Unprofessional co-workers in an office setting ~ (employees, job, pay, how to)

[NOV49]

What annoys and distracts you in what should be a quiet, professional office environment?

The loud personal phone calls?

Opening the cereal box, rattling the plastic bag, pouring it in a bowl then adding milk for a mid-morning snack?

The person who is always late?

The slamming of the desk drawers?

Huffing and puffing when things are just not going their way?

[OhioToCO]

Originally Posted by NOV49

What annoys and distracts you in what should be a quiet, professional office environment?

The loud personal phone calls?

Opening the cereal box, rattling the plastic bag, pouring it in a bowl then adding milk for a mid-morning snack?

The person who is always late?

The slamming of the desk drawers?

Huffing and puffing when things are just not going their way?

Nothing - I'm wearing my earphones 80% of the time.

[jaypee]

This: The loud personal phone calls.
I sit near a serial loudmouth.

[Aptor hours]

I work in retail there is always loud music things going on. You just need to move on unless you are a surgeon.

[andywire]

I've only had one office job in the past. It truly scared me away from ever wanting to work in an office again. Foul language, blatant bullying and teaming up on coworkers that didn't rank high on the pecking order, coworkers spending large amounts of time making loud personal calls... It was the least professional environment I have ever worked in. Many great people, but the bad apples really do spoil the bunch. It was sad to watch how new hires were put under the microscope while long term employees could get away with murder.

The one thing that made it bearable was I spent a fair amount of time out of the office throughout the day. At other times, I was able to work in an office far removed from the chaos that dominated the majority of the actual office.

[thebunny]

What's the problem?

Originally Posted by NOV49

What annoys and distracts you in what should be a quiet, professional office environment?

The loud personal phone calls?

Ignore them. As for it being a personal call, why does that matter?

Opening the cereal box, rattling the plastic bag, pouring it in a bowl then adding milk for a mid-morning snack?

Seriously? Why do you care?

The person who is always late?

Again. Why do you care? Not your job to watch the clock for coworkers.

The slamming of the desk drawers?

Ok...unless they are forming a desk drawer band, I am not sure how often that could possibly be an issue.

Huffing and puffing when things are just not going their way?

And again...so?

Your post tells me that you are either incredibly intolerant of others, are obsessed with what others do during the day and are not doing your own work, or both.

[CSD610]

I used to work in an office that had a 24 hour hotline so there was always something going on and at times it was complete organized chaos however, I was always too busy doing my own job to pay much attention to what others were doing. I learned how to tune out everything around me at work except for what was my responsibility and job duties.

[Doobage]

Some people lack the mental capacity required to use an "indoor voice". I deal with them by keeping my iPod handy. There are earplugs in my desk if I don't feel like listening to music. It works out great; they get to freely broadcast their personal, intimate issues to the whole office and I simultaneously enjoy peace and quiet.

[maus]

Ignoring all those things is best as most of them are trivial and typical in any office environment. Loud noises are annoying, but bad personal hygiene of an officemate to me is worse than the noise. I usually would tune out the noise best I could.

[manderly6]

Someone eating a bowl of cereal annoys you? Maybe you need a job where you don't encounter other people.