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For the past three weeks, my office has been shaken every ten seconds or so by a deep booming thud, causing my desk to bounce a little and everyone in the office to cringe. Remember that scene in Jurassic Park in which Jeff Goldblum’s glass of water ripples because a T. Rex is on the way? It’s like that but worse, and it just…keeps…happening. (Thud!)
The thudding is due to Portland’s East Side Big Pipe project, which is an enormous sewer project. They’re currently laying a giant pipe down the length of the street next to our office, excavating the path one thud at a time. It’s for a good cause (reducing sewer overflow into the Willamette River), but wow, the thudding. It makes me nauseous, and it can’t be good for my hard drive.
So this leads me to wonder: what’s the most annoying interruption you’ve had to work through? I’m sure you’ll be able to top my thuds with your own experience!
The most annoying thing I have to work through the smell of smoke. The fire departments training facility is about 100 yards form my work (a warehouse that is almost always kept open). The constant smell and smoke lofting into the warehouse is horrible. It makes you eyes and your lungs burn. On the plus side it does give you a bit more respect for what the firefighters have to deal with…
posted by Rick on 12-3-2007 at 11:47 am
I once worked at an ad agency with a sensitive alarm system and a fire safety director who fancied himself a radio host.
“May I have your attention please? May I have your attention please?,” he’d ask a few times each week. “We have an alarm condition on the 5th floor, which we are investigating. We have an alarm condition on the 5th floor, which we are investigating.”
Then he’d come back with an update: “All is in order. I repeat, all is in order.”
The best was his catch phrase: “You may now resume your normal workstations.” (Yes, he repeated it twice.)
posted by Jason on 12-3-2007 at 11:49 am
An ex girlfriend i work with
posted by bob on 12-3-2007 at 11:51 am
My most annoying interruption?
Everyday about lunchtime, a woman one cube over eats a bag of potato chips.
Mouth open.
I have to get up and make myself scarce for a half-hour until the chips are gone.
posted by Jerry on 12-3-2007 at 11:51 am
At my job, we have music concerts at the library which keep up a lot of noise. We’ve had a ska band, a gospel choir, and a jazz trio just to name a few. Just try answering a telephone reference question while “Oh, brother where art thou” is being sung in the background.
posted by Tamara on 12-3-2007 at 11:51 am
At my last job, there was an construction and asbestos abatement project going on in our building. Rather than relocating us, they just walled our part of the building off so that they could work on the rest of the building. The problem was, they walled off the elevator and all but one tiny, dirty restroom. So in addition to all the headache-inducing noise that went along with the construction, stairs were the only way to get to our office (on the 2nd floor) or to the restroom (in the basement). Not a big deal for me, but what would have happened if one of the employees had a broken leg or something??
Luckily, I switched jobs. I think my former colleagues are still dealing with it.
posted by Molly on 12-3-2007 at 11:52 am
The inconsiderate manager who sings and whistles all day long. He doesn’t seem to have a clue that maybe we are trying to work and don’t want to listen to him. How self-absorbed can you get!
posted by Karen on 12-3-2007 at 11:58 am
I worked in an office building where my department was moved to a sub-basement level. We were two floors below ground.
The floor above us had four trees growing in built-in planters. One of the people I worked with had a leak over his desk for the better part of a year. The roots of the trees had invaded the water pipes above his desk and were causing the leak. When we asked about mold growth, we were told that it was “within OSHA guidelines.”
Besides this we went through a major remodel of the floor above our area. It’s really hard to work when someone is using an air hammer directly above your head.
Finally, the air vents were often left open to the busy street in front of our building and we were subjected to smelly exhaust fumes. Allergy sufferers loved it when the grass was clipped when the vents were open. Needless to say, we were not surprised when they sold our business unit to another company.
posted by bzzybee on 12-3-2007 at 11:58 am
I’m tech support and there is always a really loud guy sitting behind me yelling into the phone. And he doesn’t really know what he is doing to I want to listen to what he is saying. I can barely concetrate on my calls.
posted by Sam on 12-3-2007 at 11:59 am
Oh, it’s a toss-up between the Director five feet away from me who takes conference calls on speaker phone (with his door OPEN) three times a day, the guy 10 feet from me who burps uncontrollably, or the guy in the cube next to me who takes cell phone calls from his “partner” (aka: “bubble toes”).
posted by Erin on 12-3-2007 at 12:02 pm
When I first took my current position my cube was next to a woman who, in additiion to being vaguely hostile, (really, I didn’t have a chance to piss her off!)spent the entire day eating. She was not civilized enough to keep her lips closed while chewing, either. Lollipops were the worst: all the slurping and sucking sounds.
Somehow, she managed simultaneously to stay on the phone with personal calls most of the day or talking loudly with coworkers on inappropriate subjects (intimate tattooing and piercing, for ex.)
Real piece of work, that one. She should be section of your sewer pipe.
She’s since procreated. Poor kid doesn’t stand a chance.
posted by Bassman on 12-3-2007 at 12:04 pm
A while back, I had almost the same problem as you - piles being driven for a couple of buildings in adjacent lots. The real problem is that I was working for a data-storage company at the time, so we had thousands upon thousands of disk drives subjected to that level of vibration all day long. Our failure rates were astronomical until we complained to the town about the construction exceeding the seismic impact allowed by their permit. They installed sensors, and all of a sudden the culprits figured out how to do reduce their (literal) impact.
Another guy at work just got back from a customer site that’s apparently right next to a very large and very smelly wastewater treatment plant. He was only there fore a couple of days, but I hate to think what it would be like to work there week after week after week.
posted by Platypus on 12-3-2007 at 12:05 pm
My office is located next the the bathroom, and that partucular bathroom is alway having problems. When something goes wrong with the septic tank there, the A/C picks up the raw sent of sewage and dispenses the smell on the entire office. Sometimes work because alomost impossible to do.
posted by Jonathan on 12-3-2007 at 12:17 pm
Every job I’ve worked at has had at least one person with the annoying (and apparently common) habit of chewing with their mouth open. Where I work now, it’s a girl who chews gum ALL DAY LONG, with her mouth open; cracking and popping and smacking. She’s really nice, so I don’t have the heart to say anything, and thankfully her desk is far away enough that I only hear it in passing.
