Little things at work that drive you nuts. I’ll start

[Anonymous]

People who don't even try to look for the answer to their question and just teams me as if I am their personal search engine.

"what is the phone number for ###?"
"what does the abreviation ABC mean?"
"Do we get Presidents Day off?"

sometimes I know it. Sometimes I have to Google the answer. Sometimes I get snarky "Google says it is ####"

[Anonymous]

Coworkers sending me 5+ Teams messages that could have been consolidated into one message. “hey!” “How are you?” “Guess what Larla said?!” “It’s crazy” The incessant pinging drives me crazy and I mute post haste.

Might be unique to my fed leadership chain (Deputy Division Director level), but they ask their direct reports - branch managers and first line sups - to draft their emails to stakeholders that they then send verbatim because they know nothing about the program areas. I can understand they’re busy and we should summarize topics or prepare communication points as the SMEs, but why am I drafting your emails for you to hit send?! You are not an agency head and we are not your secretaries!

[Anonymous]

People that spit out a bunch of consultant level word salad, expecting that the abundance of jargon with many action words, means that whatever dumb thing they want rises to the top of my priority list, and that also by default I am the lesser counterpart. It turns out I can just ignore it and decline, because their boss doesn't care what they think either.

I had one kid pull this recently and I just told him he literally sounded like AI and I don't understand what he's saying. He ran off to his boss who had to smooth things over and he has not reached out to me again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The c-suite at the company I am leaving in 2 short weeks CANNOT speak like regular human beings. Everything is headwinds and synergy and crap that doesn’t MEAN things.

Whatever happened to clear, concise, coherent language?

This is way up high on my list of things that drive me nuts.

This is a little thing: Guys (it's always guys) who spill coffee all over their offices, then hold meetings in there and everything smells like stale coffee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People that spit out a bunch of consultant level word salad, expecting that the abundance of jargon with many action words, means that whatever dumb thing they want rises to the top of my priority list, and that also by default I am the lesser counterpart. It turns out I can just ignore it and decline, because their boss doesn't care what they think either.

I had one kid pull this recently and I just told him he literally sounded like AI and I don't understand what he's saying. He ran off to his boss who had to smooth things over and he has not reached out to me again.

Hahaha!! You hurt his feelings! Then he tattled, further proving his maturity.

For the PP who is treated like the office’s human Google, what happens if you slow-walk responses to those requests? If these are your peers, what happens if you ignore those requests? Why don’t you say “I don’t know” instead of googling it for them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coworkers sending me 5+ Teams messages that could have been consolidated into one message. “hey!” “How are you?” “Guess what Larla said?!” “It’s crazy” The incessant pinging drives me crazy and I mute post haste.

Might be unique to my fed leadership chain (Deputy Division Director level), but they ask their direct reports - branch managers and first line sups - to draft their emails to stakeholders that they then send verbatim because they know nothing about the program areas. I can understand they’re busy and we should summarize topics or prepare communication points as the SMEs, but why am I drafting your emails for you to hit send?! You are not an agency head and we are not your secretaries!

Might be generational. My teens don't like long texts. Every sentence or phrase (no punctuation of course) is its own separate message. Lol, I have started composing my "walls of text" and copying them into a multitude of short messages.

[Anonymous]

Young people who can't/won't/don't like to talk to others on the phone - this is required at most places of work

Have an online meeting and every person has their note taker in attendance

Self-important people who talk too much - usually middle managers who think it makes them look good

And please, never, ever bring any kind of fish to the office for lunch, including tuna fish, or make popcorn in the small office microwave

[Anonymous]

Microwaving stinky food. Wearing too much perfume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:90% of my coworkers who are absolute Luddites. And somehow it’s excusable to not know how to perform basic tasks on standard tech like Excel.

Do you work with me?

It is unacceptable that our CEO's admin., who is 32, so she's not a boomer or particularly new to the workforce, just doesn't use Teams because "I don't know how and I don't like it." People need to reach your boss urgently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The cold call when my status is busy or in a call. You’re interrupting me.

The message from someone who doesn’t understand the rules of asynchronous communication who just says ‘hi, it’s Bob’ ‘how are you?’ Or ‘can I ask you a question?’ And then waits for me to respond before continuing. Just ask!

People (often men, not always) at my level who expect me to do admin work for them. One guy just asked me to summarize a Teams chat for him. Huh?

It seems your contradicting yourself. You don’t want a cold call but you don’t want people to ask if you’re free????

What else?

[Anonymous]

All-day group chats with the expectation that employees will follow them. Having a nonstop group chat is like coworkers talking at your desk all day. It's difficult to focus and get anything done when there’s constant chatter, whether it be vocal or online.

To make matters worse, if I miss something in the chat, I often hear someone say, "Well, it was in the chat." With a continuous stream of messages, I can't possibly scroll through eight hours of conversation. If something is truly important, it should be sent via email, or it risks being overlooked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The c-suite at the company I am leaving in 2 short weeks CANNOT speak like regular human beings. Everything is headwinds and synergy and crap that doesn’t MEAN things.

Whatever happened to clear, concise, coherent language?

It's being ruined by AI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All-day group chats with the expectation that employees will follow them. Having a nonstop group chat is like coworkers talking at your desk all day. It's difficult to focus and get anything done when there’s constant chatter, whether it be vocal or online.

To make matters worse, if I miss something in the chat, I often hear someone say, "Well, it was in the chat." With a continuous stream of messages, I can't possibly scroll through eight hours of conversation. If something is truly important, it should be sent via email, or it risks being overlooked.

I’m with you, PP. It’s such a focus-killer.

[Anonymous]

Co-worker that has to provide a running negative/sarcastic aside or commentary to every sentence someone else says in a group meeting. Such a drag and makes everything last twice as long, please just think a thought in your head instead of saying everything out loud!

[Anonymous]

This strays too much into bad boss behavior, but it's my focus this week - working for information hoarders.

How the deck can I help you accomplish goals if there are things I don't know? Why bring me in to do an emergency deck for a meeting and then provide zero information about how the meeting went? How can I now help with follow up if I have zero information?