Five Things That Drive Me Nuts About My Office

This post applies to the things that drive me nuts that happen in any communal work setting. Inefficiency and lack of accountability are infuriating tolerances around my place of business that will have to wait for another day.

Mice/Rats roaming the office

We have recently experienced visitors running throughout our building as if they own the place. And as most of find them dirty and repulsive they have made attempts to control the problem. However being in one of the “politically correct” capitals of the U.S. apparently they are trying to eliminate them humanely. That is not by killing them? Or is it? I’m not sure which. This is because the first time around they set out a bunch of glue traps all over the place. Great. But how is catching the little critters and letting them struggle to get away to death more humane than a snap trap that instantly kills them? Then they but out a second round of traps that I’m not sure what they are so I don’t know if they are meant to kill them or meant to be a mechanism of catch and release. Release where? Another building? The sewer? Some other place of infestation? Needless to say we still have a problem that has been going on for months and I don’t project them going away anytime soon. I’m in favor of letting some cats loose in there.

Disgusting community refrigerators

So we all have had varying degrees of shared refrigerators in the work place. Although recently addressed at my current work place due to the conglomeration of about 4 or 5 refrigerators in one break room producing a toxic stench that do doubt kept the aforementioned rats and mice away, many of us can relate to having to share a refrigerator at work with people that think it is their own personal trashcan that somebody else will clean out.

Terrible email etiquette

Everyone gets the email messages that go out to the whole building or to a specified large group of people. Invariably, someone will reply to all with a question or comment that really only the sender needs to see. We get an email everyday that the “Taco Truck” is here. This applies to just about every place of business in Austin; it’s part of the culture I guess. Anyways so one person sends it out which I just directed email from him to my trashcan so I could stop getting infuriated. If I wanted to get fat like everyone else there I’d know when the taco guy arrived and be the first in line to gorge myself. The problem is when this guy is out of the office, someone else is sure to step in to tell the whole building that he’s here!!! And I’m infuriated all over again.

Lesson one: DON’T REPLY TO ALL IF ALL DON’T NEED TO BE REPLIED TO!

Lesson two: MAKE A LIST OF PEOPLE THAT WANT TO BE NOTIFIED EVERYDAY OF THE TACO MAN AND NOTIFY ONLY THEM!!!

Lesson three: If you think it will piss me off because it was unnecessarily sent to me don’t send me the email. I’m so tempted to “reply to all” and say that every time it happens.

Lesson four: All Caps is really inappropriate for an email. So is red unless you are responding to questions asked in the body of the email and you need to differentiate your answer from their question. Red All Caps are always inappropriate.

Out of control b-day celebrations

Everyone likes to feel special, but not everyone cares about their birthday or being the center of attention. Some of us just like ice cream. That doesn’t mean that a mandatory singing of the Happy Birthday Song has to accompany the cake and ice cream does it? No one can sing well anyways, so what’s the point? If singing is mandatory, I’d rather skip it all together and just celebrate with my family like normal people. But I do conveniently show up late now so that the singing is hopefully done in time for me to line-up for the ice cream. How anti-social of me right???

Cards sent around to sign with checklist of everyone in dept

We randomly get a manila envelope passed around with a card inside and a checklist of everyone in the office to check their name off and pass it on to someone who hasn’t checked their name off. Sometimes they ask for money for a gift. At least they can’t tell if YOU gave money or not. Sometimes they don’t even tell you who the card is for? So you want me to sign a card for someone I don’t know? What if I don’t like them? Or what if they hate me and seeing my signature would do them in? (Dramatic I know, since I don’t have any mortal enemies that I know of at the office). Still why don’t you just put the card in a central location and send out the dreaded mass email letting us know it’s there if we want to sign? As long as no one “replies to all” asking a stupid question, it’s an appropriate use of email in my book.