At my last job though, I took lunch at the same time as a VERY annoying fat guy, who ate his (huge) lunch with such obscene gusto that I literally had to leave the cafeteria once to be sick. After that I took lunch at my desk.
Seriously though. I cannot STAND bad eating habits like that. What is wrong with people that they don’t realize, open mouth + chewing food = DISGUSTING SMACKS! Come on people!
posted by Molly W. on 12-3-2007 at 12:20 pm
I used to work in an office building that was less than a mile from Tijuana. There was only one road that went to and from the office (905 freeway) and it ended at the border. Insane traffic going both ways coupled with the intense stench wafting in my direction. It always smelled like an open sewer line and dirty diesel fumes.
The last straw was when an hour before the end of my shift a van full of illegal immigrants crashed — on that only road — spilling all of its cargo sending people in all directions. The van crashing cause several semi’s to jackknife and topple over. This of course prompted the entire area to be put on lockdown and the freeway was shut down — for hours.
I didn’t work for too much longer at that company.
posted by Kelly on 12-3-2007 at 12:27 pm
My cubicle neighbor - she cannot eat quietly. And nothing she chooses to eat is quiet. Special K, popcorn, peanuts, peanut brittle, baby carrots - they all crunch, and they all crunch out loud.
I’m gonna go nuts! (No, sorry, I can’t - they’re too noisy…)
posted by Krys on 12-3-2007 at 12:27 pm
How to narrow it down to just 1 or 2??
We have a pneumatic tube system in the building to get orders from 1 floor to the next in a hurry, and hearing that clunk along sounds like jets taking off periodically.
We have the master alarm box for the fire alarms in my office and it is subject to days long testing- constant beeeeeeeeeping all day long during that.
There is an old nurse alarm in a former patient bathroom (I work in a hospital) that was never disconnected. Occasionally someone will hit it and the buzzer is, you guessed it, in my office.
The cafeteria is right across from my office and people are constantly having LOUD conversations in the very echo-y hallway there.
Oh, I could go on…….
posted by QT314159265 on 12-3-2007 at 12:29 pm
I work next to an airport. It is rather small, but there have to be atleast 20-30 planes a day that fly directly over our building.
posted by QEO on 12-3-2007 at 12:32 pm
Had a guy in another cube that had gastrointestinal problems and loudly would “blast off” along with self praises like “durn, that was a good one”. He was retired from the Army, did little on the job, and did not care what anyone thought about his “noisemaking”. He arranged golf games for the management so he was untouchable.
posted by Gary on 12-3-2007 at 12:32 pm
Its gotta be the cat lady I used to work with. She’d call her husband in the mornings with an update on the cat. I would often hear “Your daughter was very naughty this morning.” and just cringe at whatever would follow.
A close second has to be the inbound scud missiles after we invaded Iraq. Not really a fair call since I was running to a bunker rather than working but still. Dropping everything while you don chem gear and a gas mask does tend to make it a little difficult to pick up where you left off after the all clear.
posted by John on 12-3-2007 at 12:33 pm
I’d say John’s pretty much takes the cake.
I have two very trivial annoyances at my job.
1. The lady across the cube wall volunteers for the humane society so I can’t really complain. However, she leaves her cell phone on and is frequently away from her desk. And what is her ring tone? Tubular Bells, the theme from The Exorcist.
2. Another lady with the annoying laugh to end all annoying laughs. It’s very loud. She laughs a lot. She always voices her many many many opinions in a very loud voice.
posted by Dusty on 12-3-2007 at 12:46 pm
This is about a one-time interruption, not on-going aggravations.
I can tell you the exact day, too - April 18, 2002. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) It was what would have been the 100th birthday of the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidim in Brooklyn.
To celebrate the occasion, they took out a full 100 Mikvah tanks. They had their usual RV’s as well as just about every other large vehicle on wheels they could find and cover in banners, with smiling waving men and boys hanging out the windows.
And all 100 of these drove right down 5th Avenue past our huge plate glass window. It took probably an hour for the honking and jubilation to pass, at least at that intersection.
posted by Muffy on 12-3-2007 at 12:48 pm
My office mate is one of those people who, despite writing down EVERYTHING (his office looks like a sticky note factory vomited) is completely incapable of retaining information, nor is he able to find any sort of association with what little information he is able to keep in his head. There are pockets of information stored in his brain but nothing holding them together. This leads to me having to show him how to work certain programs over and over again as well as answer the same inane questions several times a week.
He is also the type of person who needs to talk to someone at all times, even if its himself. He finds no virtue in silence. If he’s not able to talk to a client for awhile he will attempt to engage me in conversation and when that fails (as it does every time) he will begin to mumble to him self, marked with occasional outbursts, which I’m convinced are designed to attempt to draw me in (”Oh wow, I can’t BELIEVE this…” or “Oh no, this can’t be…”) as well as periods of seemingly unprovoked laughter. Good lawd, I could go on for days about his bizarre little ticks. He also seems to very much enjoy clasping his hands in front of his mouth while staring blankly out the window and turning slightly in his chair. I suppose he could be thinking, but I highly doubt it.
posted by Jessica on 12-3-2007 at 12:49 pm
Dusty you reminded me of one more for the cat lady. Her cell phone ringer. Remember the meow mix commercials? Meow meow meow meow. Several times a day. Ugh!
posted by John on 12-3-2007 at 1:00 pm
In the downtown area, the city has decided (for some reason) to build a convention center by the waterfront, and they’re still in the foundation stage. Right now they’re pounding in the supports, so now there’s a constant CLANG…CLANG…CLANG…CLANG ringing around downtown. Irritates the crap out of everyone.
posted by heather on 12-3-2007 at 1:03 pm
>>>1. The lady across the cube wall volunteers for the humane society so I can’t really complain. However, she leaves her cell phone on and is frequently away from her desk. And what is her ring tone? Tubular Bells, the theme from The Exorcist.
this lady’s twin works in my office, but her ring tone is alanis morrisette’s “ironic.” she’s never at her desk but leaves her cell. and all. day. LONG:
“it’s like RAIII-IIINNN, on your wedding day….” at top volume.
posted by ellyn on 12-3-2007 at 1:14 pm
Several things come to mind.
