Workplace pet peeves - what are yours?

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When so many people reach out to you asking for updates on a particular project and you want to throw up after giving the exact same updates on the same project for the Nth time.

Those who complain about every little thing as they would rather listen to music all day or play on their phones while the rest of us are working. Other pet peeves are when they tune out what is said in morning meetings because they ask the same stupid questions that were answered, or someone trying to start a non-work related conversation when you're focused on something that you can easily screw up if you allow yourself to be distracted.

The majority of those are usually done by one particular coworker, and it just shows that sometimes, you have to put up with idiots and annoying people because you're paid to do so. The rest of the people I work with are easy to get along with, and many of them have become friends that I wouldn't mind hanging out with outside of work.

Unending lists of acronyms.

When they reinvent the wheel every year, changing procedures so that nothing can be reused.

Adding responsibilities that aren't in your job description, but never removing any.

People who ask the same question hoping the answer will be different if they wait a week or three months.

Pettiness, drama, people who wear their emotions 'on their sleeve', fragrances, cackling and 'loud talkers', office politics, caste systems, lighting, gossip and general immaturity, people....

Last edited by Magna on 10 Aug 2019, 10:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Excessive use of perfume/cologne

Asking you to do things outside of your job description that you have 0 training/experience with and then wondering why they're getting poor results.

The amount of stress involved to take a day off when you're sick or shut down.

Those frustrating days when nothing seems to go right

Knowing I'm different from others and that certain gaps will never be bridged

Being forced to work constant mandatory overtime because the company is too cheap to hire enough people. Then being told that the overtime is our fault because we aren't working fast enough.

Hate to break it to you but you're part of the problem. If this overtime continues indefinitely into the future, your health and morale will suffer, making it even more difficult to find another job. You need to draw your line and stop working overtime regardless of what management says or else they'll think they can get away with this abuse. Firing you will mean they'll have to go through the expensive and time consuming process of finding a replacement so as long as you're doing the best job you can in the 8 hours you'll be there (and not a single minute more) then I don't see the business case for firing you.

Also take a look at this article for inspiration for dealing with this type of situation: https://code.likeagirl.io/toxic-jobs-lo ... 4650a3c28a

Thank you for the article, blackomen. I do have the bad habit of sticking it out in toxic jobs due to low self esteem. If I refused to do the overtime I would be terminated. They have a "points" system (unplanned absences accrue points, at a certain number of points you get fired) and not doing the overtime counts as an absence. I am probably going to give notice in September, which is a shame, because the pay and benefits are good, I like my supervisor, and I'm good at the work. But the OT has gone on for too long and it is not worth ruining my health.

As far as I'm aware, provided the employer pays the required overtime at the required overtime rates they absolutely can make overtime mandatory and fire you for refusing to work the overtime.

At my current job "full time" is considered anything over 32 hours as far as benefits eligibility is concerned. If employees refused to work 40 hours and arbitrarily told the boss they would remain "full time" but would choose only to work 32 hours even though the expectation is 40 hours.....they wouldn't be working there long.

I also worked a job where during my tenure they required mandatory Saturday overtime (ie working 6 days straight week in and week out). It didn't start that way, but once they implemented it, it stayed that way until long after I decided to quit. I know that from talking to some of my former coworkers who stayed there.

I think a lot of us on the spectrum would consider this a pet-peeve at best but can sometimes be much worse
I dislike & sometimes hate it when I'm given mixed conflicting orders. Like one person tells me to work on one thing & another person wants me to work on something else instead. I have to stop what I'm in the middle of doing so I can do the other thing & then I have to jump back to what I was originally doing. I sometimes have to decide who & what gets priority & i have to pick which tasks to work on 1st. NTs seem to have more of a knack for this but do sometimes struggle & get frustrated by it as well. I seemed to handle this OK for the most part but it still frustrated me & even ticked me off sometimes. I tried to just deal with it as best I could without letting it show that it bothered me. It showed some but probably usually not much worse than a typical NT would show. I was the gofer guy at my 2nd job; go do this, go do that, check on everyone & report progress & things to my supervisor ect. This is some of the reason I quit my 2nd job. The head manger gave me a verbal warning for not doing something I was paged to do. A lower manger told me to do something & stay on it till it was finished. The head manger had me paged to do something else & I ignored it cuz no managers made the page. I knew what I was paged to do was a safety concern but I was almost done with the other task. The head manger did not give me a chance to explain, she just chewed me out for it so I felt like I was set up to get in trouble.

Blamers -- For anything that can go wrong, they seem to already have the perfect scapegoat, even if they have to stretch the truth (or lie outright), the blame is always on someone else, and never on them.

Controllers -- Openly critical and nit-picky, the Controller expects (or demands) that everything be done his or her way only. Deviations from their lofty standards are treated as dismiss-able infractions, and the Controller stands ready to "correct" anyone, anywhere, and at any time

Gossips -- Anything you do or say can and will be distorted, exaggerated, and told to as many other people as possible.

Manipulators -- Closely related to Passive-Aggressives (see below). These co-workers appear to do their jobs rather well, but workplace events just somehow seem to work in their favor at critical moments. Supervisors and managers are clueless to their subtle manipulations, and may even praise him or her in the presence of other employees.

Passive-Aggressive -- While apparently agreeable, cheerful and cooperative, Passive-Aggressives covertly do things to sabotage the work or performance of others, or to exact revenge on others in stealthy ways.

Shamers -- People who are instinctive experts at virtue signalling, which is the act of pointing out someone else's flaws without admitting one's own. The point is for the Shamer to make it seem as if he or she would never stoop so low as to commit the act that someone else has done.

Smokers -- It doesn't matter whether or not they take their disgusting habit outdoors to the designated smoking area, because the stench lingers with them for hours after they've smoked their last cigarette.

Snowflakes -- Anything you say is an attack against them, even if you are talking about someone else. Any past trauma is an on-going struggle for them (and all their co-workers) to deal with. Any problems that anyone else has, the Snowflake has it much, much worse. Snowflakes are often referred to as "Perpetual Victims".

Volatiles -- Any mistake, irregularity or change in routine is met with open contempt, criticism, sarcasm, and general hostility. While the Volatile can eventually cool down, it is only a matter of time before the next eruption.

1. People who always start drama over nothing

2. People who complain about others starting drama but they also start drama

3. Contradicting rules

4. When coworkers purposely distract you for the sake of distracting you when they know you need to get something done

3. Whiners and pity parties