What really grates on YOUR nerves at work?

I'm an electrician. My bugbear is idiotic operators. I couldn't count the number of times I'd been called to check a piece of equipment only to find the only thing wrong was the idiot who operates it FORGOT TO TURN IT ON.

1. The mentality of my bosses: "X is capable and enthusiastic." "Good; let's work him to death."
2. Our type of business is slow due to the fact mortgage rates are down. Even the bosses look for blame, because profits suffer. Blame filters through the hierarchy to the lowest rated person in the entire business because no one else will accept any responsibility.

I work from home, so there is nobody here to annoy me. I cater though, and what bugs me are clients who want champagne service on a coca-cola budget.

Last minute madness caused by someone, usually not a part of the 'cleanup crew', who dropped the ball. They screw up and you've got to fix it. That drives me nutty.

When my boss expects me to actually work and log off A2K - cheek!

Heeven stole my thunder . . .



We do low voltage security and communications systems. We have a national account with a corporation which runs fuel stations on the interstate highway system. The store managers are just totally clueless. I am often obliged to try to find electrical companies in say, Theodore, Alabama, because the store manager can't handle the responsibility. Very often, we will find someone locally to look at a problem (cost to the customer in hundreds of dollars), or send out a crew ourselves (cost to the customer in thousands of dollars), and find that someone unplugged or turned down the amplifier. Usually, the manager of a store which has to pay us a couple of thousand for a two man crew to drive hundreds of miles to plug in an amp for them becomes much easier to deal with in the future, and more willing to take responsibility.

How about bosses that think they gave you instructions and think they left something in your inbox, and hold you responsible for those nonexistant communications.

Thanks for asking.

1. Next office neighbor; always playing bad music in her computer.

2. The Top Boss is not only wishy-washy; he's wishy one day, and washy the other. The same thing that was great yesterday is worthless today and will be great again tomorrow.

I'm a trial clerk (court clerk) and the thing that irks me so badly is this: Defendants cause everyone to go into Trial mode. We have to order up jurors, go through HOURS sometimes of voir dire, and then, the very last second....they want to take a plea - ARRGGGHHHHH !!!!

The bad music is one thing... but the lack of it is almost worse... the other guy in the lab hums. Like sharing a room with a 275 lb. mosquito.

He is also a bigot... a mild and unknowing bigot, but a bigot none the less.

One of the women in the lab tends to cartoon voices, or channeling her parrot.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But what really gores my ox... is being treated like an appliance.

people eating stinky cheese pizza


'oh, you can smell this?'


your first clue that i could smell it was when i said, 'what is that smell?'

My business partner changes her mind and tends to not remember her last point of view. I sometimes have just finished accomodating that point of view, and then she comes out with my take on it, as her definitive take on things. This is only funny to me now, but it used to throw me for a loop.

Customers tend to be the most annoying people in the world. Especially customers that like asking highly technical questions without;

a) Knowing anything about what they're asking.

b) Having any idea how to understand the answer.

Than there's those that ask, get an answer, then won't believe you because you didn't tell them what they wanted to hear.

Are there any industries out there that don't have customers?!?

OH MY GOSH....I hope there aren't any attorneys on this thread right now, because as a trial cler, let me tell you, their NOTORIOUS for behaving like they don't understad the answer that isn't the one they'd like it to be (judges can be this way too sometimes).

Wearing enough perfume to gag a herd of elephants, and singing their prayers.

I wish the woman I was sitting next to at the last lecture had been wearing a gallon of perfume. Anything would have been better than that horrendous body odour.

I am soooo glad I don't work in an office of any kind. I think I would go Hannibal Lector on someone. I don't make a lot of money, I have no savings really, but I do think I have the best job in the world. I do something I love, I meet interesting people, and get a ton of satisfaction making them happy. It was nutty of me to leave a steady paycheque and go into business for myself, but that line from Fairport Convention's 'Stranger to Himself' kept running through my head: "Hazards are risks and risks are chances." I plug along happily, for the most part.

thats what counts. the 'happily' part :-)

I can't stand the office tattle tale. she really gets my bees outta the hive.

I am really annoyed these days that I never know what time I'll be starting work the next day. That the woman who is supposed to be home on maternity leave has spent several hours 3 days for the last couple weeks going into work.