I worked at the corporate headquarters of a well known natural foods grocery store. The building was new, and the smoke alarms were crazy sensitive. And they were located directly over the microwave and dishwasher on each floor’s kitcken. So whenever someone opened the dishwasher while it was drying, the puff of steam would set off the alarm. As well as when popcorn was burned. it was absurd.
My last office was old, built in the mid 1960s, poorly constructed. There was a really bad mold problem. I started working in the break room, since my cube gave me migraines for over a month. That was terrible.
The only annoyances I have to work through now are the sounds of customers complaining at the front desk 5 feet from my cube, and noise coming up from the bus station and coffee shop downstairs (the floor sometimes vibrates when multiple buses roar by).
posted by Jenny on 12-3-2007 at 1:16 pm
years ago i used to work in a retail store that sells mostly comic books and anime. about a week after i was hired they hired another round of employees. in this round was a girl who seriously stalked every male employee under the age of 30. the first time i saw her she scooted inbetween myself and another male employee who was maybe 10 feet away (and her first victim) and said very loudly “you know who i think is a cutie patootie?” and pointed behind her and said his name. she didn’t introduce herself or ask for my name or anything, then just scooted away with a dopey grin on her face. i looked at the guy she had been talking about and words can’t express the horror on his face. she did this kind of thing to so many guys and she was really loud and obnoxious, but she had that “deer in headlights” look on her face if you tried to talk to her about it. any time you saw her coming you could count on being and embarrassed for yourself and for her as she tried to impress some unwitting boy.
and no, she never got a boyfriend the whole two years she worked there.
i have so many stories about that place, but she was by far the most “distracting”.
posted by lindsay m on 12-3-2007 at 1:17 pm
I once worked in a library located above a cafe. While most of the time it was a nice smell around lunchtime, sometimes smelling garlic first thing in the morning wasn’t great.
posted by PJ on 12-3-2007 at 1:27 pm
I’m lucky to have an actual office with a huge plate glass window - that is, it WAS a good thing until a swimming pool supply company erected a huge bright white building directly across the street. No trees or landscaping or even windows to break up that huge white surface. Now, the Texas sun bounces off of that blinding white building straight into my window, creating some miserable headaches on sunny days.
posted by Suzeo on 12-3-2007 at 1:28 pm
They’re putting up a new academic building next to where I currently work, which is good and all, except that the construction work isn’t blocked by any sound barriers. For a while I had to deal with listening to a drill that sounded like someone was constantly stomping on a cat’s tail.
Of course, there was that another building next door (on the other side) that they had to demolish, and in the process knocked out power to my building for 2 days…
posted by Katherine on 12-3-2007 at 1:36 pm
For the last year or so the carbon monoxide detector in our office would go off about once a week. Which, of course, meant we all had to evacuate and stand outside for several hours until it was determined everything was clear. The kicker of the whole thing is that is wasn’t even CO that was causing the problem. Our office is above a warehouse and the room where they charge the fork lift batteries is below our break room. When the batteries are charged it produces hydropgen in low levels that was causing a false CO reading. Luckily they have moved the battery room, so we don’t have to deal with it anymore, but it was getting pretty annoying.
posted by Leslie on 12-3-2007 at 1:42 pm
I think the meow mix and ironic ring tones are equally as bad as the exorcist ones, maybe more so. We also had a woman who had a rotating line-up of Journey songs. My cube neighbor would start rocking out each time.
Some of the posts reminded me of when I worked at a hospital in the basement. They were adding a new wing and constantly pounding, drilling, and sawing. Now I worked directly under the ORs and supplied them with materials. You can imagine the calls I would get to shut up the construction (like I had a say in it). I even had a couple nurses come down to try and chew me out. I would just point them to my boss’s boss.
posted by Dusty on 12-3-2007 at 1:56 pm
I used to work near several chemical plants. Whenever the “Shelter in Place” alrams sounded we had to close all windows and turn off the A/C. This is in South East Texas, and it GETS HOT! Especially when you work in IT like me and you were located in the server room.
posted by Witty Nickname on 12-3-2007 at 2:00 pm
I used to work in a Customer Support department that took a lot of incoming calls. We had a receptionist that would put callers on hold, announce the call, and then proceed to keep on announcing the call every 30 seconds until someone picked up. If we were all on other calls, she would STILL announce the calls on hold. We wanted to just kill her, but the management felt it would be better if she were “placed elsewhere…”
posted by Lisa on 12-3-2007 at 2:06 pm
I once worked for a company that occupied 6 floors of a building. One weekend an industrial coffee-maker blew a pipe and flooded an entire floor in inches of water. The flood affected at least 3 of the 6 floors, and yet we were all expected to come to work …
The disaster relief crews were constantly drilling and sawing to dry out the floors and walls. Fans and humidifiers ran around the clock causing a wind-tunnel effect in both noise and air-flow. Some people were moved to other floors, but most were told to grin and bear it.
The worst part though was the smell. That nauseating mold and mildew combination that lasted for weeks and weeks. The carpet treatment to clean the rugs and kill the infestation was not any better. Being allergic to both mold and mildew I suffered for weeks.
