Gossip, e-mailing "all" are among top office peeves

Mon Oct 29, 5:05 PM ET



Work colleagues who spend their day gossiping, organizing their home lives, or who press "reply all" on e-mails are among the biggest nuisances in the office, according to a survey released on Monday.

A poll on the biggest pet peeves in the workplace by market researcher Harris Interactive found 60 percent of 2,429 U.S. respondents listed gossip as the biggest annoyance.

The online survey, conducted for staffing firm Randstad USA, found the second biggest peeve at 54 percent was poor time management which included people making personal phones calls at work or surfing the Internet during work time.

Messiness in communal spaces, such as unwashed dishes in the kitchen sinks, irked 45 percent of respondent while potent smells like perfume, food, or smoke, came in fourth in the list with 42 percent.

Rounding out the list of seven office peeves came loud noises such as speaker phones, loud talking and loud phone ring tones at 41 percent, overuse of electronic personal communications devices in meetings at 28 percent and misuse of e-mail at 22 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071029/wr_nm/work_peeves_life_tech_dc&printer=1

This list/survey makes more sense then the one released a few weeks back, I think.

And these carry over into schools. I am meeting with 8th grade parents to talk about HS selections. These kids sit there during the meeting constantly texting on their sidekicks. Last evening, I took one away during the meeting after I repeatedly asked this young man to put his sidekick away. Mom just glared at me but she didn't say a word. If we don't break this habit in school, it carries over to the workplace. Ugh..

Nancy

EEK! I'm doing a pet peeve right now.. I'm on WS while I sit at my desk going back and forth between work and WS BUT, I always get my work done first. My biggest pet peeve is gossip/bad mouthing others... Then people talking loud on their phones..

NK57 said:

And these carry over into schools. I am meeting with 8th grade parents to talk about HS selections. These kids sit there during the meeting constantly texting on their sidekicks. Last evening, I took one away during the meeting after I repeatedly asked this young man to put his sidekick away. Mom just glared at me but she didn't say a word. If we don't break this habit in school, it carries over to the workplace. Ugh..

Nancy

Click to expand...

Funny you should mention that. I took a camera class with the high school computer teacher last Saturday. We adults asked her about kids and their cell phones in school. In our small town the high school is strict about cells and texting. No phones allowed in school. They need to leave them in their vehicles. If they are in backpacks or lockers, then they need to be totally turned off. A ringing locker is an offense. The first offence gets a parental conference. The second is an in-school suspension. The third is suspension. She said she knew of two incidents this year. A PARENT called her child during class on one and another PARENT texted her kid. She said both mothers acted dumb about the incidents. But she said that students were aware of the ban and the consequences and there is very little trouble with them this year. It came up as some of the students were taking ACT's the day we had our camera class and we noticed a student lying in the hall texting on his phone, LOL.

When I was in the workplace, my pet peeve was loud music being played by others. I needed to concentrate and couldn't with this noise! Why not just wear headphones if you want to listen to music? It's amazing that the few people that I politely asked to turn down the volume were offended! Geez...

I also get headaches from potent perfume and think that it should be banned in the workplace. I know that some businesses have done this.

If everyone would just be considerate of others, 99 percent of the workplace problems would be resolved!

I personally never cared who came in late, left early, played on the Internet, etc. If it doesn't affect me, I didn't worry about it. Now, others in my office were human timeclocks who watched everyone's move. What's up with that? Get a life and mind your own business!