The annoying coworker

[snickerd3]

It's been one of those days cubicle life sucks. We have guy that is from another department that sits in the middle of our unit. His wife also works for the Agency. They are always on the phone talking to each other, their kids, or their parents(both sides). My unit gets to hear all about the kids and their medical problems, or when he calls his parents asking for $ because little Johny wants to go to basketball camp. We usually get to hear the same story three to four times, who ever he was talking to, relaying it to his wife, then relaying again to his parents or children and then relaying to wife that he called the kids/parents. He even shushes his wife when they talk on the phone...my hubby would be spending a few lonely nights on the couch if he ever did that to me. Today it was the failed physics test by their high school senior....the calls started at lunch and just stopped 2.5 hr later...oh wait it just started up again.

 

[frazil]

You could send him an anonymous email and let him know exactly how you feel: Annoying co-worker

 

[Wolverine]

A few years ago the department I was in moved to a new office building. When one of my co-workers saw the cubicle arrangement they commented to me with a sigh and a headshake, "Oh, now you get to sit next to the Ice-Cruncher."

"Huh", I sez?

"Yeah, that guy crunches his ice all-day, all-night."

So I don't know if it was real or if it was just the subliminal message planted in my brain so that I was tuned into the ice-crunching, but dang if this guy didn't crunch his ice non-stop, all-day, all-night. Completely distracting. On top of that, he was a phone-griper as well. Always griping on the phone. I heard 6-months of looking for a cell phone, ordered cell phone, hasn't received cell phone, cell phone arrived but doesn't work, return the cell phone, where is the new cell phone, cell phone plan is the wrong plan,... etc...etc. :suicide: Finally I had to get out of there.

 

[Guest]

I have resorted to listening to my iPod for those long stretches where I have 'busy' work to do in order to block out all of the other distractions. Can you perhaps listen to music (by headphones) to help mute the annoyance?

JR

 

[maryannette]

You could send him an anonymous email and let him know exactly how you feel: Annoying co-worker

How do you send an anonymous e-mail?

 

[frazil]

You have to click on the link. It's a website that sends an email for you. Some of the examples are pretty harsh!

Dear Old Senile Bastard,
There's an easier way of distributing emails rather than printing them out, copying them, and putting them on people's desks. How about clicking on the little button called "Forward"? You'll save time, paper, and my garbage can will be less full!

 

[maryannette]

I love it. It's probably one of the blocked sites at work. But I could do it from home!

 

[Guest]

Those are some pretty harsh sentiments. I guess I have never had anyone that annoything in my "space". But then again, I have no problems in telling anyone to . That usually fixes the problem pretty quickly

JR

 

[benbo]

Has anyone had to deal with the "superlover" co worker? I don't know if this is the same for women, but every place up until the place I work now had at least one guy who was constantly regaling me and everyone else about all his sexual conquests. Maybe this is common among us men. It's annoying enough when it's a single guy, but in the last place it was a married guy, who apparently would tell his wife he was coming in to work on Saturdays, and then go see one of his many girlfriends. Somehow his wife got the number of one of the other guys there at work and would constantly call checking up on him. I am just glad she didn't get my number. I would probably have tried to cover for him, but this lady needed to wake up and smell the coffee. The funniest thing was when I heard him gossiping once about some other guy who was cheating on his wife, and sort of saying what a bad guy he was. I couldn't help myself, and I told him that he had a lot of nerve with what he was doing. THe funniest thing was that he asked me what made me think he did stuff like that. I told him - you tell me about it only about 50 times a day.

Another guy I worked with, whenever we were going out of the country on an extended trip to some foreign country, would get on the internet and line himself up a girlfirend. Probably he was telling them he would marry them, although he was already married. We went to

Taipei for about a month once, and he could never be found at the job site, he was always off with his girlfriend someplace, or down at the Hard Rock Cafe. Well, he finally got fired.

I guess I need to stop hatng the player, and hate the game. Seriously, I don't mind hearing this stuff ocassionally, but constantly is annoying.

 

[cement]

Those are some pretty harsh sentiments. I guess I have never had anyone that annoything in my "space". But then again, I have no problems in telling anyone to . That usually fixes the problem pretty quickly
JR

Bingo!

I'm pretty good at that, and you would be surprised how your co-workers will chime in too.