Ugh, it was disgusting!
posted by katie on 12-3-2007 at 2:09 pm
I’m in the Army and my office is located right next to the Army Marksmanship Team’s range. They shoot from 8-4 everyday.
posted by Codius on 12-3-2007 at 2:09 pm
Not a big deal but small irritant none-the-less. My department was relocated from our individual offices to the smallest cubicles possible. I now get to listen to smoker’s hack all day long. {{cough}}, {{cough}}, {{cough}}
posted by KJ on 12-3-2007 at 2:18 pm
Codius,
I knew someone who worked across the highway from Ft. Lewis. She said that when the Army would have live exercises the artilery would shake the entire building she was in.
Seriously, I will now get back to work.
posted by Dusty on 12-3-2007 at 2:20 pm
at my previous job when the girl across from me would pound on her keyboard and it was clear she never took a keyboarding class, she would also make noises like ‘ch-ch-ch-choooo’ or ‘bp-bp-bp-bp’ when she was thinking. on top of that she wasn’t the best looking person.
currently, the woman behind me who only works part time, spends a large portion of her day on personal calls and talks about how she can’t believe her mom is making soup with noodles in it, or going to see the lion king musical, or her ugly kids. This lady also talks like every thing that comes out of her mouth is a question. Also, I can here the radio of a lady 12 feet away from me and her music sucks.
I guess I have it pretty good compared to other people who posted on here.
posted by susan on 12-3-2007 at 2:20 pm
I forgot to mention the heavy woman near me who laughs entirely way too much and sounds like a 90 year old wheezing man when she laughs and repeatedly says ‘oh my God, that’s hysterical’.
posted by susan on 12-3-2007 at 2:22 pm
*Sigh*..my job would be wonderful if it weren’t for all the customers-calling ALL the time, stopping by, needing things.
For real though, I manage the office of a repair shop and two to three times a day I’m sent out for parts. It’s hard to get back into your bookkeeping mindset after you’ve driven across town and back. Especially on a pretty day.
posted by mrs.djs on 12-3-2007 at 2:24 pm
My cube is right outside of the training room, and the trainer is the single most obnoxious human alive. He sounds like a drunk version of Verne Troyer (mini me). Not only is he very, very loud (I can hear him clearly with the door shut), he speaks to the trainees in the most condescending manner possible. I always have a lot of sympathy for those that complete training.
It is so bad that I bought an I-pod to help drown him out!!
posted by yo!amy on 12-3-2007 at 2:35 pm
My Senior year of High School our math and science building was getting a 3rd floor added to it. Any classes on the 2nd floor were horrible. Loud jack hammers, workmen walking back and forth, a huge crane dropping supplies down.
My chemistry teacher would get fed up at least once a week and we would have class outside on a hill near the football field.
posted by Karen on 12-3-2007 at 2:48 pm
I have worked through earthquakes and the recent California wildfires (smoke and an unbelievably bad smell) but they don’t hold a candle to my co-worker’s printer.
We send out a huge number of mailings a day, and as our business has increased, out company aquired a dot-matrix printer that prints our envelopes. In our old office, it was two feet away from me. Now, it is over fifty feet and two rooms away, and I can still hear it. Back when it was close, I would literally dream about it at night– that’s how annoying it is.
posted by Natalie on 12-3-2007 at 2:51 pm
This year was a banner year for crickets in northern Texas, probably because of all the rain we had. Honestly, it was like Moses’ plague of locusts in our building! Every morning I’d wade through halls carpeted with them, and those that didn’t get crunched underfoot were so pressed for room to move that they routinely jumped face-first into walls. All day they’d serenade us, especially whenever they got stuck in the hollow legs of our desks and chairs. We eventually gave up trying to remove them, and their dead bodies accumulated in light fixtures, desk drawers, pencil cups and corners.
The worst was when I was on a conference call and reached up to brush a tickly hair off my shoulder — and found a friendly cricket instead! *shiver*
posted by Melissa on 12-3-2007 at 3:04 pm
I find it humorous that there are so many of you with a low tolerance for other people’s “eating noises”! I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one severely irritated. Chewing, lip-smacking, crunching, gobbling… *gag*. It drives me up a wall.
posted by Lisa on 12-3-2007 at 3:06 pm
I worked at a job where the middle aged HR Director (and my boss) took a fancy to me. I spent most of my day either avoiding her or feigning ignorance in response to her thinly veiled innuendos and advances. I couldn’t really report her to HR (she was HR) and I was afraid of losing my job if I went outside the company.
Luckily, she ended up being fired after the company did an investigation and discovered she was embezzeling company funds.
posted by Jason! on 12-3-2007 at 3:12 pm
I almost forgot my favorite (shudder) distraction….. my old office was a basic cube farm but we only had 3 sided cubicles- (well I guess if it were only 3 sided then they weren’t exactly cubes, were they?) well, the acoustics in that room were way funky. We had this lady who would play Hindi folk songs at what she thought was a reasonably quiet level. But the acoustics made the songs bounce all over the room so we were all sernaded by that music. And some people just don’t like Hindi folk music. In fact, to some people, it sounds like giant mosquitos in front of microphones.
posted by qt314159265 on 12-3-2007 at 3:18 pm
At my last job (where my job was to scan old student theses from the 1970’s) We had an old building that was essentially being retired for storage (it was built as a temporary building in the 1940’s…). During the move into the new building, I worked alone in the old building for two months.
But that wasn’t the distracting part.
