materials at two and stroll in a few minutes late!” —Nicole, Editor
Name Games
“When people misspell my name on email, it drives me nuts (and surprises me how many people within and outside of my company do it). It’s right there in my email address, and in my signature. If a person can’t get that right from the get-go, I wonder how many other details he or she is missing from day to day.” —Anonymous, Editor
Nail Nonsense
“At a former job, I’d always hear a colleague clipping her nails. But it was never just one or two nails, it went on for nearly 15 minutes—to the point where I started to think she was clipping her toenails! And whenever I heard the nail clipper, I’d picture stray nails flying all over the place. It drove me crazy.” – Anonymous, Editor
From Ed’s Guest Blogger: 5 Lessons I Learned From My Political Internship
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