Office Peeves

I've been working in an office environment for at least the last sixteen years. I was a young fresh-faced (though somewhat pimply) kid who had just finished his sophomore year in high school when I was introduced to the working world through my summer job at a local aerospace company. I lost out on most of the summer working but I formed many new friendships and got valuable work experience that has helped me advance my career even up to today. It also managed to do a good job in preparing me for the wonderful world of office peeves which are more numerous than I would care to admit but as I have already experienced several of them on this glorious Monday morning, I figured I'd share a list of some of my favorites.

• Mass E-Mailers or Reply-to-Allers The annoying things about these folks are that when someone sends out an e-mail looking for input or agreement on some issue, many of these folks take it upon themselves to reply to everyone on the original mailing list in order to make sure that by hook or by crook (or by proxy I suppose) that their opinion is registered and noted by everyone in existance. That's fine if you're adding something of substance that the rest of us would be interested in; it's not so great when all you're doing is writing something like, "I agree." You agree? So what!?! Explain why! And don't do the lazy method of cutting and pasting passages from previous mails on the subject. Write something worthwhile or just write to the originator. I don't need to know whether you 'agree' or not.
  

  
  

• Office Gossips Office gossips are the ones who spend the entire day walking around the office on seemingly 'important' errands and in essence use the 'errands' as an excuse to be up and about the desk for hours at a time. When they finally manage to return to their desks, they then spend the entire time, on the phone hunting for more gossip or using the telephones, e-mail, or IMs to gather up more intelligence. The CIA would be jealous at the amount of info some of these people manage to get for very little effort.
  

  
  

• Coffee Bandits These are people who literally drive me up the wall. They will drink the last bit of coffee but leave a little in the pot (read that to mean less than a half cup) and then leave the pot be. They know that there isn't enough for someone to have a full cup but they will leave it there as their means of justifying not making another cup. I'm curious if these people have similar cans and bottles of drinks sitting in their refridgerators at home. I think the worst of these culprits are the ones who come from other office areas or floors within your office, load up on coffee and then leave. Sure it may be petty but I rank it up their with ill-mannered thievery.
  

  
  

• Buzzword-smiths These are the people who are tasked with providing voice to an organization whether you want to hear them or not. And as such, they feel that you won't respect them as much if they don't unceasingly use buzzwords to relate their topic at hand. Never mind that they have no freaking clue as to what they're talking about but I guess they figure that using words like "synergy" or "paradigm shift" will make them out to be the next Bill Gates. I have yet to run across someone who can logically explain to me what 'synergy' is and why I should give a damn.
  

  
  

• Involuntary Volunteerer This person, usually a manager or team lead, is notorious for 'volunteering' to do something knowing fully well that they won't do it but that their team or staff will. Sometimes these assignments are well beyond the current capabilities of the team but that is a moot point because it's the 'character building' and 'educational experience' that comes from these ridiculous assignments that we're supposed to appreciate. It's all bogus and often requires far more effort than it's worth.
  

  
  

• The Non-Technology Savvy These are the folks who have no clue what or how to make use of a computer. Leaving aside the fact that unless you've been working in some dank corner of the world where electricity is still considered a miracle of science, I think most any office has at least one computer. Still there are those who have a Hell of time figuring the things out. They have trouble opening files, they have trouble closing files, they have trouble saving files. Some people even have trouble using a mouse. When you stand behind them to help them with something you sometimes are screaming mentally hoping to rip the mouse from their hands and take over.
  

But no matter what, these are the people who make an office what it is. The modern melting pot of society and if it wasn't for these and the many other characters who inhabit the halls of our offices, the world would be a pretty dull place.