The distracting part was the cockroaches. These were the Mac Daddies of Palmetto bugs. They were about three inches long and an inch wide and they crawled around the floors with impunity. They would skuttle through the middle of the hallway right in front of you. Completely shameless, not to mention disgusting. Man, was I glad to leave that building!
posted by Ashley on 12-3-2007 at 3:23 pm
My officemate always wears headphones, so when people stop by, they won’t talk to her. They interrupt me, give me a long involved message, and then wait for me to interrupt her. I tell them it’s okay to talk to her. Instead of talking, though, they just stare at her until she responds. She purposely waits until they say something.
posted by Rebekah on 12-3-2007 at 3:25 pm
I work in a health and wellness center. There is a speed bag RIGHT outside my office… and it is used frequently :(
posted by Juliet on 12-3-2007 at 3:27 pm
I’m in the Air Force and was assigned to an F-16 base. My office was a double-wide on the flightline. They took off (in pairs) every few hours all day long. The roar was like the fabric of existance tearing apart. You couldn’t even make conscious thought. Oh, and my co-workers cranked the A/C up so high it literally spat ice at me.
posted by Renee on 12-3-2007 at 3:28 pm
There used to be an older woman who sat in the cubicle next to me. She was not married but instead had cats that she filled that void with - excuse me, her “children”. That should be a hint alone at how much she talks about them. But, the one thing I HATED was that everyday, like clock-work, she would pour a jug of water into a cup. Sounds harmless, but I dreaded that “GLUB-GLUB-GLUB!” noise. I would have to plug my ears.
Ps, she looks very mousy which I always found ironic.
posted by Tricia on 12-3-2007 at 3:33 pm
I worked in an office building that was about 800m off the end of a runway at O’Hare. On days when there was a low ceiling, (which helped defect the noise back down) there would be a plane about once a minute over the parking lot. There was a car in the lot with a motion sensitive alarm system that would be triggered by the noise from a passing jet. It cycled through a series of 6-8 different alarm patterns and then went silent just in time to be reactivated by the next departing plane.
posted by Rance on 12-3-2007 at 3:34 pm
i also worked a temp job years ago where another temp decided i was her friend and told me all about how she was psychic. and how the spirits of the future were constantly thanking her for some groundbreaking research she was doing to make floating cities. she talked about it constantly and i had no way to avoid her, she was at the workstation next to mine. it was weeks of absolute effort to not laugh in her face at the crazy things she would talk about. another favorite was about how her spirit friends told her that she should not have children because they would distract her from saving the world with her floating cities, oh, and how she only sleeps maybe 3 hours a night because she decided that’s all she needs. seriously.
posted by lindsay m on 12-3-2007 at 3:35 pm
They are demolishing and rebuilding a 2-block area of downtown Salt Lake City, and I work in the only tower building that will not be demolished. Bulldozers are crunching away at the mall buildings that were connected to the tower all day. They have “drops” or what they call “debris events” just about every day, and our building shakes and sways–sometimes to the point of pictures falling off the walls. We’ve been told that this is the building “responding normally” and that the building is earthquake safe…but I always wonder if it’s safe for this level of sustained shaking. Needless to say, it causes some of us motion sickness and some of us just an uneasy feeling all day.
posted by Sherri on 12-3-2007 at 3:46 pm
You know those really annoying radio ads for local car dealerships? That’s me. I send them to the stations. (Hey, it pays the bills!) Before they go out we have to listen to them to make sure they are okay. All day long I hear annoying radio commercials at top volume. (Its a small office and the 4 of us with this job all sit within 3 feel of each other) The “best” is when something isn’t right and someone has to listen to the same 5 seconds of the spot over and over again. That and how we send the same spot to the majority of our clients (all over the country) so sometimes its the same jingle over and over with just a different dealer name inserted. If you think its annoying on the radio, be glad you don’t have to listen to it multiple times in a row!
posted by Marta on 12-3-2007 at 3:52 pm
Last job was at a high school counselors’ office with 16 older women. As a 21 year old, I have to say I stood out.
The most distracting part was that the 8X10 closet-turned-office I worked in was shared with the world’s loudest talker. Nice lady, but THE WORLD’S LOUDEST TALKER, hands down. And we had phone jobs.
Great. It was great. It’s great that I don’t have that job anymore is what’s really great.
posted by Sarah on 12-3-2007 at 3:55 pm
In the same line as the annoying ringtones, has anyone ever heard a Nextel beep if it is not answered? It will make a “beep, beep, beep” sound every 30 seconds until the person picks up. Try having an office of 20 people with Nextels beeping non-stop, all day…
posted by GTT on 12-3-2007 at 5:16 pm
Wow, I feel lucky. I work at a small town bank and maybe 1 in 10 customers actually has their information or their paperwork filled out…
We also have a coworker who feels the need to slam the coin rollers against the counter about 5 times, each roll. It gets a bit irritating, to say the least.
posted by Sarah on 12-3-2007 at 5:23 pm
I was working in Seattle in February 2001 during the Nisqually quake in a customer service job. I had an easy call, so I just ducked under my desk and kept answering the lady’s questions. She hung up & never knew there was anything else going on. (I did stick my head up from under my desk to hit the button on my phone from giving me the next call, while the earth was still quaking.)
(One of my coworkers told her caller she had to go because there was an earthquake, and the lady just paused, and then asked, “Is it over yet?”)
The worst part of the whole thing was that after we all came back from lunch, they were ready to send us home because the power was out. But as we walked back into the building to get purses and such, the power came back on so we had to stay and finish the day.
posted by Rachel on 12-3-2007 at 5:29 pm
I used to work in a weather office that forecasted for many places over the Western US. Unfortunately, I also had the distinction of forecasting for the place we lived in. Can you imagine 10 weather nerds who all outrank you standing in a space that’s about 6′X6′ and asking you questions about thunderstorms to which they could easily answer themselves? I felt like the guy from Office Space who has six bosses. If only I could have gutted a fish at my desk instead of answering pointless questions…
posted by weatherperson on 12-3-2007 at 7:17 pm
My jr high and high school career. In 8th grade our school’s roof collapsed under a heavy load of snow (no one was in the building, thank god), so we went to the high school from 1:15-5:30 every day for 1/3 of the school year. 9th grade was in the jr high still so we dealt with construction noises and closed rooms for the entire year (mostly drilling noises).