 

[bigray76]

In our old office, the staff level guys (and gals) all sat in the same room, not even a full cubicle to split us up... I had the swinger next to me (woman who nobody would want to see naked) who left naked pictures of herself, her husband, and third man around for us to find... she also would smoke up at lunch and come in high and sleep the afternoon away (not to mention she snored). She also would bring some random men she met on the internet into the office on the weekends for fun.

Then I had the old guy who would clip his toenails at work... every so often one would shoot over and land on my desk. That was just nasty. Same guy would hum or whistle the Battle Hymn of the Republic all day long (sat by him for a mere 6 long years).

We had another guy who would take his shoes off during the day... so between the snoring, dodging incoming toenails, we had to endure his smelly feet.

No small wonder I drink. Thankfully after we moved our office last April, I got my own office and am out of the cubicles.

-Ray

 

[DVINNY]

dear lord, I must have it good.

 

[Dleg]

Jeez, I've been thinking about starting a thread like this for a long time. Our 54 year old, single woman agency attorney sits in the cubicle next to mine at work, and talks constantly all day. To me. She doesn't really have any friends and certainly no man in her life, so I guess she has to let it all out to someone, and I'm just too polite (and concerned for her obviously fragile sanity) to complain. I mean, she tells me everything. About her overbearing Mother, her Dad and his younger-than-me French wife, the sleazy male lawyers who want to sleep with her (JUST DO IT!!!!), and even worse; her cats. (not to mention the hour of cat-related phone calls every day that I can't help but overhear)

Holy shit it drives me nuts. Some days I can hardly surf EB in peace.

And then on some days, when she can't come in to work for some reason, she e-mails me. This morning, it was an e-mail titled "migrane" and something like "I have to go to the doctor today. This is getting ridiculous. Can you make sure that x and y gets signed, etc." Even though she had already sent me an e-mail telling me to get x and y signed.

Jebus I feel like an asshole for posting this, but it's killing me!

:suicide1:

 

[Flyer_PE]

After reading a few of these, I'm REALLY glad I work at home most days. It does bring back some memories from cubeville though. We had a guy that would never wear deodorant. Those summer days when he did some work in the plant got pretty intense. We tried leaving Speed Stick on his desk a couple of times but he just ignored the hint. There was a general celebration in the group when he transferred to another department.

The only other headache was having to listen to the guy on the other side of the wall fight with his wife. There was a pretty heated argument going on over there at least three time a week. Pretty brutal when at least half the department gets to hear one side of those conversations.

Jim

 

[bigray76]

Granted I have been out of a cube for about a year and half, but my big boss (two doors down in the corner office) was banging the office manager's daughter. That was ugly when she wanted more out of him (relationship) and he just wanted to keep it as sex.

 

[NCcarguy]

That was ugly when she wanted more out of him (relationship) and he just wanted to keep it as sex.

Why do they ALWAYS want more????

 

[bigray76]

The funniest part about that was that he was already banging the executive secretary... then her husband found out and she moved down to Balitmore to stay with her husband... then this girl becomes the executive secretary (while I was on a field assignment).

The company picnic was a week before I was to return to the home office, only for me to notice my big boss and this secretary spending an awful lot of time together, away from the crowd of my co-workers and all of our families. When the office moved south and my cube (cubicle stay lasted 2 weeks) was outside of his office door, it really clicked and I was able to put truth to the rumors.

I won't even go on about how he got busted for being with a hooker at one of our satelite locations.

 

[maryannette]

I knew there was a good reason that I decided working in a small firm was not good. Office politics is all about relationships, jealosy, etc.

 

[bigray76]

Nepotism... the only thing we promote more than family values, are family members!

(I am not part of the family here so I am going to slam into the glass ceiling soon).

 

[PE-ness]

I have an extremely annoying co-worker. The guy follows me everywhere, like a shadow or something. Always just hanging around, often intruding into my personal space. He has an important purpose in the office, so I can't just cut him loose, but I wish he would keep his distance.

The guy has no respect for my privacy, either. He even follows me into the bathroom! Recently, I have been informed by my girlfriend that she *thinks* he might have been in the room with us the other night when we were ... well, you know ... because she swore somebody was slapping her on the buttocks, and for sure wasn't me.

Maybe if I adjusted the temperature in the office he might re-position himself and give me some more space and privacy. What do you think?