Sophmore year was the worst. They were rebuilding the high schools in town and the 10th grade class was all at the old school. One half of the old school. They literally buildt a temorary wall and did construction on the other side of it while we were in class. Any driilling that they did made our intercom system make a loud static noise that was so bad… we couln’t hear the teachers talking. We also had multiple beams dropped nearby, vibrations that causes testtubes to fall off the shelves, and chemicles in the air. Not to mention the asbestos and mold from the structure. It was a nitemare!
posted by Amy on 12-3-2007 at 9:46 pm
I work at home and live next to a train spur. Once per day they bring in a load of sand and take out a load of empties. The full load coming in isn’t so bad but bringing the clangy empty ones out is unreal - part of this is due to them having to switch tracks multiple times with the empties.
They’ll get going at a right good pace and then slam on the breaks and each individual empty hulking steel rail car slams into the one next to it. Loudest chain reaction ever. Usually takes them about 5 times to get on the right track.
I’ve sort of learned to tune it out but at first it was like an instant migraine every few minutes for an hour.
posted by 80KT on 12-3-2007 at 9:47 pm
The woman in the cube next to mine whispers to herself constantly. It is insane. I have never really had a proper forum to complain about it. I feel vindicated. Thanks, mental floss!
posted by Emily on 12-3-2007 at 10:30 pm
I’m a teacher, of small children. (first grade) I give you that first to display the annoyance magnitude. Last year the street directly behind my part of the school was undergoing construction. They were basically tearing up the street, for most of the school year. You could feel the vibrations THROUGH the desks. I could barely hear my students read over the noise. In addition to that, my classroom was directly underneath the music room. There was little to no insulation (I live in China, that would be too much to ask for), so for about 2-3 months last year, for several hours at a time, I would hear recorder music, badly played, and the same song, over and over again!!! ARGH! I changed classrooms this year, and the peace and quiet (aside from the small child factor) is just amazing. But really, hearing all day long, “What’s that noise? Why are they doing that? I can’t do it because my desk feels funny…” is enough to drive you MAD! And, we couldn’t actually SEE the construction, which made it worse.
posted by greenstrawberries on 12-4-2007 at 4:55 am
Two things come to mind.
The office I worked at in China was on the 4th floor(bad luck floor which was why we got a bargain) and was right above a local cuisine restaurant. The stench in the afternoon was unbearable!! But, that was tame compared to the noise generated by the large rodents that pitter-pattered across the cieling tiles, always provoked by the afternoon waft of noodles and various sea urchins cooking below.
And currently, one annoying cell phone ring incessantly throughout the day: All I want to do is find my way back into love…’ from the Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore movie! Ugh!!
posted by Wrink on 12-4-2007 at 5:34 am
Where to start? So many over the years…
How about the people that insist on clipping fingernails at their desk. That is one of my worst office pet peeves.
Or the guy who had an industrial size container of baby lotion and would lather up every single day. The slop-slurp-slop sound would drive me nuts.
Or the guy who had something wrong with his throat and every 60 seconds would clear it for about 15 seconds (I am not exaggerating).
Or the printer 4 feet away, so loud that I couldn’t hold a phone conversation.
Or the late 30-something single lady behind me who felt the need to share the intimate details of her life, loudly.
Or the coffee maker on the 4th floor broke after hours and water poured through the machine all night (it had a direct water line). There were inches of water on each floor and that awful coffee/mold smell held on for months.
Or the wee where the thermostat broke in our small area causing the heat to come on. By the way it was about 100° outside. We had a small thermometer in our area that held steady over 100° in our office for a week. Everyone was donating their fans to us b/c they felt so sorry.
I felt so bad for the nice lady in my old building who sat right next to the outside door. First she had to deal with the cold/hot air coming in every time the door opened. Plus, we have card access and each time someone swipes, there is a very loud “crack” as the next doors unlock. And is someone forgets their badge, she gets the added benefit of having someone knock obnoxiously to get her attention to let them in.
posted by It's good to be the King on 12-4-2007 at 8:33 am
I worked in a hotel that had a faulty smoke/fire alarm system. And a cheap owner who didn’t want to get it fixed. The panel was about 5 feet from where i worked, and there were about a dozen alarms with 15 feet. It was very VERY loud. There was no rhyme or reason…it would just go off at any old time. And i would jump out of my skin every time! Sometimes it would be days, sometimes only hours…you never knew..just..when..it would….happen.
So, very distracting. Not to mention the process of evacuating the entire building (400 rooms), waiting for the fire company to show up (never quickly, because they knew our alarm was faulty) and deactivate the alarm(no, we couldn’t silence it until they got there). You would think people would be quick to get out of the building when the fire alarm is going off, but no! Suprise! Evacuating would usually involve me personally knocking on every door, and explaining that there is no fire, but they still have to go outside. At 2am. In February. =) Gosh, i miss that place!
posted by thirty7 on 12-4-2007 at 9:37 am
This doesn’t hold a candle to most of the stories here… In my last job, I was seated between 2 admin assistance who talked to eachother (over me) frequently. One of the execs finally said something to them, so they were more courtious for a day or two. Courtesy = talking on their phones to eachother at roughly the same volume.
posted by Trena on 12-4-2007 at 12:21 pm
I’m the business manager at a construction company. The owner is Cuban and most of the workers are also from Latin American countries. When he needs to have a one-on-one with one of them, he sequesters them in my office (usually the lone quiet place in the company because of machinery), and then proceeds to lecture in Spanish, which I do not speak or understand, while I am still at my desk doing work. It’s very distracting and a bit disrespectful. Once we had some German clients, though, and I got to use my rusty German skills with them, so everyone else had their turn to be in the dark :)
posted by LorinJuliet on 12-4-2007 at 12:37 pm
I work with a very nice single woman in her 50’s, who has a large number of relatives in 2 other states. These relatives look to my coworker for money constatly. All this is discussed on the phone LOUDLY and in GREAT DETAIL. Although I applaud my coworker’s worthly (though foolhardy) efforts, I DO NOT want to hear the details. This same coworker initiates loud, laughing conversations that just miss HR’s restrictions because they are full of innuendos {”if I were just 20 years younger then, um-m, um-m, um-m, we could get us some hot goings”. Soon several other people around her are in the same mode. I just want to work without the snickering and loud laughing.
My son’s first job (at age 13) was in a restaurant as a busboy. The boss/owner was an ill-tempered Korean who would yell at the staff in Korean while his wife translated his tirade into English. This disruption was several times a day and very noticable by the customers. Not surprisingly, the restaurant closed down.
posted by Catherine on 12-4-2007 at 10:08 pm
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned ice chewing yet. I have a coworker that does it habitually. And when I say habitual, I mean HABITUAL. Every day for quite literally one to two hours, the man has a large cup of ice, and for almost the entire hour, he chews it. Then, when he runs out, he goes to the office kitchen downstairs, and back he comes with a fresh cup. It is a moment of excitement (no ice chewing for a few minutes) and dread (ice chewing will resume soon and last for another half an hour) when he gets up to leave. And yes, he has been asked to stop and he refuses to.
I want to break in to my office one night and take a baseball bat to the ice machine. Try having to experience ice chewing for at least one hour, every day, ten feet away from you (no walls or barriers in between) while you are trying very hard to get important work done.
I’ve had stinky coworkers, rude coworkers, noisy coworkers and loud coworkers, but this guy takes the cake.
posted by Marty on 12-5-2007 at 2:02 am
I only had to spend two hours in a medical office that overlooked the demolition of a large old stone church. While getting an ultrasound I looked at the technician, who was looking at the monitor, she had such a pained expression that I thought “I hope that’s not because she sees cancer.”(Haha) I know it was because she had to listen to the constant bulldozers, jackhammers, and clanging sounds coming from next door. Two weeks later when I went back, they were still chipping away at that stone building. Then the medical people must have had to listen to the construction of the new office building that was put on the site.
posted by Tdave on 12-5-2007 at 3:15 am
The girl beside me has a married boyfriend that she talks to all the time, but also still lives with her ex-husband(which no one but me knows,) who also calls all the time. Then when her kid gets home from school, she will call constantly if she doesn’t hear or have the phone with her. It sucks. And today, said kid called sick, but I could clearly hear a man’s voice on the phone. Sick kid, yeah right.
posted by kitty on 12-6-2007 at 2:33 pm
One of my staff m embers eats at her desk constantly. It’s not just that she’s loud, or that the food items are barely edible, she leaves cheeto film on everything she touches. I was ocd-ing when she was gone yesterday, cleaning keyboards she had defiled with alcohol wipes.
She also coughs all of the time, so I know everything around her desk is crawling in germs.
posted by Stephanie on 12-6-2007 at 2:53 pm
My first job was when I was 16 and I worked for a fast food company. I was sexually harrassed by a 30 year old man for a while. At the time I had no idea what sexual harrassment was, but eventually the manager found out and that was that.
In my present job, I sit in a cubicle that must sit on the weakest part of the floor. Whenever ANYONE walks by, I jiggle in my seat, bobbing up and down. The shaking drives me nuts. What is worse is when this big guy near me shakes his leg, (nervous habit I suppose), it feels as if the floor is going to fall through.
I hate jiggling while trying to type. It makes me nauseated.
posted by Brook on 12-6-2007 at 3:19 pm
We worked in a bldg that was 70 yrs old and haunted! The bldg was a school for girls, an Army hospital, and a training facility. I would have to lock to place up at night and had to check all of the rooms that the windows were locked, etc. In the very back was the basement that was never used but I would have to walk by every night. One night I heard a girl crying then a really foul smell lingered in the same area! I hated being in that area alone at night!
posted by Janet on 12-6-2007 at 4:17 pm
I work in a 72,000 square food food bank. About 69,000 of that is actual warehouse. There’s only one side of my closet-sized office that does not have the warehouse behind it and that’s the entrance. On either side and behind is the warehouse. I listen to beep beep beep of forklifts backing or honking or doing both if entering to offload a truck. My favorite is listening to our Quality Control Manager yell (he’s a nice guy, it’s just that warehouse accoustics are not very good) “Count it again, we’re not on the number.” None of this really annoys me because it means we’re taking in food and that’s good. There’s one noise that makes my teeth hurt and that is when, about once a day, they have to fire up an old conveyor belt that make what I refer to as “the Titanic is about to split in two” screech. Bless that men and women who do that work!
posted by Lisa on 12-6-2007 at 7:48 pm
I may be sensitive, but I work with a woman who has sinus issues and must breathe through her mouth…I often find myself holding my breath. As if she isn’t loud enough already, several of my coworker feel the office is the perfect place to clip their nails (including toes). I literally go crazy when I hear the snapping of nail clippers!
posted by Dean on 12-11-2007 at 2:24 pm
A woman in our office will often (multiple times a day) come to my cubicle and say “I’m hungry”. She looks at me sadly, like she wants me to help. Hard enough for me to be polite time after time, but the other day she simultaneously said “I’m hungry” and pulled out a wedgy. It was repulsive, but I just smiled and nodded.
posted by Steve on 12-11-2007 at 11:07 pm
I have a co-worker in the next office who feels she has to BELLOW into the phone to make herself heard. Unfortunately our Executive Director in Ottawa has the same belief, and when he and Jane are on a conference call together it can be truly deafening (she always has her speaker phone on). However, she CAN be quiet on the phone, especially when she is speaking to someone at her secret other job she thinks I don’t know about.
Robert, our Executive Director, apparently CAN’T talk on the phone in a normal voice. He comes to this office a couple of times a month and usually makes a few phone calls - from Jane’s office next door to mine. In addition to having a very loud voice in general, he has an incredibly loud, booming laugh, and he laughs at practically everything anyone says, no matter how inane. Worst of all is when he is conversing on the phone in French, because he somehow gets much louder and jollier; and not speaking French myself, I have no way of knowing when he’s going into one of his paroxysms of laugher. Having someone howling with immoderate hilarity all day long can be surprizingly distracting.
posted by Christine on 12-12-2007 at 8:51 am
I work in a call center where we’re all in cubicles. I share a common wall with a woman and even though I can’t see her all day, she sure makes her presence known. She eats all day long (and she’s a little person) and there’s a constant rustle of bags and wrappings coming from over there. As the day progresses, I’ll hear burps, bleches and farts (gross!!) coming from there that last the rest of the day. About once a week, she’ll clip her nails with a nail clipper and I’ll hear “snap (pause)…snap (pause.)” It makes me sick to think her gross fingernail clippings flying all over the place. UGH!!! I’ve sent her an email about the noises coming from there and she wrote back that since the burps and belches don’t smell, I shouldn’t complain and as far as the farting goes, she said that I should just live with it and she didn’t think the smell reached my side anyway. I’m seriously thinking of quitting this job because of this.
posted by Joanne on 12-12-2007 at 9:00 am
i suppose the most annoying thing for me was my coworkers utter lack of humor when i worked at a purchasing office in a med school.
1. i had no one to joke with about orders for 3 dozen monkeys or 100,000 condoms (for the clinic).
2. i also got fired because i did my job too well. i probably should have played online more.
posted by amywithlemon on 12-12-2007 at 9:07 am
I once worked in the communications department of a local brewery. Right outside our building was the wart tower. This was a silo where the spent grain was desposited after the intial brewing process.
Farmers would come and roll 18-wheelers under the tower and fill them with the spent grain to use as feed for livestock, etc. It was during this filling process that the melodorous air would waft up through the building. To say it didn’t smell good would be, yes, an understatement!
posted by Kelly on 12-12-2007 at 9:19 am
oh where to begin….
there was the 40ish caucasian woman who thought it was hilarious to listen to rap music in our office. she was so proud of herself that she knew all the words.
then there’s the fact that our building regularly loses power. but management won’t let us go home unless it’s going to be out for the better part of the day. we’re to find “busy” work to do. and did i mention that 99.9% of what we do is computer related?
we of course have the woman who chews gum loudly all day, every day.
the one that took the cake was the severely obese coworker who had some kind of surgery that never healed. he was forced to come back to work though, or risk losing his job. so he came to work with a drainage bag attached to his unhealed incision site. the smell was seriously indescribeably horrendous. management placed several air fresheners strategically near his cube. they didn’t work.
posted by ninza on 12-12-2007 at 9:32 am
meetings
posted by zak on 12-12-2007 at 9:50 am
My petite cube-neighbor (and several other coworkers) can’t weather the frigid 72-degree climate control, so they bring in their own space heaters. Sometimes I feel the heat through the cube wall, and a wave of nausea hits me.
posted by HenryHenry on 12-12-2007 at 10:43 am
I was once the head of a large regional library. I asked to have the carpets cleaned (as it had appparently never been done). The library system decided to save money by having the in-house delivery guys do the shampooing. Well, they came into the building on a (closed) Sunday with a garden hose to wet the carpet, and thought it would be dry when we reopened on Monday morning. Needless to say, it wasn’t. Not only did we have to deal with the wet carpet, but the mildew that resulted from the “carpet cleaning”. BTW, mildew is not good for books or people. Sigh.
posted by maryd on 12-12-2007 at 11:07 am
Here’s a shout out to everyone who works retail this time of year. Stores crank up the heat so the stores are nice and warm for cold shoppers, and MUZAK starts playing holiday tunes. How many different renditions of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” are there? And why must we listen to the Chipmunks on a 2 hour loop?
My worst work annoyance was the smoothie shop where I was required to wear a grass skirt and santa hat from November 1st to January 1st. The skirt got caught on everything, and people expected me to dance for them. The hat was hot and itchy, and clashed horribly with the pink uniform tshirt. Tips aren’t any better when you have to dance for them.
posted by Maggie on 12-12-2007 at 11:09 am
Please explain ’she simultaneously said “I’m hungry” and pulled out a wedgy.’ I checked all of the dictionaries, and wedgy is an adjective.
posted by Russell on 12-12-2007 at 12:13 pm
I’d have to say that (although I have many!) the worst was when the pipes from the floor above us, which were exposed on our ceiling, would spring leaks. This is an occurance that would happen at least once a month, and when I say “spring leaks” I mean spew enough water to destroy everything on our desks and fill large plastic bins. Thankfully never my desk, but it was still awful. Oh, did I say spew water? I meant sewage. Yup the pipes to the bathroom leaking on our desks. There’s sanitary for you.
posted by Stacy on 12-12-2007 at 1:10 pm
I work in a prominent performing arts venue with numerous theatres - including one directly above my desk. Every few months, the theatre is rented by a famous actress who teaches dance to underprivledged youth. This is a wonderful program but there’s just one problem for those of us one floor below: she only teaches tap dancing.
posted by lin on 12-12-2007 at 2:24 pm
Two words: super cute. Such as “That skirt is SUPER CUTE!” or “Did you see last night’s Pushing Daisies? SUPER CUTE!” or “I just painted my apartment in a SUPER CUTE yellow color!”
posted by Lindsey on 12-12-2007 at 2:26 pm
person sitting behind me is constantly clearing her throat - has some kind of sinus problem and anytime someone clears their throat they are getting your attention, so i’m always conscious of it, and…
my old office at a medical center was using an old nurses dorm for office space and the heating was so hot, we had to use air conditioners in the winter and open windows - the bldg is set to be torn down.
posted by chiqmont on 12-13-2007 at 10:09 am
Russell: a wedgy (or wedgie?) is when your undergarments get lodged in the “grand canyon”. Most commonly known as the torture inflicted by a bully when he grabs the waistband and pulls up. Very uncomfortable.
posted by GTT on 12-20-2007 at 5:26 pm
It would have to be the constant display of heterosexuality in the callcenter. No One is checking you out and don’t care if you’re married, have kids or are a religious nut.
I don’t kiss my “parner” in front of you don’t kiss your whatever in front of me.
posted by Gaymer on 1-26-2008 at 3:05 pm